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Helping the Academically Handicapped Reader: Peer Tutoring Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

W. Malcolm Gill
W. Malcolm Gill*
Affiliation:
University of Auckland, New Zealand
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Abstract

The characteristics of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) which makes it so worthy of consideration for use by the teacher of pupils with special needs, whose time for individual attention with her pupils is limited, are briefly discussed, and comment is made about the limitations of this approach. Attention is drawn to the alternative approach of peer tutoring, where the desirable one-to-one characteristic is attainable, and where there is the possibility that the sensitivity to the quality of the computer program, which is one of the limitations of the approach of CAI, may be contrasted with the not-so-sensitive-to-quality-of-program characteristic of peer tutoring. This possibility is examined in the context of a sample of poor reading Year eight pupils who were given a period of peer tutoring by Year eleven and twelve pupils in the same school, where the demonstrably not high quality program consisted of relatively few meetings between tutor and tutee, of short duration, at which it was expected that there would be talk, reading and being read to. Use of a control group enabled the conclusions to be reached that this peer tutoring resulted in gains for the tutees in reading ability and in attitude towards and behaviour in school, this being suggestive of the power of this low staff input, low cost, low technology technique in the area of special education.

Type
Research and Review
Information
Australasian Journal of Special Education , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 16 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Australian Association of Special Education 1985

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