Cross-age peer tutoring has become a popular method for helping students who are having academic trouble. It is a tutoring program where the tutor is older than the student receiving help. This site provides information on cross-age peer tutoring. It also provides links to success stories involving peer tutoring. These links would be helpful for educators or students interested in a cross-age peer tutoring program.
1. Read*Write*Now!: The Partner's Tutoring Program is a project of READ*WRITE*NOW!, a reading/writing initiative started by the U.S. Secretary of Education in the Spring of 1995. Through this project, parents, retirees, students, and others learn to tutor students in grades 1-8 in reading and writing skills. In most cases. the tutoring is coordinated through a classroom teacher, who designates skills that need development and the appropriate difficulty level of reading materials. In some cases, however, students are encouraged to bring texts, magazines, or other reading materials that they are especially interested in reading.
2. The Basics of Cross-Age Tutoring: What is cross-age tutoring? How does it work? This site provides information on the world of cross-age tutoring. It also describes examples of cross-age tutoring in action, including the benefits of this type of program. This is an excellent reference for anyone interested in beginning a cross-age tutoring program.
3. The Literacy Club: A Cross-Age Tutoring Project: Sixth grade students participated in a cross-age tutoring program known as The Literacy Club. Not all of their days were good ones. Sometimes they got tired of being in the project. Sometimes they forgot to focus on the task at hand. Often they found ways to teach a new concept or clarify part of a story which might otherwise have been confusing or missed altogether. Always, they faced all of the difficulties of providing one-to-one time with a first grade partner they had chosen. They had made a commitment, and they made sure they fulfilled all of their obligations, and then some.
4. Cross-Age Tutoring Lesson Plans: This site provides a variety of lesson plans that could be used in a cross-age tutoring program. The lesson plans cover a large range of subjects and grade levels. They also contain directions for activities to make the learning more enjoyable.
5. A Successful Peer Tutoring Program: Programs offered to at-risk youth at Berlin High School, NH, include alternative and supplemental academic course work, career development projects, and links with business and industry through a variety of activities. In 1997, the grant included funding for an innovative peer tutoring program. After a selection process and a brief training session at the New Hampshire Community Technical College, peer tutors are hired and work at BHS, providing one-to-one and group tutoring for students who are having academic difficulty.
Created by Tara King for PSY 306. Last updated on November 18, 1999.