The subject of this booklet is cross-age helping. It begins with a discussion of what cross-age helping is and why it is effective. Cross-age helping is described as a program where children teach or help other children. The older children help the younger children learn what the younger children want to know, and the younger children help the…

Children teaching other children is not a new idea, but it is an effective way for older children to have a chance to help younger children and to learn effective methods of helping. This booklet describes numerous effective tutoring programs while outlining the origins of cross-age helping programs, pointing out traps to watch for, and noting key…

This document discusses the relative merits of cross-age helping programs, where one older more experienced student helps younger less experienced children to learn. Two types of approaches to organizing cross-age helping programs are reviewed: (1) one emphasizes a programmed or structured approach which consists of a series of detailed steps for…

The first semester of a cross-age teaching project is evaluated in this report. Three adjacent inner city public schools, an elementary, junior high, and high school, were involved. Thirty-three teachers in the schools received 68 older students as educational agents to provide individual attention to their own students for approximately 4…