Improving the Reading Skills of Urban

Elementary Students Through Total

Class Peer Tutoring
L E F K I K O U R E A , G W E N D O LY N C A R T L E D G E , A N D S H O B A N A M U S T I - R A O

ABSTRACT

T his study reports the results of a peer-mediated ner, 1994). Consequently, these behavioral and learning prob-
intervention, total class peer tutoring, on the academic per- lems result in negative outcomes such as low academic
formance of six urban students at risk for reading failure. A multiple
baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effects
achievement, increased school discipline referrals, and over-
of this intervention. The results showed that five of the six students representation in classrooms serving students with learning
significantly increased their sight-word acquisition and mainte- disabilities, mental retardation, and behavior disorders (Gott-
nance. All target students’ reading fluency and comprehension lieb et al., 1994). Furthermore, the aforementioned problems
scores on the standardized Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Liter- are associated with long-term poor postschool outcomes.
acy Skills (DIBELS) Oral Reading Fluency (DORF) passages were
higher during intervention than at baseline. Greater fluency gains
Urban minority students are more likely to experience higher
were shown on constructed paragraphs that included the tutoring rates of school failure, delinquency, lower employment rates,
sight words. More modest fluency and comprehension gains were and overall lower adjustment in adulthood than their Euro-
found in DORF passages that did not contain words taught in the pean American peers without disabilities (Ferri & Connor,
intervention. Social validity measures taken from teachers, parents, 2005).
and students revealed positive evaluations of the intervention. Lim-
itations, future directions in research, and practical implications
A number of best teaching practices have emerged in
are discussed. order to prevent urban minority school children from further
failure. Best practice refers to the use of research-based in-
structional strategies and organizational procedures that
demonstrate positive outcomes on students’ learning (L. J.

S TUDENTS IN URBAN SETTINGS ARE OFTEN AT A

disadvantage educationally compared to their peers in subur-
ban areas (Cartledge, 2002). Urban learners are exposed to a
Miller & Kohler, 1993). One promising instructional program
is total class peer tutoring (Lo & Cartledge, 2004), also re-
ferred to as classwide peer tutoring, which accounts and
compensates for family and sociocultural risk factors and pre-
vents students’ early academic failure (Greenwood & Del-
variety of family, neighborhood, school, and societal risk fac- quadri, 1995).
tors such as poverty, abuse, neglect, and ineffective academic Total class peer tutoring is a specific form of peer-
instruction, which lead to academic problems and contribute mediated intervention in which students are provided with
to maladaptive behaviors (Gottlieb, Alter, Gottlieb, & Wish- ample opportunities for active engagement and practice. As a

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result, students increase their on-task behavior, receive indi- the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have been con-
vidualized instruction and immediate error correction with ducted investigating how the increase of sight-word learning
positive feedback, and, more important, improve their aca- affects students’ reading in context.
demic and social skills (Arreaga-Mayer, 1998; A. D. Miller, Furthermore, although there is ample empirical support
Barbetta, & Heron, 1994). It is an effective and excellent for the effects of total class peer tutoring (e.g., Heron et al.,
teaching tool for the inclusion of students with disabilities in 1983) on students’ maintenance of sight words, additional re-
general education classrooms. In essence, total class peer tu- search needs to focus on the time period for which students
toring enhances and supports the learning of all students with can maintain tutored words. Heron et al. (1983) found that
and without disabilities in mainstream settings. first-grade students could maintain a mean of 89% of tutored
Research studies have well-documented the positive ef- words 1 week after sight words had been mastered. Given the
fects of total class peer tutoring intervention on the perfor- critical importance of word knowledge in students’ reading
mance of low-achieving students’ sight-word vocabulary performance, maintenance of sight words more than one
(Butler, 1999; Heron, Heward, Cooke, & Hill, 1983), spelling week after intervention needs to be examined more closely.
(Delquadri, Greenwood, Stretton, & Hall, 1983; Maheady & The current study was designed to extend previous re-
Harper, 1987), reading fluency (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard, & search on total class peer tutoring by investigating the effects
Delquadri, 1994; Simmons, Fuchs, Fuchs, Hodge, & Mathes, of this instructional strategy on students’ sight-word acquisi-
1994), Spanish vocabulary (Wright, Cavanaugh, Sainato, & tion. Moreover, this study sought to examine if students were
Heward, 1995), social studies (Lo & Cartledge, 2004), and able to maintain words for 2 to 3 weeks and 17 to 20 weeks
functional math skills (Arreaga-Mayer, 1998). Along the same after first being introduced to the words. Researchers also ex-
lines, similar academic and social benefits have been demon- amined students’ reading fluency and comprehension as a
strated for students with moderate to severe disabilities (Mc- generalization measure of sight-word recognition in untaught
Donnell, Mathot-Buckner, Thorson, & Fister, 2001), English passages.
language learners (Greenwood, Arreaga-Mayer, Utley, Gavin,
& Terry, 2001), students with learning disabilities (Simmons
et al., 1994), attention-deficit disorder (DuPaul & Henning- METHOD
son, 1993), mental retardation (Heron et al., 1983), autism
(Kamps et al., 1994), and behavioral disorders (Lazerson, Setting and Participants
1980). The superior effects of peer tutoring have been ex- The study was conducted in an inclusive second/third-grade
tended to a variety of populations, including kindergarten (i.e., joint) classroom of an urban elementary school located
(Brady, 1997), elementary (Heward, Heron, & Cooke, 1982), in a midwestern metropolitan area. The school had an enroll-
middle school (Nazzal, 2002), high school (Maheady, Sacca, ment of 148 students from preschool through fifth grade. The
& Harper, 1987), and college students (Fantuzzo, Riggio, majority of the school population consisted of African Amer-
Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989). ican students (84.5%). The remainder of the population was
Although total class peer tutoring has been identified as composed of 12.8% European Americans, 1.3% Asian Amer-
a successful intervention that addresses students’ academic icans, 0.7% Native Americans, and 0.7% Hispanic Ameri-
deficits, many research questions remain unanswered with cans. The targeted classroom included 14 African American
respect to its effects on sight-word acquisition and, conse- students (8 girls and 6 boys). More than half of the class (i.e.,
quently, on oral reading fluency. Some studies have investi- 8 students) was receiving special education services outside
gated reading fluency as an instructional component of the general education classroom 50% to 60% of the school
reciprocal peer tutoring and its effects on students’ reading day.
achievement. Simmons et al. (1994) showed that students in- During the intervention, both the general and the special
creased their fluency and comprehension after participating education teachers were present and helped to facilitate the
in classwide reciprocal peer tutoring, in which students read peer tutoring. When peer tutoring was applied at the class-
basal texts and their tutors corrected word recognition errors wide level, the general education teacher was the main im-
by following a corrective procedure. Likewise, Kamps et al. plementer of the program, whereas the special education
(1994) found that students increased their reading rate and teacher was monitoring students during the intervention. The
comprehension after reading passages when they received general education teacher was informed about the basic pro-
feedback and reinforcement from peers. Students’ fluency as cedures of peer–mediated interventions because she had been
a measure of generalizing tutored sight words into context involved in similar peer-mediated interventions (e.g., paired
has yet to be examined in the literature. In other words, hav- repeated readings, reciprocal peer tutoring) the previous year.
ing students practice a number of sight words in reciprocal Nevertheless, a separate meeting was held between the first
peer tutoring and asking them to generalize (i.e., read) these author and the general education teacher prior to the class-
words in untaught passages deserves careful examination. wide intervention to discuss the student training procedures
The purpose of sight-word acquisition is to enable students to for peer tutoring. Both the special education and general ed-
build a basic vocabulary and use it in a reading context. To ucation teachers were co-teaching in the inclusive urban

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classroom for 2 to 3 hours each day. However, special educa- consisted of standardized grade-level passages from the Dy-
tion and general education students were separated during the namic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
primary subject courses (e.g., math, language arts) and were Oral Reading Fluency (DORF; Good & Kaminski, 2002)
taught by their respective teachers. The special education measure. Second-grade students were assessed on the second-
teacher had more than 15 years of teaching experience, whereas grade-level DORF passages, and the third grader was as-
the general education teacher had only 3 years of teaching ex- sessed on the third-grade-level DORF passages. The second
perience. Peer tutoring sessions were held three times per set of passages, known as constructed paragraphs, was de-
week for 30 min. They were conducted on Mondays and veloped by the experimenters and included sight words that
Tuesdays from 10:00 to 10:30 a.m. and on Wednesdays from students had practiced during intervention.
1:30 to 2:00 p.m. To evaluate reading fluency, the experimenter followed
Six out of 14 African American students (5 second grad- the scoring rules defined by the authors of the DORF pas-
ers and 1 third grader) were identified for this study. Target sages (Good & Kaminski, 2002) for both sets of passages.
students ages 7 to 8 years, with a mean age of 7 years Specifically, a word was considered correct if the student
4 months, were selected at the beginning of the study. Two (a) read the word correctly in the context of the sentence
students received special education services under the learn- within 3 seconds of the word’s presentation and (b) corrected
ing disabilities category, whereas the other 4 general educa- the word within 3 seconds following an error. A word was de-
tion students were identified as at risk. The 6 students were fined as incorrect when it was (a) omitted, (b) read correctly
included in this study because of (a) low performance on the but in the wrong order (e.g., the sentence was “I drank too
four standardized subtests (Letter–Word Identification, Read- much” and the student read “I too drank much.” The words
ing Fluency, Passage Comprehension, and Word Attack) of drank and too were counted as incorrect, although they were
the Woodcock-Johnson–III Tests of Achievement (WJ-III; read correctly, because the word order was wrong), (c) mis-
Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) and (b) participation pronounced in the sentence, and (d) read or not for more than
in interventions during the previous years of the project. The 3 seconds (e.g., student hesitated or struggled with words).
focus of the project had been to increase the academic per- Repetitions, insertions, and words of imperfect pronunciation
formance of urban minority students through culturally re- because of dialect, articulation, or second language inter-
sponsive interventions. The current intervention was an effort ference were not counted as either correct or incorrect,
to provide follow-through with the same students. Parental following Good and Kaminski (2002). Furthermore, a dis-
consent was obtained for all students who participated in the continuation rule was followed, as outlined in the DORF
study; however, data were collected only for the six target scoring guide: If the student did not read any words correctly
students. A description of the demographic characteristics of during the first row of the passage, the experimenter discon-
the target students is presented in Table 1. tinued the passage and recorded a score of 0.

Reading Comprehension. Student reading compre-

Dependent Variables
hension was measured by the number of missing words that
The study focused on four dependent variables: sight-word the student could identify correctly in each DORF passage
acquisition, reading fluency, comprehension, and mainte-
nance.

Sight-Word Acquisition. A sight word was considered TABLE 1. Target Student Demographic and
acquired when the word was read correctly by the student Academic Characteristics
within 3 seconds after the word had been presented on a plain
3-inch × 5-inch index card. Incorrect responses were re- Student Grade level Gender Agea Disability
corded if the student uttered a different word, responded after
3 seconds, or made no response. Variations in the student’s Erin 2 Female 7-6 LD
pronunciation, articulation, and dialect were not counted as Steve 2 Male 7-1 At risk
errors. For example, if student said “thoouth” when the word
Irena 2 Female 7-5 At risk
those was presented, then the response was still counted as
correct. Mastery of sight words was considered achieved at Dignity 2 Female 7-5 At risk
the last session of the week. Students received a different set Dan 3 Male 8-3 At risk
of sight words for practice at the beginning of each week.
Susan 2 Female 7-1 LD, ADHD
Reading Fluency. Students’ reading fluency rate was
Note. All target students were African American and had low socioeconomic
defined as the number of words correctly read per minute in status. LD = learning disabilities; ADHD = attention-deficit/hyperactivity
a passage. The first author, who served as the primary exper- disorder.
imenter in this study, used two sets of passages. The first set aExpressed as years–months.

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and constructed paragraph. Reading comprehension was the student did not respond or gave a word different from the
measured using the cloze procedure (Grant, 1979). The cloze original answer (i.e., is) on the second try, the answer was
procedure was selected for three reasons: (a) students had to considered incorrect.
simultaneously process semantic (word meaning) and syntac-
tic (word order) clues for completing the cloze passages, Maintenance. Correct reading of 10 sight words taught
(b) the cloze procedure provided a quick estimate of the rela- during peer tutoring was assessed 2 to 3 weeks after the in-
tive difficulty of a particular text for students, and (c) the tervention. Each assessment session consisted of 20 sight
cloze procedure also was used in the pretest and posttest words, of which 10 words were presented 2 weeks after peer
standardized Passage Comprehension subtest of the WJ-III. tutoring had elapsed and another set of 10 words was pre-
Therefore, the experimenter kept the comprehension assess- sented after 3 weeks (except for the initial three assessment
ment procedure consistent throughout the study. sessions, where words were presented after 6, 5, and 4 weeks
Five words were identified for comprehension in each of peer tutoring, respectively). A sight word was defined as
passage and were deleted from the sentences. Three criteria maintained if the student read the word correctly within
were used to identify and delete sight words from the DORF 3 seconds of presentation of the word printed in black ink on
passages and the constructed paragraphs: a 3-inch × 5-inch index card. The words that were counted as
incorrect were reintroduced to the student during the subse-
1. Words had to present grammatical functions quent weekly pretests and were also used in the set of tutor-
(e.g., nouns, indefinite articles, verbs, con- ing words for that week. Furthermore, a cumulative end-of-
junctions). Adverbs or adjectives were avoided study assessment was conducted to verify students’ retention.
in the comprehension assessment because they
included the possibility of having more than Instrumentation
one correct response for each blank space.
Woodcock-Johnson–III Tests of Achievement. Four WJ-
2. Words were not so likely to be substituted with III subtests were used:
synonyms or would have a very narrow range
of possible answers for each missing word. For • The Letter–Word Identification subtest
example, the word to was deleted from the sen- measured students’ word identification skills.
tence “My older sister had ____ go to work,”
as opposed to the word older, as in “My ____ • The Reading Fluency subtest measured
sister had to go to work.” students’ ability to quickly read simple
sentences, to decide if they are true or false,
3. Words had to present meaning in the sentence. and to circle the right answer.

A comprehension item was recorded as correct if the • The Passage Comprehension subtest initially
student identified (a) the exact original missing word within evaluated the student’s ability to match a
5 seconds, either from the first or the second count of reading picture of an object with a rebus. These items
the sentence, (b) a word that was similar to the original word were in a multiple choice format that re-
(i.e., synonyms), and (c) any word of the correct response quired students to point to the picture repre-
class that made semantic sense. For instance, in the sentence sented by a phrase. The remaining items
“My best friend ____ Tim,” either was or is was counted as required students to read a short passage and
correct. An incorrect response was defined as one in which identify a missing keyword.
the student (a) identified a word that did not match in the con- • The Word Attack subtest measured students’
text of the sentence or (b) did not provide a word within skill in applying phonic and structural
5 seconds of reading the sentence for the second time. For ex- analysis skills for reading aloud unfamiliar
ample, if the sentence was “My best friend ____ Tim,” and printed words.
the student identified the as the missing word, then the an-
swer was scored as incorrect. If the student responded with Woodcock et al. (2001) reported a median reliability in
the word is more than 5 seconds after being presented with the 5- to 19-year age range of .91 for the Letter–Word Iden-
the sentence for the second time, the response was scored as tification subtest, .90 for the Reading Fluency subtest, .83 for
incorrect. If the student said more than one word, the experi- the Passage Comprehension subtest, and .87 for the Word At-
menter prompted the student to say only one word. If the stu- tack subtest.
dent identified a similar word, the experimenter requested the
student to try another word. In the previous example “My DORF Progress Monitoring Passages. The DIBELS
best friend _____ Tim,” if the student gave the answer was as Oral Reading Fluency progress monitoring passages were
opposed to the original word is, the experimenter would tell used to assess students’ progress on reading fluency. Test–
the student, “The answer could be was. Try another word.” If retest reliability ranged from .92 to .97 for elementary stu-

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dents. Criterion-related validity ranged from .52 to .91 (Good been presented visually. The mean agreement of weekly pre-
& Kaminski, 2002). tests was 98.5% (range = 95%–100%) for 35% of the study
sessions.
Constructed Paragraphs. Five passages were devel-
oped by the first author, and each passage included two
paragraphs. Each of the 10 paragraphs was administered sep- Treatment Integrity
arately. All reading passages contained 20 basic sight words Procedural integrity checklists were used to evaluate (a) the
that students had mastered during the intervention. For the accuracy of tutors’ behavior during peer tutoring and (b) the
first three passages, all target students had 100% of the 20 experimenter’s behavior for accurately implementing the steps
sight words in their individual bank of peer tutoring words. of reading fluency and comprehension assessments during
For Passages 4 and 5, all students but one (i.e., Irena) had at baseline and intervention. The integrity assessment for read-
least 50% of these 20 sight words in their bank of words. ing fluency was obtained from the official administration
Irena had 9 out 20 sight words (40%) included in the para- manual of DIBELS (Good & Kaminski, 2002), and the in-
graphs. Nevertheless, having fewer mastered peer tutoring tegrity assessment for reading comprehension was developed
words did not influence Irena’s fluency rate on these para- by the experimenter. The treatment integrity on tutor and ex-
graphs. On the contrary, Irena was the only second grader perimenter behaviors was measured by dividing the number
who mastered advanced grade-level sight words during inter- of behaviors performed correctly by the total number of re-
vention. Therefore, it was difficult for the experimenter to quired behaviors multiplied by 100.
include such words (i.e., fourth- to fifth-grade–level sight
words) in the constructed paragraphs, because none of the Tutor Behavior. Target students were observed for all
other second-grade target students had advanced to those levels. tutoring sessions, but they were selected for procedural in-
Paragraphs were tested for readability based on the Flesch- tegrity checks for at least 30% (32 out of 60) of these ses-
Kincaid grade level that accompanied the Microsoft Word sions. All students but one were chosen for fidelity checks at
toolbar. The readability grade level of the constructed para- least four times during the study. Susan was observed only
graphs ranged from 2.3 to 3.7. three times. However, during these three observations, her
mean accuracy was 100%. During intervention, a group mean
of 96.7% (range = 92.7%–100%) for treatment integrity was
Interobserver Agreement
obtained for 32 fidelity checks. Erin and Irena had a mean ac-
The percentage of interobserver agreement (IOA) for the four curacy of 92.7% and 93.7%, respectively. Erin failed to
dependent variables was calculated by dividing the number of prompt her partner, and Irena did not praise her partner dur-
agreements between the two observers (i.e., the experimenter ing practice time. After procedural integrity checks had been
and a second observer) with the total number of agreements completed, during the next tutoring session, the experimenter
and disagreements multiplied by 100. The mean IOA for each prompted both students to follow all steps of tutor behavior.
dependent variable was calculated by summing all the per-
centages of IOA across sessions and then dividing the sum by Experimenter Behavior. Reading fluency and compre-
the number of sessions in which the second observer had hension procedural integrity checks were conducted for eight
been present. A mean IOA of 99.1% (range = 92%–100%) sessions. A mean accuracy of 99% (range = 93%–100%) of
was obtained for sight-word acquisition for 36% (25 out of the experimenter behavior was obtained for eight fidelity
69) of the study sessions. Two mean agreements were calcu- checks. In one of the checks, the second observer recorded
lated for Reading Fluency, because two types of instruments that the experimenter did not completely perform the stan-
had been incorporated in the study. For the DORF passages, dardized verbal directions for reading fluency.
the mean IOA on Reading Fluency was 96.2% (range = 91%–
100%), and for the constructed paragraphs, the mean IOA
was 96.7% (range = 95%–97.5%), measured on at least 40% Observer Training
of the sessions. Likewise, there were two IOA measures for To reduce the likelihood of having any extraneous variables,
reading comprehension. For the DORF passages, the mean such as observer bias or assessment complexity, influencing
IOA was 99.6% (range = 96%–100%), and for the con- the IOA measurements (Kazdin, 1977), observer training ses-
structed paragraphs, the mean IOA was 99% (range = 96%– sions were conducted for two second observers (undergradu-
100%), measured on at least 40% of sessions. Finally, the ate and graduate students). During training sessions, explicit
mean IOA for maintenance was 98.7% (range = 98%–99%) definitions of the target behaviors were presented, and a pre-
for 44% of the sessions. cise and clear description of the peer tutoring intervention
Weekly pretests were conducted across experimental was provided. Examples of reading passages were shown,
conditions to identify students’ unknown sight words. An un- and the recording procedure with all its notations was dem-
known word was defined as a word that the student was not onstrated. Examples and nonexamples of reading compre-
able to read correctly within 3 seconds after the word had hension answers were also given. The procedural integrity

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checklist for reading fluency and reading comprehension was Peer Tutoring Training. Target students were trained
given and discussed with second observers in order to avoid on peer tutoring earlier than the rest of the class. The purpose
any observation drift from the procedures being measured. of this arrangement was to allow target students to receive
more intensive instruction (i.e., working in pairs) than what
they had been receiving in classroom instruction (i.e., small
Experimental Design and Conditions groups). Training for each target pair was conducted in the
A multiple-baseline across-subjects design was used to eval- special education classroom. Because our target students had
uate the effects of total class peer tutoring on student perfor- participated the previous year in a peer tutoring study (Al-
mance (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968). According to Cooper, Hassan, 2003), training for this study lasted only for one ses-
et al. (1987), a multiple baseline design enables the con- sion. Students were able to perform all target tutoring skills
current measurement of the target behavior across multiple correctly during training.
subjects and allows direct monitoring for generalization of After all six target students had entered intervention, the
behavior change. Furthermore, this design does not require rest of the class was engaged in peer tutoring. Prior to the
the withdrawal of an effective intervention to demonstrate ex- class training, a meeting was held with the general education
perimental control. teacher to orient her to the peer tutoring program. The first
The six target students were paired in the intervention author presented a scripted and timed training plan and ex-
based on similar performance on the initial Letter–Word plained all the steps of the activity. Training in the tutoring
Identification subtest and the daily sight-word assessments procedure involved demonstrations and role play. Moreover,
during the baseline condition. Therefore, the pair of students the experimenter assisted the teacher with defining the hud-
that demonstrated the lowest stable levels of responding dur- dle groups and their assigned huddle and tutoring areas.
ing the teacher-led instruction condition first entered the in- In both trainings (i.e., target student pair training and
tervention phase. The first pair (i.e., Erin and Steve) remained total class training), the steps consisted of introducing to the
in baseline for 3 weeks. As soon as the first pair increased the students the purpose and meaning of peer tutoring (e.g., stu-
number of sight words learned during peer tutoring, the sec- dents can be good teachers, and everyone would learn how to
ond and third student pairs entered intervention—after 2 and teach each other words), modeling, and role-playing the
3 weeks, respectively. Student pairs remained in intervention skills. Training steps were based on the guidelines given by
as follows: 20 weeks for the first pair, 18 weeks for the sec- Cooke, Heron, and Heward (1983) in their peer tutoring
ond pair, and 17 weeks for the third pair. When all target stu- handbook.
dents had entered intervention, changes were made with the
second and third pairs. Total Class Peer Tutoring. At the beginning of every
week and immediately before the intervention, the experi-
Pretest. At the beginning of the study, students were menter conducted a weekly pretest for each target student.
tested on the four WJ-III subtests: Letter–Word Identifica- The purpose of the pretest was to identify 10 sight words for
tion, Reading Fluency, Passage Comprehension, and Word each student. Five were the teacher’s sight words, and five
Attack. were unknown words pulled from other basic sight-word vo-
cabulary lists (e.g., Dolch; Lowe, & Follman, 1974).
Baseline. The experimenter conducted weekly pretests Peer tutoring sessions were conducted three times a
to determine the number of sight words that students knew week for 30 min each session. Each student was given a set
prior to the teacher’s instruction of the five sight words. Dur- of 10 sight words. Each target students’ word set was de-
ing each week, the teacher presented five sight words from termined during the weekly pretests. The nontarget students’
her predetermined sight-word vocabulary list. Teacher-led in- (i.e., the rest of the students in the class) word set was decided
struction consisted of presenting (i.e., saying) sight words in by the classroom teacher. Peer tutoring sessions consisted of
small groups and then spelling the words. Later, the teacher five components: tutor huddle, practice, testing, charting, and
would ask students to spell each word in unison and to com- rewarding (Cooke et al., 1983).
plete worksheets using the words. The purpose of the tutor huddle component was to pro-
Data were collected on students’ performance three vide tutors with many opportunities to learn and practice the
times per week. At the end of the teacher’s instruction, stu- words that they would teach to their partners. Tutor huddle
dents were pulled out individually and were asked to identify groups (with two to three tutors per group) were directed to
the words presented on the flashcards. In addition to sight- designated spots in the classroom to practice the sight words
word assessment, students were tested on reading fluency and that they would teach their tutees. A huddle period usually
comprehension. For this purpose, the grade-level DORF pas- lasted for 4 minutes. During huddle time, students took turns
sages were administered in 1-minute timings. At the end of reading their cards to the rest of the group. Each student held
the reading assessment, students were presented with a dif- the card up and announced it, so that the rest of the group
ferent copy of the reading passage and were required to iden- could see and hear the word. If the word was correct, huddle
tify the five cloze comprehension items deleted from the text. members would confirm the correct response by saying “yes.”

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If the word was incorrect, then the group would respond with were tested on sight words three times a week, and reading
“Say [the word].” In the case where no one knew a word or fluency and comprehension were measured once a week us-
when there was a disagreement among the team, huddle ing the DORF grade-level passages. In an effort to collect
members were advised to raise their hand and ask for either more data on the students’ fluency, students completed the
the teacher’s or the experimenter’s help. At the end of huddle DORF passages two times a week starting from the seventh
time, students went to another assigned area to start the next week of intervention. Nevertheless, as data collection contin-
phase of the intervention. The tutor huddle component was ued, there was no clear evidence of the effects of peer tutor-
especially important for the present study, because each of ing on reading fluency based on the standardized DORF
the target students had a different set of sight words to learn. passages. Therefore, two additions were made during the as-
The next component of peer tutoring was practice. Stu- sessment sessions:
dents joined their tutors to practice their words for 6 minutes.
At the end of that time, students switched roles (i.e., tutors 1. Maintenance was incorporated as another
became tutees) and were given another 6 minutes to practice. dependent variable that would provide
The tutor presented the word cards one at a time and asked evidence of whether students’ fluency was
the tutee, “What word?” If the tutee responded correctly, then hampered by their inability to maintain the
the tutor would provide praise and continue with the next sight words.
card. If the tutee erred, then the tutor prompted his or her
partner to try again. If the student responded incorrectly again 2. Constructed paragraphs were incorporated to
or did not respond at all, the tutor would say the word (e.g., measure students’ fluency and comprehension
“Say father”). Tutors were encouraged to present word cards on tutored words.
as many times as possible and to vary their social praise (e.g.,
“Great,” “Super,” “Fantastic,” “Good job”). Posttest. At the end of the treatment, the posttest in-
At the end of the practice period, students tested each cluded the same procedures as used in the pretest. That is,
other on the tutored words. The purpose of testing was to students were tested on the four subtests of the WJ-III.
allow students to evaluate their learning on the mastered sight
words. The tutor presented each word once. The tutor pro-
Social Validity
vided no verbal prompts, verbal feedback, or praise. If the
student identified a word correctly, the tutor would place the Three questionnaires were developed for assessing con-
word on the “happy face” pile. In the case of an incorrect re- sumers’ satisfaction with the intervention. Teachers (in both
sponse, the tutor would put the word card on the “X” pile. At general and special education) and parents completed con-
the end of the testing, both students would record their word sumer satisfaction questionnaires at the end of the interven-
cards with either “happy face” (i.e., correct) or “X” (i.e., in- tion. All classroom students were interviewed by a graduate
correct). At the end of the week, students placed all their student. The teacher questionnaire consisted of twelve 4-point
cards in the “stop” pocket and a new set was given to them Likert-type statements (i.e., from 1 = strongly disagree, to
the next week. The purpose of having students practicing dif- 4 = strongly agree) measuring the peer tutoring procedures
ferent words each week was to control for practice effects on (e.g., easiness, cost-effectiveness, impact of reward system)
the sight-word acquisition variable. and the benefits of peer tutoring (e.g., improved sight-word
After testing, students counted the number of words acquisition, reading fluency, comprehension, promoting aca-
identified correctly during testing and colored the same num- demic and social behaviors). There were also two open-ended
ber of boxes on their chart. During each step of the session, questions where teachers were asked to provide additional
both classroom teachers (general and special education) and thoughts or suggestions about the program.
the experimenter rewarded students (i.e., by placing stamps The parent/guardian questionnaire consisted of seven
on their star cards) for demonstrating appropriate tutoring statements based on a 4-point Likert scale and one open-
behaviors. On completion of the star card, students could ex- ended question. Parents and guardians were asked to rate the
change it with tangible items provided by the general educa- importance of the intervention, appropriateness of proce-
tion teacher. Furthermore, students who completed more than dures, and the advantages of peer tutoring on student’s learn-
half of the boxes on their chart would get a “caught being ing. In the one open-ended question, parents and guardians
good” coupon, on which they could write their name and were given the opportunity to write further comments or
enter it into a lottery. On completing the entire chart, students thoughts about the program.
would again be eligible for other tangible rewards. The student questionnaire included 12 questions. Using
When the whole class participated in the peer tutoring an ordinal scale of measurement from liked very much through
activity, target students continued working with each other, didn’t feel anything to didn’t like, students expressed their
whereas nontarget students were paired among themselves. opinion on six statements. Six open-ended questions were de-
The target students were tested individually at the end of each veloped for measuring participants’ thoughts and feelings
tutoring session. During initial assessment sessions, students about the components of the intervention.

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 RESULTS mean retention of 87.4% (range = 72%–91.7%) was dem-
onstrated during the study. Erin presented the lowest reten-
Sight-Word Acquisition tion percentage (i.e., 72%).
A similar retention pattern was evident for the cumula-
All study participants learned more words during peer tutor- tive maintenance assessment. A group mean percentage of
ing than during teacher-led classroom instruction. Students’ 87% (range = 66%–93.9%) was demonstrated. Again, Erin
sight-word acquisition performance is shown in Figure 1. had the lowest retention rate of 66.2%. One reason for her
Overall, target students as a group presented a mean of 3.97 low retention scores in both assessments was possibly her
(out of 5) correct words during baseline and 9.21 (out of 10) significant number of school absences. Although she showed
words during peer tutoring. Five of the six students dem- the highest percentage gain in sight-word acquisition, her
onstrated gains over classroom instruction. Erin, who was ability to maintain these words across time was hampered by
served under the learning disabilities category, demonstrated her absences from peer tutoring sessions (16 out of 60).
the highest mean percentage increase of 45.8 over baseline
level. However, Irena was the only student with a mean per-
centage decrease of 0.9. Her high pretest (M = 4.4 out of 5) Pretest–Posttest Scores on
and baseline (M = 4.87 out of 5) scores did not permit her to Standardized Measures
exceed her previous performance during peer tutoring. Dur- The results of the standardized WJ-III subtests are shown in
ing intervention, she was presented with more challenging Table 3. Of the four subtests of the WJ-III, the students’ per-
words that were one to three grades above her grade level. formances increased most on the Letter–Word Identification
Thus, her weekly pretest and intervention scores presented a and Word Attack subtests. Specifically, students evidenced
mean of 2.89 and 9.65 (out of 10) correct words, respectively. 5-month and 7-month grade equivalent gains on the Letter–
Noteworthy are the group gains made during the last four Word Identification and Word Attack subtests, respectively.
weeks (Sessions 58–69) of intervention, when the classroom Lower gains were obtained for Reading Fluency and Passage
teacher did not present any sight words from her predeter- Comprehension, wherein students showed 1- and 3-month
mined list. All target students started with a zero score in grade equivalent gains, respectively.
weekly pretests, and by the end of the week, they achieved a
group mean of 9.36 (range = 8.9–9.8) correct words.
Social Validity
The general and special education teachers “strongly agreed”
Reading Fluency and Comprehension
that sight-word recognition is a critical skill for students to
All students increased their reading fluency and comprehen- acquire for their future life. Both of them highly enjoyed par-
sion over classroom instruction levels on the DORF passages. ticipating in peer tutoring. They agreed that peer tutoring pro-
The results are shown in Table 2. Target students demon- cedures were easy to implement, appropriate, and adequate,
strated higher fluency gains on the constructed paragraphs and that peer tutoring helped their students to actively engage
than on the DORF passages during intervention. Fluency in- in their learning. Teachers also agreed that peer tutoring
creases showed a group mean difference of 13.7 words per improved their students’ reading fluency and comprehension
minute (wpm) between the constructed and the DORF pas- skills and that the reward system promoted students’ aca-
sages. A smaller group mean increase of 3.9 wpm was found demic and social performance. The general education teacher
between baseline and intervention on the DORF passages. strongly agreed that peer tutoring improved her students’
Similar findings resulted for reading comprehension. overall reading skills. She also responded that she would
Students achieved higher comprehension gains (mean in- strongly recommend this program to other teachers, and she
crease = 1.1) on the DORF passages during peer tutoring. No was planning to implement it in her class the following year.
substantial increase was evident between the constructed Furthermore, she noted, “This has worked very well for my
paragraphs and the DORF passages during intervention. special education students. The words are not always recog-
Moreover, no comparisons can be made between baseline and nized in reading, but, overall, it is better that they learned the
experimental conditions for students’ fluency and compre- words. Special education students especially need repetition
hension on constructed paragraphs, because these passages, so that they can feel successful.” The special education
as noted previously, had not been used from the beginning of teacher would also recommend this program to other teach-
the study. ers, and she was planning to implement it in her class the next
year. She commented, “My students gained in their reading
skills through peer tutoring. I enjoyed working with [the gen-
Maintenance eral education teacher].”
Maintenance assessments during and at the end of the study Parent/guardian questionnaires were given only to par-
showed that all students but one retained high percentages of ents of the six target students. All six questionnaires were
words practiced during peer tutoring. Specifically, group returned. Overall, parents “strongly agreed” that the peer tu-

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FIGURE 1. Sight-word acquisition during the intervention across the six target students. SW = sight words.

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 TABLE 2. Mean Performance Scores on Reading Fluency (Words per Minute) and
Comprehension for Target Students

Reading fluency Reading comprehension

Classroom instruction Peer tutoring Classroom instruction Peer tutoring

Student DORF DORF CP DORF DORF CP

Erin 14.7 16.5 28 2.3 3.9 4.4

Steve 20.5 23 36.4 3.0 3.8 4.6
Irena 24.6 35.4 54.1 2.8 4.2 4.4
Dignity 21.8 23.3 31.5 2.8 4.1 4.5
Dan 29.2 32.9 48.8 4.0 4.2 4.6
Susan 23.4 26.8 41.2 1.6 3.2 4.5
Group M 22.4 26.3 40 2.8 3.9 4.5

Note. DORF = Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Oral Reading Fluency (Good & Kaminski, 2002) passages; CP = constructed paragraphs.

TABLE 3. Pretest–Posttest Grade Equivalent Scores on the WJ-III Subtests

for Target Students

Student/pretest– Letter-Word Reading Passage

posttest Identification Fluency Comprehension Word Attack

Erin
10/08/03 1.6 < K.9 K.8 1.0
05/07/04 1.8 < K.7 1.4 1.6
Steve
10/21/03 1.6 1.6 1.2 1.0
05/07/04 2.2 1.5 1.8 1.7
Irena
10/10/03 1.9 1.3 1.6 1.9
05/07/04 3.0 2.0 2.0 2.4
Dignity
10/24/03 1.9 1.8 1.4 1.0
05/07/04 2.4 1.6 1.7 2.3
Dan
10/21/03 2.0 2.0 1.8 1.4
05/07/04 2.4 1.9 1.9 2.3
Susan
10/08/03 1.9 1.0 1.4 1.0
05/07/04 2.3 1.2 1.5 1.0
Group M
Pretest 1.8 1.4 1.4 1.2
Posttest 2.3 1.5 1.7 1.9

Note. WJ-III = Woodcock-Johnson–III Tests of Achievement (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001).

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toring helped their child to become a better reader. They and the teacher, all 8 students increased their sight-word ac-
noted that peer tutoring was important and beneficial for their quisition during total class peer tutoring. It should be noted
child to learn more words and that their child explained the that the general education teacher introduced only five words
program in a positive manner. All parents said that they in her daily instruction. After intervention had started, the
would like their child to continue participating in the peer tu- teacher increased the number of words to 10. At the end of the
toring program at school. Dignity’s mother reported, “Dig- study, both general and special education teachers were satis-
nity wasn’t a good reader, but once getting started the peer fied with the performance of their students, especially of the
tutoring, she now reads about the same level she should. I am students with disabilities, as they made up the majority (57%)
very happy that they offer this at the school.” Dan’s mother of students in the class. Therefore, there is sufficient evidence
also mentioned that “he needs more work but I can see the that under well-structured, closely organized conditions, low-
improvement.” achieving students with and without disabilities can learn
Student interviews were conducted for all 14 students in effectively.
the classroom. All students except one liked the peer tutoring Nevertheless, there was one target student who pre-
very much. One student reported that she did not feel any- sented a minor mean percentage decrease (0.9%) on sight-
thing about peer tutoring because her partner was “mean.” word acquisition by the end of the study. Irena’s case is a
The majority of students (64.2%) liked very much being tu- reflection of the teacher’s low expectations and the teacher’s
tors, and a higher percentage (78.5%) of students preferred lack of differentiated instruction toward urban students.
being tutees. All students liked their rewards very much. Par- Specifically, when looking at Irena’s graph, one can clearly
ticipating students reported also that they liked saying differ- observe that her weekly baseline pretest scores were very
ent positive words to their partners (e.g., “good job,” high (M = 88%). This means that Irena already knew the five
“terrific,” “super”). Some of them (28.7%) would have pre- teacher words before the teacher taught them to the class.
ferred having easier but more words to practice during peer Hence, her performance across baseline sessions was quite
tutoring. No differences were found between the target and high (97.4%). When the intervention started, Irena’s weekly
nontarget students’ responses on the social validity measures. pretests (M = 30%) showed that she could read her second-
grade sight words. Therefore, she was presented with more
challenging words, one to three grade levels above her grade
DISCUSSION placement. Despite the fact that she acquired these words
(M = 96.5%) during peer tutoring sessions, the more difficult
This study examined the effects of total class peer tutoring on and higher grade level sight words did not permit her to ex-
sight-word acquisition, maintenance, reading fluency, and ceed her very high baseline levels, which were established
comprehension for six urban elementary-age students. The with much easier words. Teachers’ low expectation is an in-
results of the study showed that five of the six participants in- hibitory academic achievement factor for urban students
creased their sight-word acquisition from teacher-led class- (Cartledge, 2002). Lowered expectations and instructional
room instruction to total class peer tutoring. This finding is goals, common in inner-city schools, need to be points of crit-
consistent with previous research (Al-Hassan, 2003; Gie- ical focus in interventions for urban students.
secke & Cartledge, 1993; Heron et al., 1983) that clearly Data on maintenance probes indicated that the majority
pointed out the effectiveness of this instructional strategy on (83.3%) of the target students were able to maintain their
low-achieving urban populations. Noteworthy is the fact that learned words after 2 to 3 weeks of intervention as well as at
Erin and Susan, two of the five students that made gains over the end of the study (i.e., after 4 months). Students’ high re-
baseline, had been identified as students with disabilities tention percentages (M = 87.5%; range = 72%–91.7%) lend
(learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity dis- support to the findings of Heron et al. (1983), as students
order). It is also worth noting that Erin, a target student with seemed to benefit from peer tutoring procedures.
a disability, showed the highest mean percentage increase Of interest are the findings on students’ reading fluency
(i.e., 45.8%) during intervention. This lends support to the and comprehension. The data on standardized DORF pas-
position that total class peer tutoring can be a viable instruc- sages showed that students’ fluency and comprehension in-
tional tool for the inclusion of students with disabilities in the creased from baseline to intervention. However, moderate
least restrictive settings. As Heron, Welsch, and Goddard effects were evident, and no functional relationship could be
(2003) noted, “tutoring can provide a ‘boost’ to students with determined between peer tutoring and students’ fluency or
disabilities by providing an opportunity for them to con- comprehension based on the DORF passages. Students did
tribute to the overall general education instruction in the not increase their performance (i.e., fluency and comprehen-
classroom” (p. 297). sion) substantially, and one reason for this might have been
Although this study targeted only 6 of the 14 students in the fact that these passages were an indirect generalization
the joint classroom, data were collected for the 8 other stu- measure of students’ tutored words. In other words, the
dents by the general education teacher. Based on anecdotal DORF passages contained very few of the sight words that
reports and informal discussions between the experimenter the students had practiced during peer tutoring. Thus, the stu-

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dents’ reading performance on the DORF passages did not behaviors. Fourth, several word lists were used in the study.
improve significantly. However, several common words were found among the lists,
On the other hand, higher reading rates were evident which created some difficulties during weekly pretests. De-
from the constructed paragraphs, which were specifically de- spite the experimenter’s efforts to avoid presenting the same
veloped to include the words that students were learning in words during weekly pretests, the possibility of introducing
the peer tutoring. Students increased their wpm by a group the same word more than once did occur. These duplications
average of 14 wpm compared to the DORF passages during were accounted for in the assessments, so that students’ re-
intervention. Students’ higher fluency on constructed para- sults reflect the actual number of words learned and retained.
graphs could be explained as the result of a more direct gen- For future purposes, it would be easier to develop one master
eralization measure of students’ tutored words. Constructed word list, from which words can then be taken for pretesting.
paragraphs included at least 20 words that students had prac- Finally, no comparisons can be made between baseline and
ticed and learned during peer tutoring. Therefore, students intervention with respect to the maintenance variable, be-
were able to generalize (i.e., identify and read) these words in cause maintenance was only assessed during intervention.
context. This finding lends support to other studies on peer The inclusion of maintenance for longer time periods from
tutoring (Al-Hassan, 2003; Barbetta et al., 1991) in which tu- the beginning of the study would have remedied this problem.
tored words could be generalized when presented in context Despite the number of limitations and logistical prob-
(i.e., sentences). This is one of the few studies, however, that lems, the results of this study suggest several reasons why
also measured reading fluency. Although we recognized that teachers should implement total class peer tutoring. First,
there are more direct ways to develop reading fluency (e.g., total class peer tutoring is a field-tested instructional activity
repeated readings), these findings show that sight-word ac- that provides increased student opportunity for successful
quisition can also contribute to more fluent reading with un- correct responses and high retention rates. Second, given the
derstanding. That is, fluency in reading isolated sight words ease of training students as tutors, teachers can take advan-
can contribute to fluency in connected text. Students’ reading tage of this rich available resource pool in their classrooms.
comprehension on constructed paragraphs was higher than on Thus, teachers have the opportunity to maximize their in-
the DORF passages. However, the difference was minimal, structional influence on the classroom as well as to provide
because students were able to identify at least four out of five individualized instruction. Third, peer tutoring emphasizes
cloze comprehension items during intervention on either the important social skills that teachers often overlook. Such so-
DORF passages or the constructed paragraphs. cial skills include behaviors such as making positive state-
Students’ pretest and posttest scores on the standardized ments to others, giving and accepting feedback, taking turns,
WJ-III subtests showed that students made the highest gains and cooperating with peers. To the extent that peer tutoring is
in Letter–Word Identification and Word Attack subtests. As established in the classroom, teachers can encourage the gen-
the intervention focused on learning sight words, the stu- eralization and maintenance of these skills across other in-
dents’ gains on these two subtests of the WJ-III were no sur- structional activities. Finally, given the positive consumer
prise. Once again, this finding underscores the beneficial satisfaction outcomes and the simple and easy tutoring pro-
effects of the peer tutoring. cedures, total class peer tutoring should be integrated into
In light of the aforementioned findings, several study teachers’ preservice training. Guiding preservice teachers in
limitations arise. First, no reading fluency and comprehen- structuring peer tutoring, providing appropriate training, and
sion measures were taken on constructed paragraphs during monitoring and evaluating their progress will ultimately in-
baseline. Hence, no comparisons or functional relationship crease the likelihood of their continued use of such strategies
can be discussed between the teacher-led instruction condi- throughout their teaching career.
tion and peer tutoring relative to the constructed paragraphs In summary, this study showed that total class peer tu-
measure. Therefore, future studies might address this direct toring is a viable instructional alternative for both general and
generalization measure at the beginning of the study. Second, special education teachers to support and meet the reading
students stopped practicing their set of sight words by the end needs of minority and culturally diverse students. Students
of the week, and a new set was given at the beginning of next increased their sight-word knowledge and generalized these
week. This limited their opportunity to benefit fully from the acquisitions to contextual passages where they showed in-
peer tutoring practice to master all 10 sight words before creases in fluency and comprehension. Future directions in
moving on to different words. As suggested in the research research might continue addressing the limitations noted in
literature (e.g., Cooke et al., 1983), a criterion of three con- the present study to provide classroom teachers with an even
secutive successes is recommended before removing a word, more efficient instructional tool.

thereby increasing the likelihood of maintenance. Third, stu-
dents’ absences—a common problem in urban settings— LEFKI KOUREA, MA, is a doctoral student in the Special Education Pro-
presented special difficulties in accomplishing the interven- gram at The Ohio State University. Her current interests include effective
classroom management strategies and academic and behavioral interventions
tion goals. One of the target students was absent for 30% of for students with behavioral disorders. GWENDOLYN CARTLEDGE,
the tutoring sessions. Her absences might have affected her PhD, is a professor in special education at The Ohio State University. Her
low retention rate and her lower integrity scores on tutoring research and teaching have focused on students with learning and behavior

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disorders, social skills, preventive interventions, and urban education. tion in urban America: It’s not justifiable for many. The Journal of Spe-
SHOBANA MUSTI-RAO, PhD, is an assistant professor in special educa- cial Education, 27, 453–465.
tion at the University of Cincinnati. Her areas of interest include preventive Grant, P. L. (1979). The cloze procedure as an instructional device. Journal
interventions (academic and behavioral) for urban learners identified as of Reading, 22, 699–705.
being at risk for school failure. She is particularly interested in strategies that Greenwood, C. R., Arreaga-Mayer, C., Utley, C. A., Gavin, K. M., & Terry,
follow the principles of universal design for learning. Address: Gwendolyn B. J. (2001). Classwide peer tutoring learning management system: Ap-
Cartledge, School of Physical Activity and Educational Services, The Ohio plications with elementary-level English language learners. Remedial
State University, 356 Arps Hall, 1945 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43210; and Special Education, 22, 34–47.
e-mail: [email protected]. Greenwood, C. R., & Delquadri, J. (1995). Classwide peer tutoring and the
prevention of school failure. Preventing School Failure, 39(4), 21–25.
Heron, T. E., Heward, W. L., Cooke, N. L., & Hill, D. S. (1983). Evaluation
AUTHORS’ NOTE of a classwide peer tutoring system: First graders teach each other sight
words. Education and Treatment of Children, 6, 137–152.
Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the U.S. Department of Ed- Heron, T. E., Welsch, R. G., & Goddard, Y. L. (2003). Applications of tutor-
ucation Model Demonstration Project for Children with Disabilities Grant ing systems in specialized subject areas: An analysis of skills, method-
no. H324T010057. ologies, and results. Remedial and Special Education, 24, 288–300.
Heward, W. L., Heron, T. E., & Cooke, N. L. (1982). Tutor huddle: Key ele-
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