This article draws on previously employed methods for conducting fidelity studies and applies them to an evaluation of an unprescribed intervention. We document the process of assessing the fidelity of implementation of the Math Recovery first-grade tutoring program, an unprescribed, diagnostic intervention. We describe how we drew on recent…

Describes cross-age tutoring experiment in which sixth graders provided individual help and companionship to first-graders. Tutor gains were subject reinforcement, extended creativity, and meaningful personal relationships. (AJ)

Project Upswing is a pilot study sponsored by the Bureau of Educational Personnel Development, U.S. Office of Education, designed to determine whether first grade children with minimal learning difficulties can be aided by volunteer tutors. A major goal is to determine whether children receiving this personalized assistance make more progress than…

The increasing use of upper-grade students as tutors for younger children has been viewed as a means of reducing the achievement gap that exists among culturally-disadvantaged children. However, research has indicated that the potential of such a tutorial arrangement is linked closely to the tutoring techniques used, and unless student tutors are…

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program designed to reach first-grade students who are having the most trouble learning to read. Students meet daily with specially trained teachers for an average of 12 to 20 weeks. Reading Recovery began in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District in 1992-93. In 1993-94, Reading Recovery served 268…

Project Upswing was a two-year tutoring experiment directed by universities in Denver, Oxford (Mississippi), St. Louis, and San Francisco and involving first graders identified by their teachers at the beginning of the school year as capable of normal achievement but having learning difficulties. Half of the students served as a control group and…

In order to bridge the gap between educational research and practice, a study was concluded to identify specific reading skills which posed particularly difficult problems for Mexican American first grade children, but apparently caused little difficulty for their Anglo counterparts. Seventeen words emerged as being particularly difficult for the…

The Reading Recovery (RR) program of the San Diego City Schools (California) has expanded over the last 5 years and now includes 38 schools. This report documents the program's short-term and sustained efforts to increase reading achievement and its central office costs. RR is a Title I-funded early intervention program that uses one-on-one…