Volunteer Support in the Primary Classroom: The long‐term impact of one initiative upon children's reading performance

Abstract

This article reports an evaluation of the effectiveness of a volunteer tutor reading intervention. Volunteers were provided with instruction and supervision in order that they might assist class teachers in the teaching of reading. A strong emphasis upon phonological awareness and storytelling underpinned the programme. Intervention took place in reception classes in three socially disadvantaged schools that could provide parallel classes to serve as controls. Assessment immediately after the intervention, and 3 years later, indicated that children receiving the volunteer intervention failed to make greater progress than same‐school controls. The article considers a number of possible reasons for the apparent failure of the intervention and concludes by cautioning against simplistic expectations that additional adult support should necessarily lead to gains in children's learning.

Children’s perceptions of themselves as learner inside and outside school

“…Much has been written about the influences of home and school on children's achievement (see, inter alia: Edwards and Warin 1999;Elliott, Arthurs, and Williams 2000;Farrow, Tymms, and Henderson 1999). Yet, little is known about how the dual contexts of home and school may impact upon children's confidence and perceptions of themselves as learners.…”

Book reviews

“…I was particularly interested in a chapter dealing with the contribution of teaching assistants, where it was found that these did not have an effect upon children's progress in literacy and mathematics despite the stated perceptions of many of the classroom staff involved. In line with earlier studies (Moyles & Suschitzky, 1997;Elliott et al, 2000) that highlight the difficulties of utilising additional adults in meaningful ways, the study provides rich and detailed case study accounts that highlight the complexities involved.…”

Cross-age tutoring in kindergarten and elementary school settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Peer tutoring can provide students with timely feedback (Bloom, 1984;Merrill, Reiser, Merrill & Landes 1992), increased time on task (Delquadri, Greenwood, Whorton, Carta & Hall,, 1986) and more appropriate pacing (Shanahan, 1998). Tutoring programs are expected to improve socio-emotional outcomes, such as self-efficacy (Elliott, Arthurs & Williams, 2000), self-confidence (Margolis, 2005), and child's confidence in the academic subject tutored (Koh, Sanders & Meyer, 2012). Peer tutoring could help improve social ties between tutees and tutors (Goodlad & Hirst, 1989), strengthen children's attachment to the school and improve attendance (Pridmore, Stephens & Stephens, 2000).…”

“…Secondary outcomes are outcomes that are not priority of the review, but are important for explaining effects (O'Connor, Green & Higgins, 2008). Tutoring is theorized to rely not only on cognitive, but also socio-emotional outcomes (Robinson, Schofield & Steers-Wentzell, 2005), such as confidence (Koh et al, 2012), self-efficacy (Elliott et al, 2000) and self-confidence (Margolis, 2005). Therefore, although academic outcomes were the primary aim of the review, socio-emotional results, if available, were included as secondary outcomes.…”

“…The effective sample size in a cluster-randomized trial is the original sample size divided by the "design effect", which equals 1+(M−1)*ICC, where M is the average cluster size and ICC is the intra-cluster correlation coefficient (Higgins et al, 2008). ICC adjustment was applied for the Elliott et al (2000) study, the only included cluster-randomized trial, using ICC of 0.15, the value suggested by a recent compilation of research on intraclass correlation values of academic achievement in the USA (Hedges & Hedberg, 2007).…”