The Effects of Classwide Peer Tutoring on the Reading Achievement of Urban Middle School Students

This study investigated the effects of Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) on the reading skills of urban middle-school students using novels as the curriculum. Teacher-led instruction was compared with CWPT and CWPT plus a lottery contingency for appropriate on-task and tutoring behaviors. Three sixth-grade general education reading classes under the direction of one teacher participated. Data were collected on all students from weekly written tests of vocabulary and comprehension. Additional oral reading rate and academic engagement data were collected from three "low-achieving" target students. Overall, results demonstrated improved performance on weekly tests under CWPT conditions compared with teacher-led instruction. CWPT plus lottery resulted in further increases. Data also revealed differences in the types of academic responses made during teacher-led instruction and CWPT and increases in oral reading rates for two target students. These findings suggest that CWPT, particularly CWPT plus lottery, can improve the reading skills of urban middle school students.

[1]  Michelle K. Hosp,et al.  Oral Reading Fluency as an Indicator of Reading Competence: A Theoretical, Empirical, and Historical Analysis , 2001 .

[2]  Richard T. Boon,et al.  Can Middle School Students with Serious Reading Difficulties Help Each Other and Learn Anything? , 2001 .

[3]  Sharon Vaughn,et al.  Fluency and Comprehension Interventions for Third-Grade Students , 2000 .

[4]  Robert E. Harris,et al.  Effects of a Peer-Delivered Corrective Reading Program , 2000 .

[5]  F. Butler.  Reading Partners: Students Can Help Each Other Learn To Read!. , 1999 .

[6]  Lynn S. Fuchs,et al.  Effects of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies on High School Students with Serious Reading Problems , 1999 .

[7]  Research to Practice: A “Blueprint” for Closing the Gap in Local Schools , 1999 .

[8]  Tim Bete.  The School of the Future. , 1998 .

[9]  Lynn S. Fuchs,et al.  Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies: Making Classrooms More Responsive to Diversity , 1997 .

[10]  D. Kamps,et al.  Cooperative Learning Groups in Reading: An Integration Strategy for Students with Autism and General Classroom Peers , 1995 .

[11]  Charles R. Greenwood,et al.  ClassWide Peer Tutoring and the Prevention of School Failure , 1995 .

[12]  Lynn S. Fuchs,et al.  Effects of Explicit Teaching and Peer Tutoring on the Reading Achievement of Learning-Disabled and Low-Performing Students in Regular Classrooms , 1995, The Elementary School Journal.

[13]  Patricia M. Barbetta,et al.  Classwide peer tutoring: an integration strategy to improve reading skills and promote peer interactions among students with autism and general education peers. , 1994, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[14]  H. Ezell.  A Program Description and Evaluation of Academic Peer Tutoring for Reading Skills of Children with Special Needs. , 1994 .

[15]  Patricia G. Mathes,et al.  Increasing Strategic Reading Practice with Peabody Classwide Peer Tutoring. , 1994 .

[16]  Deborah C. Simmons.  Importance of Instructional Complexity and Role Reciprocity to Classwide Peer Tutoring. , 1994 .

[17]  Lessie L. Cochran,et al.  The Effects of Cross-Age Tutoring on the Academic Achievement, Social Behaviors, and Self-Perceptions of Low-Achieving African-American Males with Behavioral Disorders , 1993 .

[18]  Bob Algozzine,et al.  Increasing reading rate and comprehension: The effects of repeated readings, sentence segmentation, and intonation training , 1993 .

[19]  G. Cartledge,et al.  Low-Achieving Students as Successful Cross-Age Tutors. , 1993 .

[20]  Achievement, placement, and services: Middle school benefits of Classwide Peer Tutoring used at the elementary school. , 1993 .

[21]  Lynn S. Fuchs,et al.  Formative Evaluation of Academic Progress: How Much Growth Can We Expect?. , 1993 .

[22]  D M Baer,et al.  Social validity assessments: is current practice state of the art? , 1991, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[23]  C. Greenwood.  CLASSWIDE PEER TUTORING: LONGITUDINAL EFFECTS ON THE READING, LANGUAGE, AND MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT OF AT‐RISK STUDENTS , 1991 .

[24]  Patricia M. Barbetta,et al.  TUGMATE: A CROSS-AGE TUTORING PROGRAM TO TEACH SIGHT VOCABULARY , 1991 .

[25]  Charles R. Greenwood,et al.  Longitudinal Effects of Classwide Peer Tutoring. , 1989 .

[26]  B. F. Skinner,et al.  Recent issues in the analysis of behavior , 1989 .

[27]  S. Salend,et al.  Effects of Peer-Previewing on LD Students' Oral Reading Skills , 1988 .

[28]  R. C. Smith,et al.  America's Shame, America's Hope: Twelve Million Youth at Risk. Executive Summary. , 1988 .

[29]  Charles Greenwood,et al.  Classwide Peer Tutoring , 1986, Exceptional children.

[30]  B. F. Skinner,et al.  The Shame of American Education. , 1984 .

[31]  W. L. Heward.  Focus on behavior analysis in education , 1984 .

[32]  J. Delquadri,et al.  The Peer Tutoring Spelling Game: A Classroom Procedure for Increasing Opportunity to Respond and Spelling Performance. , 1983 .

[33]  William L. Heward,et al.  EVALUATION OF A CLASSWIDE PEER TUTORING SYSTEM: FIRST GRADERS TEACH EACH OTHER SIGHT WORDS1 , 1983 .

[34]  P. Sindelar.  The Effects of Cross-Aged Tutoring On the Comprehension Skills of Remedial Reading Students , 1982 .

[35]  E. Edgar,et al.  Mentally Handicapped Children: Education and Training , 1982 .

[36]  C. Darch,et al.  Effects of Cross-Age Tutoring on Word-Recognition Performance of Learning Disabled Students , 1980 .

[37]  B. Bucher,et al.  Peer tutoring with or without home-based reinforcement, for reading remediation. , 1980, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[38]  Peer Teaching , 1978 .

[39]  M. Wolf,et al.  Social validity: the case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. , 1978, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[40]  M. Skatkin.  The School of the Future. , 1975 .

[41]  Linda M. Jenkins,et al.  Comparing Small Group and Tutorial Instruction in Resource Rooms , 1974 .

[42]  B. Levin.  The Informal Reading Inventory. , 1971 .

[43]  D M Baer,et al.  Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. , 1968, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[44]  Joseph Lancaster.  Improvements in education, as it respects the industrious classes of the community : containing a short account of its present state, hints towards its improvement, and a detail of some practical experiments conducive to that end , 1803 .