Struggling Reader to Struggling Reader: High School Students' Responses to a Cross‐Age Tutoring Program

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the perceptions and responses of struggling ninth‐grade readers who are teaching reading to struggling second‐ and third‐grade students in a cross‐age tutoring program. The program was designed to overcome the entrenched, negative affective barriers that older students often bring to the required reading class by placing them in a leadership role. It also intended simultaneously to improve their vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Results indicate that the older students developed strong mirroring relationships with their younger counterparts based on shared community strengths and norms, shifted their perspective to see themselves as increasingly competent role models, and applied their developing reading abilities as they selected and modified strategies based on the needs of their younger students. Important implications for literacy teachers include a clearer understanding of the powerful, positive attitudinal effects of a well‐planned, low‐cost tutoring program that provides authentic opportunities for literacy learning for all students involved.

Boys, Books, and Boredom: A Case of Three High School Boys and Their Encounters With Literacy

“…Struggling and reluctant readers tend to have a history of frustration and failure with reading in school (Casey, 2008(Casey, /2009O'Connor, 1997;Paterson & Elliott, 2006;Smith & Wilhelm, 2004). Researchers point to a couple of common experiences among youth: (a) As students progress through elementary and middlelevel grades (and eventually into high school), their experiences confirm their attitudes toward reading; and (b) those who continually encounter difficulty with reading repeatedly find themselves in unsuccessful situations, and these repeated situations of failure often cause feelings of anxiety, frustration, and eventually dislike for the act of reading.…”

“…It recursively develops low literacy achievement as students grow older. In order to counteract Matthew effects, students will create barriers to protect themselves against failure (Paterson & Elliott, 2006). Struggling students have low self-efficacy, and they believe that failure is just something that happens to them; they are passive learners and have a sense of learned helplessness (Heron, 2003).…”

“…Struggling students have low self-efficacy, and they believe that failure is just something that happens to them; they are passive learners and have a sense of learned helplessness (Heron, 2003). Anger toward the school or a particular course, which can manifest itself in acting out in class, is yet another barrier (Paterson & Elliott, 2006). A final barrier may be flat-out resistance as a way to refuse participation (Casey, 2008(Casey, /2009).…”

“…Four main principles important to boys for having creative, flow-like experiences with reading are a sense of control and competence, a challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill, clear goals and feedback, and a focus on the immediate experience (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). In connection to flow-like experiences, there are four recurring themes in the literature for teachers to address as ways to help readers reconnect in school: student choice, student motivation and self-efficacy, relational teaching, and active inquiry-based learning (Casey, 2008(Casey, /2009Heron, 2003;Moje, 2000;Paterson & Elliott, 2006;Smith & Wilhelm, 2004). Sometimes those themes and strategies are successful, yet other times teachers who use them encounter meager results.…”

“…That is the most prevalent theme in our literature review. When struggling and reluctant readers have teachers whom they trust, they are more likely to engage with reading (Casey, 2008(Casey, /2009Heron, 2003;O'Connor, 1997;Paterson & Elliott, 2006;Sarroub, Pernicek, & Sweeney, 2007;Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). However, the fear of failure or the difficulty of the challenge at hand might be more powerful than the relationship (Smith & Wilhelm, 2004).…”