Peer tutoring is an effective way to improve learning for both the tutee and the tutor, and no one doubts the value of this strategy for meeting individual needs within a classroom. However, it takes more than simply pairing off students to make peer tutoring result in improved learning.
Although you are likely to use informal tutoring practices in your classroom every day (e.g. asking one student to help another student with a problem), establishing a formalized tutoring program requires more involved planning. The following strategies can help you create and sustain an effective program within your classroom. As with most initiatives, if you can work with your building administrator and other teachers to establish a school-wide tutoring program, you will be able to serve the needs of all students more successfully. Typically, training will be minimal and will include basic instruction in modeling, prompting responses from tutees, using corrective feedback and praise/reinforcement, alternating teaching methods and materials (i.e. using multisensory methods), and recording and reporting progress. If this is a school-wide initiative, classroom teachers or even parents or paraprofessionals can train students who will tutor as part of an extracurricular service activity.
