In many cases, the school failure cycle begins in elementary school for students with specific risk factors. Young students with learning difficulties and behavioral problems require a timely and sufficient program to prevent poor school outcomes. After-school mentoring programs are effective in providing meaningful relationships, structure, and…

Open inquiry offers students the opportunity to gain 21st century skills and expose them to science practices advocated by Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). While this raises the bar from lower-level inquiry classes, students initially struggle with open inquiry, because they do not know what to expect as they shift from a teacher-directed…

This article explores the relationship between cross-age peer mentoring and positive life outcomes as defined by the Five Cs: competence, character, confidence, connection, and compassion. Qualified high school juniors and seniors were randomly assigned groups of 4-5 freshmen to mentor through the challenges of transitioning to secondary school.…

This paper adds to the limited body of literature and concentrates on investigating the impact of a new peer tutoring framework, 'Interdependent Cross Age-Peer Tutoring' (ICAT), on the socioacademic process of learning of self-concepts. ICAT is informed by Social Interdependence Theory, a socio-psychological perspective which aims to make…

International comparisons reveal that lower-secondary-level students in Austria perform below the OECD mean in science. Guided by the search for remedies and improvements in science teaching, this study investigates whether cross-age peer tutoring is an appropriate method for teaching physics. A modern and concise definition of peer tutoring is…

To close the gap between reading research and the reality of instruction, the authors developed a reading comprehension approach for elementary school, aiming at explicit instruction and practice of reading comprehension strategies. Their approach encompasses two complementary cornerstones: explicit instruction in reading strategies and creating…

This article reports on a major action research program that experimented with the use of cross-age peer teaching in schools to assist teachers to manage conflict issues in their classrooms, and to re-engage disaffected students in learning. The research, which was conducted in a range of elementary and secondary schools in Australia, was part of…

The present study explores the impact of an experimental reading intervention focusing on explicit reading strategy instruction and cross-age peer tutoring on third and sixth graders' reading strategy awareness, cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was…

What reading programs have been proven to help students in grades 2-5 to succeed? To find out, this review summarizes evidence on three types of programs designed to improve the reading achievement of students in grades 2-5: (1) Reading Curricula (Curr), such as "Open Court," "Harcourt," "Reading Street" and other standard and alternative…

Peer teaching has been recognized as a valuable and effective approach for learning and has been incorporated into medical, dental, and healthcare courses using a variety of approaches. The success of peer teaching is thought to be related to the ability of peer tutors and tutees to communicate more effectively, thereby improving the learning…

This article systematically reviews research on the achievement outcomes of three types of classroom approaches to improving the reading achievement of students in grades 2-5: Reading curricula, computer-assisted instruction (CAI), and instructional process programs. Study inclusion criteria included use of randomized or matched control groups,…

In its first year, an interdisciplinary recreational aquatics program serving eight deaf blind children (3 to 18 years old) developed and sequenced individualized objectives for communication, social, and gross motor areas. Inservice training was conducted for 13 nonhandicapped high school students serving as peer tutors, who were then evaluated…

This paper focuses on children helping children through peer and cross-age tutoring with special emphasis for programs serving the student remedial or special education setting. The historical roots of peer and cross-age tutoring are discussed. Explanations of the nature of the tutorial experience are presented, along with a discussion of the…

This paper examines research on peer mentoring programs, highlighting their benefits and noting conditions and components of successful programs. Research shows that elementary peer mentoring programs can increase the use of critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills, and conflict resolution skills. Studies also highlight the benefits of…

In the San Francisco Bay Area (California), community agencies and organizations routinely use teenagers as mentors and teachers of peers and younger children. Despite the literature indicating that teens should derive many benefits from these roles, agency staff have observed teen teachers who appear frustrated, bored, or disengaged, or who have…