Pause, prompt and praise – peer tutored reading for pupils with learning difficulties

Abstract

Eila Burns undertook the enquiry that is the subject of this article while studying for her MEd degree at the University of Birmingham. She is now a lecturer in teacher education at Jyvaskyla University of Applied Sciences in Finland. The project she describes here aimed to assess the effectiveness of peer tutoring and the advantages of the structured 'pause, prompt and praise' reading method in improving reading skills among pupils working in Key Stage 4. Action research was undertaken in a secondary level special school catering for pupils with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) in order to ex p l o re the benefits of establishing such interventions within special school environment.The pause, prompt and praise reading sessions w e re conducted at the beginning of lessons, employing same-age peer tutors and using subject-based texts. The findings reveal that, after a slow start, the tutees' rates of self-correction began to rise, indicating improvements in reading skills. Eila Burns also reports growing skills and confidence in the tutors, suggesting benefits for all involved in the peer tutoring process. She describes, in detail, interesting differences between outcomes for the different tutor-tutee pairings in her work and proposes a number of ways in which her small-scale enquiry could be taken forward. The implications of this study are, however, very encouraging for practitioners considering the use of peer tutoring in their own environments.

Okuma Güçlüğünün Giderilmesinde 3P Metodu ile Boşluk Tamamlama (Cloze) Tekniğinin Kullanımı Üzerine Bir Çalışma

“…Bu aşama, cevabı direkt vermeksizin ipuçları sunarak ve kendini düzeltmesi için fırsat tanıyarak çözümleme-sine (decode) yardım etmeyi kapsayan bir aşamadır. Son aşama olan övme aşaması ise, uygun okuma davranışının sözel övgü ile desteklenmesi sürecini kapsar (Burns, 2006).…”

Influence of a catalan peer tutoring programme on reading comprehension and self‐concept as a reader

“…Moreover, other factors that have been identified through the analysis of interaction in this segment, which may have contributed in a positive way to RC development, are joint reading (Topping, ), PPP reading (Burns, ), repeated reading (Oakley, ), all of which are essential for improving reading fluency and correction, and supervised repeated readings (Therrien et al, ), which are also encouraged within the Reading in pairs programme. Given the aforementioned text, and the fact that in some cases students were not completing the assigned reading tasks, it is of paramount importance to reinforce initial and continued training throughout the programme.…”

“…Firstly, a joint reading of the text (Topping, ) and supervised repeated reading (Oakley, ; Therrien, Wickstrom & Jones, ); secondly, a comprehension verification stage through reading strategies of anticipation, regulation and control; and thirdly, at the end of the reading, application of strategies through literal, inferential and deep comprehension of the text (Solé, ). For reading, the reading aloud technique used is the PPP—Pause, Prompt and Praise (Wheldall & Colmar, ), which yields positive results in terms of reading skills improvement (Burns, ). Every four sessions, a self‐assessment task has to be completed by all students in order to prompt them to reflect on their own learning process and the progress made, as well as on the role development and the activities that are going to be carried out (Duran et al ).…”

Tutoría entre Iguales y Comprensión Lectora: ¿Un Tándem Eficaz?

“…Se inician activando la motivación. Seguidamente (durante la lectura), se realizan dos lecturas del texto: una lectura conjunta (permite leer sin interrupciones) y una segunda lectura con la técnica PPP -Pause, Prompt, Praise (Wheldall & Colmar, 1990), con resultados muy positivos en la mejora de la competencia lectora (Burns, 2006). En el último bloque: después de leer, se realizan las actividades de comprensión relacionadas con dar respuesta a diversas preguntas de comprensión relativas al texto.…”

“…La lectura conjunta, realizada correctamente, propicia la fluidez y la mejora de la comprensión lectora (Topping, 1989). La lectura PPP avalada por algunas investigaciones previas (Burns, 2006), siendo una lectura con audiencia cualificada que utiliza el andamiaje, favorece la ayuda graduada necesaria para cada error, tutorado y texto, lo cual permite hacer un ajuste personalizado y contextualizado a las necesidades de lectura y comprensión de cada alumno. Vale destacar también la importancia de la lectura repetida en voz alta para mejorar la fluidez y la corrección lectora (Oakley, 2003) que se consideran imprescindibles para poder contribuir a la mejora de la competencia lectora.…”