In multigrade instruction, children of at least a 2-year grade span and diverse ability levels are grouped in a single classroom and share experiences involving intellectual, academic, and social skills. "The Multigrade Classroom" is a seven-book series that provides an overview of current research on multigrade instruction, identifies key issues…

Results from 13 studies on tutorial programs for social acceptance and academic achievement showed significant gains when involving educable mentally retarded, learning disabled, and behaviorally disordered elementary students as tutors. The studies involved cross-age and peer tutoring roles in both resource tutoring and total class tutoring…

Notes that researchers have generated multiple theories as to why students learn to read better when they tutor others. Surveys several options, then concludes that the answer may lie in the amount of time spent on task in tutoring. (FL)

Research has shown that well-designed tutoring programs that use volunteers and other nonprofessionals as tutors can be effective in improving children's reading skills. Students with below-average reading skills who are tutored by volunteers show significant gains in reading skills when compared with similar students who do not receive tutoring…

This article presents an updated research synthesis on the use of students with emotional or behavioral disorders as tutors and/or tutees. Thirty-eight studies from 1972 to 2002 were identified in which students with emotional or behavioral disorders served as tutors and/or tutees in order to teach their peers a variety of academic and social…

Tutoring's academic and emotional benefits for exceptional students are outlined. This is suggested as a method for secondary schools to meet the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) and Individual Education Plan (IEP) provisions of PL 94-142. (SJL)

Implications of social psychological theory and research, particularly in the area of social influence, are examined to provide a theoretical foundation for cross-age tutoring programs. Areas discussed include the effectiveness of various bases of social influence and the effects of tutoring programs on students, tutors, and teachers. (Author/SJL)

Offers an overview of research on cross-age tutoring. Describes a successful cross-age tutoring program pairing 7th-grade with 3rd-grade students. Offers guidelines for developing a successful cross-age tutoring program. (SR)

The literature concerning tutoring in the elementary schools was surveyed and evaluated to determine the relative effectiveness of two types of programs--peer and cross-age tutoring. Studies involving each type of program were analyzed separately and effectiveness was judged by the gains in reading achievement experienced by both tutors and…

Issues in tutoring handicapped and gifted students are examined in the paper, one of a collection of papers commissioned for the Foundations project on the career development needs of students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Studies are reviewed which assess the effects of tutoring on both tutors and tutees in three broad…

This review of the literature on peer and cross-age tutoring emphasizes programs in mathematics and suggests that such programs have positive academic outcomes for African American and other minority students as well as for White students who participate as tutors, as tutees, or both. Such programs also appear to have a positive impact on a…

This booklet provides information about the Valued Youth Partnership (VYP) program for dropout prevention. Begun in 1984 with the support of the Coca-Cola Company and the collaboration of the Intercultural Development Research Association, the VYP program is being implemented in the Edgewood and South San Antonio school districts in San Antonio,…

This book discusses the anachronistic nature of the graded school structure and the practices that accompany it and proposes the alternative of a nongraded structure. The incompatibility of the graded system with present insights into child development are the the emphasis of the first chapter. Chapter 2 examines the effectiveness of nonpromotion…

Evidence from ethnology, anthropology, and educational history and research indicates that age segregation is neither necessary nor natural. An examination of primate and simple human societies suggests that rigid assumptions about age segregation of the young is a recent departure from social patterns existing for millions of years. The…

Different forms of peer tutoring within college and universities are described and compared for effectiveness, including cross-year and same-year small-group, individualized, supplemental, diadic, reciprocal, fixed-role, writing process, and distance tutoring. Three methods are found to be widely used, demonstrated effective, and meriting expanded…