Transcript What makes a good tutoring program A variety of things: • Qualifications of the tutor and program leaders • Group size • A tutor.

What makes a good tutoring program
A variety of things:
• Qualifications of the tutor and program leaders
• Group size
• A tutor who is good match for your child
– Who cares about children, and your child in particular
– Who knows how to relate to your child
– Who is skilled in the particular area where your child is
the weakest
• So check into qualifications, but also check that the
tutor is a strong personality match for your child
What makes a good tutor
A good literacy tutor should:
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Love to work with children
Love to read, and be a reader him- or herself
– Because communicating of that love for reading definitely comes
through
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Be very familiar with literacy development
– How children learn to read
– How all the components becoming a reader interrelate
• The synchrony of literacy development  understanding that spelling of
words (orthography) feeds reading fluency, which feeds comprehension,
and how all that relates to writing
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Be familiar with how to assess components of literacy
Know how to plan instruction to meet the child's individual needs
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If the tutor him- or herself is not the expert in these things, then program
leaders certainly need to be
Be committed to literacy
Be committed to putting forth their all into this very intimate
relationship
Signs of a poor tutoring program
If the following pieces are missing, it may signal a poor tutoring program:
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The program itself should be sound, proven effective
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Goals have to be well-defined
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Goals should be realistic
– There are steps to learning to read:
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Early on, a child works mainly on decoding, figuring out the phonics, learning phonics
Then sight words, fluency
Then vocabulary, comprehension, and skills that show that the child is beginning to
automatize the basic decoding
None of these things happen quickly, especially if a student is dyslexic or has
another learning disability. It takes time
Look for signs of success, that the child is making improvement, even slow and
steady
The child should not really hate to go to tutoring
– If they do, it's a warning sign
– It takes a few lessons for the rapport to build between a child and a tutor
– But if things continue poorly, it's time to talk with the tutor and perhaps honestly
assess whether that's a good match
The program should be appropriate for the individual child and focus on his or her
needs and strengths
What parents should look for
Look for:
• A program that is not just a repeat of what goes on during the
school day
• Qualified teachers, certified teachers, college students, or tutors
who might provide a role model
• Academics
• Enrichment – field trips or community service
• A program that is engaging, so students will want to keep coming
back to day after day
• Cultural relevance, so that activities and books are meaningful to
the child
• A low student/teacher ratio (the lower the better)
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One-on-one can be ideal
But some students also learn very well by having peer interaction
Small groups are definitely better than large groups
Definitely no more than ten to one
Differentiated instruction and tutoring
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Differentiated instruction provides students different avenues to
learn. The instruction is tailored to fit the strengths and needs of
the student
Even in a small group of three, children aren’t identical. Each will
have their own constellation of strengths and weaknesses
A good tutor will individualize, even within a small group
For example,
– Even if their reading levels are the same, they'll have slightly different
needs in other components of reading
– They'll certainly have different personalities and approaches to tasks
– Different children have different attention spans for certain kinds of
tasks
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These kinds of differences add up to the need for differentiating
instruction
How a tutor can individualize within a small group
Example: tutoring a group of three students, all reading on a
mid-first grade level
• I know that I can at least plan the same level of text
• But I might choose a specific subject matter to engage one
student
– E.g., Anne really likes to read about horses, and doesn't even
want to persevere through anything unless it's about horses.
Carole really, really likes to read about Star Wars
• Or I might change part of the lesson to meet their phonics
needs
– E.g., Carole may know all of her short vowels, but might be
working on her consonant blends in phonics instruction.
Whereas Anne doesn't know all of the short vowels. And so
I'm going to have to differentiate those parts of the lesson
Individualized instruction and working one-on-one
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Individualized instruction does not necessarily mean working one-on-one
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It is possible to individualize in small groups
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A meta-analysis* of research about the effects of group size in short-term tutoring
found significantly better effects for smaller group sizes
– Particularly groups of three or smaller, as opposed to groups of 10 or more
– There were no consistent differences between groups of three and groups of
one
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Other research** finds that students don't all progress at the same rate
– Within a group of three: two students may really take off, whereas one may not
– So, over time, the need for differentiation grows stronger
– It may be important and necessary to reconfigure that group to allow working
one-on-one with certain students
* Elbaum, B, Vaughn, S., Hughes, M.T., Moodly, S.W. (2000). How Effective Are One-to-One Tutoring Programs in Reading for Elementary
Students at Risk for Reading Failure? A Meta-Analysis of the Intervention Research. Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 92, no.4, pp.
605-19.
** Vellutino, F. R., Scanlon, D. M., Zhang, H., Schatschneider, C. (2008). Using Response to Kindergarten and First Grade Intervention to
Identify Children At-Risk for Long-Term Reading Difficulties. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 437-480.
Tailored lesson plans don’t preclude a
structured curriculum
• A curriculum is useful because it can help:
– Guarantee that the lessons are linked to the
expectations of the school system or state standards
– Focus tutors on a wide breadth of skills
– Provide an overview of all of the items that will be
covered over the course of the tutoring program, while
allowing plenty of room for differentiation
– Maintain program pacing
Basic Tips for Reading Tutors
Tutoring session frequency and length
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Sessions should be as long as they need to be
Depends on the child. A study* that followed kindergarteners through
fourth grade found that:
– Students who were easily remediated  took off very quickly, caught
up to grade level expectations, and maintained those gains over time
 did so within one semester
– Students who made moderate growth needed more than one
semester, perhaps a year or a year and a half
– Students who made slow growth in response to excellent tutoring,
one-on-one every day for thirty minutes, really required much longer
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The study concluded that a student's response to high quality
intervention should be part of a diagnosis of whether a child has a
learning disability
– Look at the student's response to the intervention  it can determine
if the difficulty arises from lack of strong or appropriate instruction
versus potential cognitive deficits
– One way to get such data is by providing high quality tutoring and
watching children's progress over time
* Vellutino, F. R., et al. (1996). Cognitive Profiles of Difficult-to-Remediate and Readily Remediated Poor Readers: Early
Intervention as a Vehicle for Distinguishing Between Cognitive and Experiential Deficits as Basic Causes of Specific
Reading Disability. Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 88, no. 4, pp. 601-38.
The role of assessment
• Assessment is critical
• Everyone – the tutor, the teacher, and the parent –
wants to know if it's working
• Use authentic assessment all along the way
– Even once a week
– Or once every two weeks
• Report on how the child is progressing towards the
goal
• Talk to the tutor about more formal assessments
– These take place in schools or when a child goes for a
psychological assessment
– It will help tutors, teachers, and parents know how their
child is progressing
How long until tutoring shows results
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Assessment  keeping a finger on the pulse  is the key
– Constantly monitor student's progress in:
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Reading
Phonics
Writing.
Decoding accuracy
Fluency
Comprehension
Vocabulary growth
Assess not only during the school year, but also for potential loss
over the summer
Monitor a child's progress in these areas and it will be clear how
long the tutoring has to be
Students need tutoring and extra help as long as they need it
– For students with specific reading disabilities, this maybe throughout
their entire schooling
Waiting before getting additional help
• Don't wait, get going as soon as children walk in the door
of school (typically is in kindergarten)
• Universal preschool would help prevent reading problems
• Once in kindergarten, there are assessments known to be
highly reliable predictors of who's going to have difficulty
learning to read
– For example, assessments that measure
• Alphabet knowledge
• Basic awareness of speech sounds like rhyming and beginning
sounds
• As soon as a child who is having difficulties or is lacking in
a fundamental emergent literacy foundation is identified,
they should receive special attention immediately
What a tutor should do if a child
doesn't seem to be progressing?
• First, try it a different way
– Because different students have different learning styles
• Spend some time talking to the classroom teacher
– Find out what's working in the classroom
– Find out what isn't working
• Talk to the parent
• Seek help from additional resources
– E.g., BELL puts people through extensive training
• Ongoing training to refine tutoring skills
• A lead teacher is placed at every site to observe tutoring
sessions, give tutors suggestions and feedback, and model
different approaches
To learn some specific strategies, see Reading For Meaning:
Tutoring Elementary Students to Enhance Comprehension
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