Learning to read is of primary focus in the early grades. Reading can be a challenge for many students, especially those with disabilities. With rising class sizes, and more students with disabilities included in the general education setting, the need for more individualized support in literacy instruction is vital. Innovative approaches are…

This exploratory investigation examined the transformation of a traditional summer reading intervention (SRI) to synchronous virtual format in response to school closures due to COVID-19. Goals were to adapt and describe the adaptation of the in-person intervention to the virtual environment, examine program outcomes, and understand tutor and…

This study investigated the demographics and perceptions of participants who utilize animals in academic programs, specifically the volunteers who use dogs to work with at-risk children in reading programs. It presented an argument for incorporating research-supported elements of reading tutor skills into the volunteer tutor training for the…

This research examined the impact of formative quizzes on e-learning designed to teach volunteers how to tutor struggling readers. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Do embedded quizzes facilitate learning of e-content? (2) Does the announcement of upcoming quizzes affect learning? (3) Does prior knowledge interact with quizzing and…

This study analyzed the relation between volunteer tutor training and reading instruction in 4 adult literacy programs. The data focus on tutors' choices of reading materials and strategies for assisting in the development of comprehension and word identification skills. Tutor training did not always transfer to practice, and it did not always…

This book provides guidance and practical information for the organization of a volunteer tutoring program. Three sections take supervisors through each step of the program, including: publicizing, obtaining funding, establishing roles of each team member, training volunteers in effective tutoring, and assessing each student's and tutor's…

This study is an investigation of the perspectives of college students who served as tutors for struggling first-grade readers. Two research questions drove the study: What did the tutors perceive as strengths and weaknesses of the tutoring program? and What possible solutions did they have for addressing any concerns? Quantitative and qualitative…

This article describes a viable alternative to hiring full-time certified teachers or to using lay volunteers to provide children at risk of failing in school with academic coaches (tutors). The Academic Coaching Program described herein recruited and trained students enrolled in a university's school of education programs to serve as academic…

The authors recommend a reading tutoring lesson framework, in a checklist format, to guide volunteer tutors during tutoring sessions for children in elementary grades 1-3. The reading tutor checklist is intended to be used by literacy coaches, reading specialists, and classroom teachers to train literacy volunteers in schools. The checklist…

Increasingly, elementary schools across America are adopting prereferral intervention models that follow a structured problem-solving consultation process to reduce referrals to special education and to improve student academic outcomes. One feasible and affordable systems-level solution for a school that must deliver reading interventions of high…

This study investigated the efficacy of a method of parent training and parent reading tutoring that built on past research. Parents of five first-grade children who were reading below grade level participated. Parents were trained to implement a tutoring procedure that included modeling, practice, phonics, fluency building, accuracy building,…

To pilot a peer literacy program, a pretest-posttest study was conducted involving seventy (70) students from Arellano High School as tutees and 12 De La Salle University-Manila College of Education students as reading tutors. Though the results suggest the lack of impact of the Program on the Reading Grades of the tutees, the tutors' journals…

Designed for teachers and tutors, the handbook discusses setting up a cross-age tutoring program. Topics include tutor responsibilities; the role of resource teachers; tutor contracts; specific relationship-building and tutoring techniques; ideas for tutoring in handwriting; and techniques for tutoring in reading, spelling, and arithmetic. The…

This report describes and evaluates an adult literacy education program, Project LEAD (Literacy Education and Development), at the Adrian Public Library (Michigan). The project's objectives were to: recruit functionally illiterate adults and provide reading instruction to improve literacy skills; recruit and train 65 additional volunteer tutors…

Suggesting that the goal of having every child read by the end of third grade can be realized only if tutors are trained properly, this book describes best practices based on years of tutoring experience. Calling for tutor training programs to "do it right," the book outlines research in reading and writing development as a basis for the…