LearningTogether Works

---

When you were a kid, did one of your friends ever help you with a math problem? Or maybe it was your friend, leaning over to you in a science class to say, "Hey, I don't get this. Do you?" You did get it, in fact, and you helped your friend to understand it, too. Indeed, those scenarios happened in virtually all of our school lives. Although it was informal, it was tutoring. It happens almost naturally with children in school—whether or not they have been instructed to tutor.

Now, in a booklet of compiled research, Tutoring: Strategies for Successful Learning, author Jennifer Fager describes what might be a typical scene in a classroom today with a purposeful tutoring program, and a trained student tutor: One child sighs in frustration as he attempts a challenging math problem. He can't seem to figure it out and looks to the group member next to him. She leans over to see if she can help. She takes him through the problem step by step until it "clicks" and he's off and running on his own. Once he seems to get it, she only checks occasionally to make sure he is doing it right.

Because research shows that an organized tutoring process can be a powerful learning tool for all involved, many educators across the Northwest are putting this tool to use. To help others who would like to know more, Fager pulled together a brief "Northwest Sampler" of tutoring programs from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington to tell how they work.

The booklet first profiles the three types of tutoring:

Peer Tutoring: The tutor and tutee are about the same age, grade, or academic status. Both students "speak" the same language, so in general they tend to feel comfortable with this process.

Cross-Age Tutoring: The tutor is an older student; the tutee the younger. This arrangement has many of the benefits of peer tutoring, and it tends to confer status on the younger student who now has an older, higher-status friend.

Parent/Volunteer Tutoring: The tutor is an adult from outside the school. Because adult-student pairs are not as likely to become distracted as student-student pairs, less supervision is needed by the teacher.

While schools and organizations don't implement tutoring programs in the same ways, there are some common elements that need tending so that they are successful. And whether tutors are kids in fourth grade, or adults well into their forties, it is critical that they are trained properly. While there are many benefits to tutoring, there can be some pitfalls, too.

If you're interested in learning more, Tutoring: Strategies for Successful Learning is available for sale. It is also available online at www.nwrel.org/request/oct96/

This column is provided as a public service by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, a nonprofit institution, 101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500, Portland, Oregon 97204.