Instructional Stoppers, such as “Reciprocal Teaching, allows a student to think, summarize, paraphrase, clarify, as well as generate questions and summarize the text.” (Ohio Dept of Ed, 2014). It is well supported by research. Developed by Annemarie Palincsar and Ann Brown in 1984, reciprocal teaching switches the roles of the student and teacher. Students can learn from peers just as well as they can from adults. But the process must be guided and managed to avoid any downsides. It encourages and provokes a deeper understanding and comprehension of the material.” (Jensen, 2011) “The percentile rankings of the experimental students using Reciprocal Teaching jumped 30 points or more.” (Perles, 2012)

Instructional Stoppers promotes summarizing. “Effective summarizing leads to an increase in student learning. Students have to analyze information at a deep level in order to identify key concepts and decide what information to delete, substitute, or keep.” (Anderson & Hidi, 1987 as stated Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2005). A good amount of research supports the idea that the ability to summarize increases comprehension, memory (National Reading Panel, 2000 as stated Rice 2004) and has a positive impact on achievement. Summarization training has been shown to increase the recall of major information from reading, studying and lectures.” (King, 1992; Rinehart et al, 1986 as stated Ohio Dept of Ed, 2014).

Instructional stoppers allow students to pause and take time to answer a question individually, and then discuss in groups. “Short, in-class writing exercises increase focus, thinking, depth of knowledge and has shown to increase learning.” (Jensen, 2011).