Steps in the Paired Reading Activity
1. Partners decide who will be the teller and who the listener.
2. They also decide how much material they will read. They may select a paragraph, or they may select several paragraphs. It will depend on the skill level of the students as well as on the difficulty of the text or content of the material.
3. Both partners read the selected text silently, cueing each other when finished.*
4. After both partners have closed the book, the teller orally recalls as much of the reading as possible.**The listener may not speak or interrupt except to clarify unclear points.
5. When the teller has exhausted his/her knowledge, the listener may then share any additional information s/he remembers or correct any misconceptions of the teller. The books remains closed at this point.
6. When the listener has exhausted his/her knowledge, both partners open the textbooks and skim the reading for ideas or facts that they may have missed or not clearly understood.
7. The process is then repeated for another segment of text, with the roles swapped; the teller becomes the listener, and vice versa. Roles are alternated until the reading is completed.
8. When the reading is completed, students may work together to reflect more on the reading by writing a summary or taking notes or some other activity.***
Special directions for mathematics text:
*The teller, at this step, not only reads the text, but upon confronting an example problem, copies down onto paper the problem, but not the solution.
**At this point, the teller attempts to duplicate the solution to the example problem if one exists.
***The paired students might work on the guided practice section of the reading at this point, or they might attempt some of the exercises at the end of the reading.
Larson, C., & Dansereau, D. (1985). Cooperative learning in dyads. Journal of Reading, 29, 516-520.