As Year 11 prepare for their GCSE English Literature exams, tackling 19th-century prose is one of the main challenges they face. To help them navigate Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, 11En Wells have been using ‘Reciprocal Reading’ roles during group reading sessions.

Students take turns reading aloud while adopting four key roles:

• Predictor: Uses clues in the text to anticipate what will happen next.
• Clarifier: Identifies and defines tricky words and phrases.
• Questioner: Asks questions about character motives, themes, and Dickens’ message.
• Summariser: Sums up key passages and main plot points.

These roles mirror the key cognitive skills required to understand complex texts, and practising them explicitly helps students to improve their comprehension, and ‘notice what they don’t understand’. Guided by their bookmarks, it has been great to see students working together to unpack Dickens’s writing, build their confidence with difficult language, and support each other ahead of their exams.