Using Peer Tutoring to Improve Reading Skills

A practical guide for teachers

Keith Topping, David Duran, Hilde Van Keer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317550761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Using Peer Tutoring to Improve Reading Skills is a very practical guide, offering a straightforward framework and easy-to-implement strategies to help teachers help pupils progress in reading. A succinct introduction, it shows how schools can make positive use of differences between pupils and turn them into effective learning opportunities.

Outlining the evidence base supporting peer tutoring approaches, it explores the components of the reading process and explains how peer tutoring in reading can be used with any method of teaching reading. Core topics covered include:

• Planning and implementing peer tutoring
• Getting your school on board
• How to structure effective interaction
• Training peer tutors and tutees
• Paired Reading - cross-ability approaces

• One Book for Two - fostering fluency, reading comprehension, and motivation

• Reading in Pairs - cross and same-year tutoring
• Supporting struggling readers
• Involving families in peer tutoring
• Evaluation and feedback.

Illustrated throughout with practical examples from diverse schools across Europe, Using Peer Tutoring to Improve Reading Skills is an essential introduction offering easy-to-use guidelines that will support teachers in primary and secondary schools as they enhance pupil motivation and improve reading standards.

PART
I INTRODUCTION

1

READING

Language is the most important skill for children to have mastered if they are to succeed in the school system—and indeed, for later employment and to function as active members of the knowledge society. The version of language that we most often see in the school curriculum is reading—the unlocking of the language in a written text so that it is accessible and open to interpretation, debate and question. Being successful at reading is closely related to competence with language; being successful at reading is the key to unlocking every kind of written text in every subject the student will encounter in school. Consequently, reading is very highly correlated with overall school achievement (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2009).

Learning to read goes through developmental stages as the child grows older. At the preschool stage, the amount of talk the parents have with their child is crucial in developing the child’s language—and in particular, the number of conversational turns they have with their child. The quality of parent–child interaction can vary, from simple and repetitive language, to the parent modelling more complex and elaborative language which the child copies. When parents read books to their preschool children, more unusual words and sentences are used than in ordinary conversation and the session goes on for longer. So reading to children (even if they do not fully understand it) develops language as well as the other way round (Gilkerson, Richards & Topping, forthcoming).

At primary/elementary school, children are assumed to be able to use language and the emphasis is on teaching reading. In the US in particular there has been debate about the ‘best’ way of teaching reading at this level. Some suggest that teaching ‘phonology’ (or decoding) is the best way; others that a ‘sight word’ approach involving emphasis on remembering individual items of vocabulary is best; and yet others suggest that a ‘whole language’ approach involving reading continuous meaningful text and extracting comprehension is best.

One problem with the phonological approach is that half of the words in the English language (for instance) are not phonologically regular and cannot be attacked by this method. With the sight word approach though, there is the potential problem that it can leave children unable to read any word they have not previously encountered and studied—unless of course children automatically extract some of the rules for attacking new words from their past experiences. And in the whole language approach, if children are not already familiar with the words involved, they are not likely to be able to read the text flowingly, and might tend to focus on texts which offer them little challenge. In fact, most teachers are fully aware that all of these elements need to be part of a comprehensive reading teaching programme. In all cases, the reader plays an active role in building the meaning of the text through their previous knowledge, abilities and motivation (Aarnoutse & Schellings, 2003).

Different components of the reading process can be identified. Early on there may be some emphasis on accuracy—the ability to read each word out loud correctly. Of course, this is merely the first step to the next stage of understanding the meaning of the word—comprehension—and using it in conversation and writing. Once some comprehension is established, teachers can become interested in fluency—the ability of the child to read and understand words in a smooth continuous flow and to articulate them with expression. These components, of course, have a strong interdependent relationship and none of them can be developed without the others. However, because we read to understand the meaning, reading comprehension is seen as being at the core of reading, especially in schools.

Once children move up to secondary or high school, the emphasis shifts again. Whereas primary school was about learning to read, secondary school is more about reading to learn. Consequently, there is typically less emphasis on the teaching of reading—the assumption being that children have learned how to do this in primary school. Secondary teachers are subject specialists and those subjects do not include reading. But paradoxically, the requirement for reading comprehension ability becomes progressively higher, as texts become more complex. This fact means that the need to develop and improve reading comprehension is not finished and therefore strategies for this have to be taught.

While children are in secondary/high school, the amount of reading they are required to do is disappointingly small. Once they leave school, however, for most young people there is a further sharp decline in the amount of reading they do, especially if it is not required as part of their job. Young people who were never very good at reading are at risk of becoming handicapped because of lack of practice. Later in life, some of them seek to obtain further help with reading, but it is an enormous effort—and the vast majority spend more time covering up the fact that they have reading difficulties than doing something about it. It is worth examining in some detail the learning competences that characterise each onward step in the development of reading.

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES IN LEARNING TO READ

Up to age one

Children usually begin to: imitate sounds they hear in language; respond when spoken to; look at pictures; reach for books and turn the pages with help; respond to stories and pictures by vocalising and patting the pictures.

Ages one to three

Children usually begin to: identify and answer questions about objects in books, such as ‘Where’s the cat?’ or ‘What does the cat say?’; name familiar pictures; use pointing to identify named objects; pretend to read books; finish sentences in books they know well; scribble on paper; know names of books and identify them by the picture on the cover; turn pages of board books; have a favourite book and request it be read often.

Age three

Children usually begin to: explore books independently; listen to longer books that are read aloud; retell a familiar story; recite the alphabet; begin to sing the alphabet song with prompting and cues; make continuous symbols that resemble writing; imitate the action of reading a book aloud.

Age four

Children usually begin to: recognise familiar signs and labels, especially on signs and containers; make up rhymes or silly phrases; recognise and write some of the letters of the alphabet; read and write their names; name beginning letters or sounds of words; match some letters to their sounds; use familiar letters to try writing words; understand that print is read from left to right, top to bottom; retell stories that have been read to them.

Age five

Children usually begin to: recognise and produce words that rhyme; match some spoken and written words; write some letters, numbers and words; recognise some familiar words; predict what will happen next in a story; identify initial, final and middle sounds in short words; decode simple words in isolation and in context; retell the main idea; identify details (who, what, when, where, why, how); arrange story events in sequence.

Ages six to seven

Children usually begin to: read familiar stories; sound out or decode unfamiliar words; use pictures and context to figure out unfamiliar words; use some common punctuation and capitalisation in writing; self-correct when they make a mistake while reading aloud; show comprehension of a story through drawings; write by organising details into a logical sequence with a beginning, middle and end.

Ages seven to eight

Children usually begin to: read longer books independently; read aloud with proper emphasis and expression; use context and pictures to help identify unfamiliar words; understand the concept of paragraphs and begin to apply it in writing; correctly use punctuation; correctly spell many words; write notes like telephone and email messages; enjoy games like word searches; use new words, phrases or figures of speech that they have heard; revise their own writing to create and illustrate stories.

Ages nine to thirteen

Children usually begin to: explore and understand different kinds of texts, like biographies, poetry and fiction; understand and explore expository, narrative and persuasive text; read to extract specific information, such as from a science book; identify parts of speech and devices like similes and metaphors; correctly identify major elements of stories, like time, place, plot, problem and resolution; read and write on a specific topic for fun and understand what style is needed; analyse texts for meaning.

The reader will immediately see that there are many elements here that could be focused upon using peer tutoring. We will turn now to examine the research evidence in a little more detail—but only from one paper (albeit one which looked at thousands of research studies and synthesised them).

THE RESEARCH BACKGROUND—BRIEFLY!

According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), the skills required for proficient reading are phonemic awareness, phonological skill, vocabulary, text comprehension and fluency. You will see how these mirror the various different ways that are individually promoted to teach reading—but the NRP is saying that all are necessary. Proficient reading does not necessarily require phonemic awareness as applied in Latin alphabets but an awareness of the individual parts of speech, which may also include the whole word (as in Chinese characters) or syllables (as in Japanese) as well as others, depending on the writing system being employed. Other important features distinguished in the report include a general understanding of the orthography of the language and practice.

Phonological awareness

This is the awareness of individual parts of speech as they apply to individual written characters —crucial for understanding reading (as defined by translating written characters into spoken language). Phonological awareness—which includes the manipulation of rhymes, syllables and onsets and rimes—is most prevalent in alphabetic systems.

Fluency

This is the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy and vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and comprehension.

Vocabulary

A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader’s spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as making use of the context.

Orthography

This describes or defines the set of symbols used in a language, and the rules about how to write these symbols. Orthographic development proceeds in increasing complexity as a child learns to read. Some of the first things to be learned are the orthographic conventions, such as the direction of reading and that there are differing typefaces and capitalisation for each symbol. In general, this means that to read proficiently, the reader has to understand elements of the written language—including hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis and punctuation.

Practice

Repeated exposure to print improves many aspects of learning to read and most importantly the knowledge of individual words. It increases the speed at which high frequency words are recognised, which allows for increased fluency in reading. It also supports orthographic development, reading comprehension and vocabulary development. Peer tutoring usually substantially increases the amount of exposure to print and this is a key feature in its effectiveness.

Reading comprehension

The NRP describes comprehension as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. It is essentially about understanding what the author intended the reader to learn when writing the text. Reading comprehension is heavily dependent on skilled word recognition and decoding, oral reading fluency, a well-developed vocabulary and active engagement with the text. Reading comprehension can be developed through: saying strategies before reading; exploring expectations of content; heightening motivation; establishing reading objectives; and activating previous knowledge and predicting content. When reading, consideration of the main ideas and self-monitoring can be helpful. After reading there can be summarisation and questioning of the understood text.

Of course, different methods do not all have the same effectiveness. For example, with respect to practice, research suggests that individual silent reading does not improve reading comprehension. What is key is the degree of challenge in the text and the amount and type of help received (Block, Parris, Reed, Whiteley & Cleveland, 2009). Thus, formal and explicit strategy instruction is required; this includes self-regulation and monitoring, questioning and capitalising on the help of others.

BRIEF THEORY: VARIATION ACROSS LANGUAGES

Because languages and scripts vary in multiple ways, it follows that models of reading need to consider different developmental pathways into proficiency. A typology of writing systems that has been popular for several decades is the threefold classification of scripts: logographic (written symbols represent an entire spoken word), syllabic (relating to or based on syllables) and alphabetic (a system where the alphabetic sounds are important). A problem with this narrow classification is that many of the world’s scripts do not neatly fit into these categories. There are scripts that have mixed characteristics, such as the Indian akshara writing systems, which have both alphabetic and syllabic features.

Ziegler and Goswami (2005) drew together findings from across languages to explain reading development. They then proposed three contributing factors, not necessarily developing in this sequence. The first factor is the availability and awareness of different sound units prior to reading. The second factor is the degree of consistency seen in the associations between the sounds and the symbols of the language. The third factor is granularity, which refers to the level of mappings between the sounds and symbols in the language and whether they are smaller or larger sized units.

The authors consider reading development to depend upon the quality of mappings between orthographic units and the sounds of the language. They also argue that the nature of instruction is important for understan...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• Part I Introduction
• 1 Reading
• 2 Peer Tutoring
• 3 Peer Tutoring in Reading
• Part II Evidence-Based Good Practices
• 4 Paired Reading What Is It?
• 5 Paired Reading Does It Work?
• 6 One Book For Two What Is It?
• 7 One Book For Two Does It Work?
• 8 Reading In Pairs What Is It?
• 9 Reading In Pairs Does It Work?
• Part III Organising and Implementing Peer Tutoring
• 10 Planning Context, Objectives, Materials, Recruitment, Selection And Contact
• 11 Operating Training, Monitoring, Feedback and Evaluation
• 12 The Role of The Teacher in Peer Tutoring
• 13 Evaluation of Peer Tutoring
• 14 Sustaining and Embedding Peer Tutoring
• References
• Index