Can Middle School Students with Serious Reading Difficulties Help Each Other and Learn Anything?

This investigation was intended to examine the effects of teaching middle school students with learning disabilities and mild mental retardation to tutor one another in reading comprehension strategies. All students were reading significantly below grade level and many students exhibited behavior problems in addition to their primary disability area. Students were randomly assigned to a tutoring or traditional reading instruction condition. Within the tutoring condition, students were matched into tutoring dyads, trained in the tutoring procedures, and taught specific reading comprehension strategies. Reciprocal tutoring was employed, such that students assumed roles of both tutor and tutee during daily reading periods. Performance on reading comprehension tests following tutoring yielded significant performance advantages for students involved in tutoring. Observational, survey, and interview data revealed that students enjoyed tutoring more than their traditional instruction, appeared to see the value and benefits of the tutoring, and wanted to include tutoring as part of their other classes, such as science and social studies. Findings are discussed with respect to the strengths and challenges associated with the use of tutoring to provide strategic instruction to students with special learning needs.