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This article was downloaded by: [Newcastle University] On: 20 December 2014, At: 15:30 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20 Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies Judith Pickens a & Stuart McNaughton a a Department of Education , University of Auckland Published online: 25 Nov 2010. To cite this article: Judith Pickens & Stuart McNaughton (1988) Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies, Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 8:1-2, 67-80, DOI: 10.1080/0144341880080107 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144341880080107 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/ page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies

This article was downloaded by: [Newcastle University]On: 20 December 2014, At: 15:30Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Educational Psychology:An International Journal ofExperimental EducationalPsychologyPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20

Peer Tutoring of ComprehensionStrategiesJudith Pickens a & Stuart McNaughton aa Department of Education , University of AucklandPublished online: 25 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Judith Pickens & Stuart McNaughton (1988) Peer Tutoring ofComprehension Strategies, Educational Psychology: An International Journal of ExperimentalEducational Psychology, 8:1-2, 67-80, DOI: 10.1080/0144341880080107

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144341880080107

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. Theaccuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies

Educational Psychology, Vol. 8, Nos 1/2, 1988 67

Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies

JUDITH PICKENS & STUART McNAUGHTON, Department of Education,University of Auckland

ABSTRACT Four low achieving 12-year old readers were trained to tutor similar agelow achieving readers in both general (monitoring) and specific (summarisation andillustration) for strategies reading comprehension. Repeated measures indicated that bothtutors and tutees learned to use the strategies successfully. Use of both strategies enhancedcomprehension for tutees. For tutors, there was evidence of generalisation of reading gainsto their own reading. Gains made by tutors and tutees on two standardised reading testswere superior to gains made by a contrast group. Results are discussed in terms of theeffects of increased academic engaged time and increased strategy use on comprehension.

Introduction

Research into peer tutoring of reading indicates that such programmes can havespecific positive effects on the academic performance of those who receive tutoring. Inaddition to those outcomes, several studies have reported on positive academicoutcomes for tutors and positive changes in reading attitude for both tutors and tutees(e.g. Limbrick, NcNaughton & Glynn, 1985).

However, peer tutoring studies in reading tend to have concentrated on wordrecognition training and oral reading. There have been few studies which have utiliseda silent reading mode, and even fewer which have focused on comprehension training.Yet such a focus is needed with older students who are likely to have to deal with asilent reading mode in the classroom. Furthermore, whilst tutoring in oral reading candemonstrably have an effect on improving comprehension (e.g. Limbrick, McNaugh-ton & Glynn, 1985) there are research indications that an initial focus on comprehen-sion can result in gains in comprehension for both tutors and tutees (Brown &Palincsar, 1985).

Recent theoretical claims about skill development and children's learning, bothgenerally and from text material, make a distinction between specific performancestrategies and more general regulating activities which influence performance (Brown,

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68 J. Pickens & S. McNaughton

Campione & Day, 1981; McNaughton, 1987). Specific strategies are those, such assummarising, imaging and outlining which are acquired for and deployed in aparticular medium to achieve particular goals, in the present case text-based compre-hension. Children can also regulate their performances by monitoring, evaluating andovercoming problems or difficulties. Brown has termed these activities of regulation'metacognitive' strategies (Brown, 1978, 1982).

In the present study these strategies of performance and regulation were traineddirectly. The specific comprehension strategies trained—summary writing and illus-trating texts—were derived from Wittrock's (1974) model of generative learning. Thismodel proposes that comprehension of text is facilitated when learners activelyconstruct meanings and meaningful elaborations for the text. The regulatory activities,or general metacognitive strategies which were trained, involved self-monitored checkson comprehension. Descriptions were derived from previous research by Meichenbaum& Asarnow, (1979) and Brown (1982), which had suggested that underlying inade-quate performance is a general failure to regulate performance. The major purpose ofthe present study was to investigate whether it was possible to train low achievingstudents to tutor their lower achieving classmates in the effective use of selectedcomprehension strategies.

Method

Subjects

Subjects were eight children (four boys and four girls) from a composite seven andeight year classroom. Ages of tutees ranged from 11 years, 3 months; to 13 years, 6months; with a mean of 12 years, 6 months. Ages of tutors ranged from 12 years, 3months; to 12 years, 8 months; also with a mean of 12 years, 6 months. Tutor-tuteepairs 1 and 4 were girls, and pairs 2 and 3 were boys. Tutors 1 and 2 were youngerthan their tutees, tutors 3 and 4 were older. Tutees had reading deficits (comparedwith their chronological ages) of between 1 year and 7 months and 4 years and 9months, with a mean of 3 years, 2 months on the Gap Reading Comprehension TestForm R (McLeod, 1965); and of between 2 years 9 months and 5 years, 1 month witha mean of 3 years, 8 months on the accuracy score of the Neale Analysis of ReadingAbility (Neale, 1966).

Tutors, selected from the same class as the tutees, were paired with tutees in such away that tutors had superior scores to the tutees by at least six months in reading ageon both the Gap Reading Comprehension Test and the Neale Analysis (readingaccuracy score).

A contrast group was formed from among those children in the classroom who werenot selected for the tutoring programme. The contrast group was selected according toscores on the Gap Reading Comprehension Test and the Neale Analysis accuracyscore. Data on tutors, tutees and the matched contrast group are shown in Table 1.

Measures

Repeated measures were taken of answers to multiple choice comprehension questionsassociated with the classroom structured reading programme (Ward Lock, 1975).Repeated measures were also taken on cloze recall tests prepared from the same

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Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies 69

TABLE I. Chronological ages and pre and post test reading scores for tutors, tutees and matched contrastsubjects in years and months (time elapsed between tests was three months)

Subject

TuteeTuteeTuteeTutee

TutorTutorTutorTutor

Tutee ContrastTutee ContrastTutee ContrastTutee Contrast

Tutor ContrastTutor ContrastTutor ContrastTutor Contrast

1234

Mean

1234

Mean

1234

Mean

1234

Mean

Chrono.Age

13.013.612.111.312.5

12.312.812.712.312.5

13.112.112.1111.512.5

11.1012.911.012.211.11

GapRdg.

8.310.58.119.49.3

9.111.110.19.10

10.0

8.39.49.18.58.9

10.111.19.1

10.510.2

Pre Test

NealeAccuracy

9.18.58.118.68.9

10.910.29.89.4

10.0

9.39.28.108.68.11

11.311.1010.210.1111.00

NealeComp.

7.39.58.107.48.1

9.38.28.57.18.3

8.58.119.17.38.4

9.110.117.67.48.8

GapRdg.

9.1010.710.59.10

10.2

10.1112.6 +10.510.111.00

9.110.19.108.29.4

11.411.18.11

11.110.7

Post Test

NealeAccuracy

9.48.79.08.98.11

12.110.1110.910.711.1

9.610.89.08.99.6

11.1012.110.411.411.5

NealeComp.

8.1110.119.59.19.7

12.411.611.1011.1111.8

9.611.48.88.89.7

10.1112.18.108.11

10.2

material. These cloze recall tests were given one week after initial reading of thepassage.

Pre and post test reading measures were taken on the oral reading accuracy andcomprehension subtests of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (Neale, 1966) and onthe Gap reading comprehension cloze test (McLeod, 1965), in order to measurechanges over time. Statistical comparisons were made between all the experimentalsubjects (tutors and tutees) and the matched contrast children.

Pre and post test measures of strategy knowledge, attitude and self-concept and peerstatus were also taken.

Design

A multiple baseline design (Baer, Wolf & Risley, 1968) was employed to obtainexperimental control through intra-subject comparison. In addition, an alternatingtreatments or multiple schedule design (Hersen & Barlow, 1976), employed concur-rently with the multiple baseline, enabled the effects of two treatment conditions(summarisation or illustration) to be investigated.

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Materials

The reading texts came from the Ward Lock Reading Workshop 9-13 (Ward Lock,1975), a source of regular classroom material. Summarisation training described in theliterature has frequently been carried out on specially written tests. However, "theworld is full of inconsiderate texts" (Bridge, Belmore, Moskow, Cohen & Matthews,1984)—for example, paragraphs without explicit topic sentences. Readers weretrained, therefore, on the type of material they were likely to be required tocomprehend in a regular classroom.

Procedures

General

Prior to commencement of baseline tutors and tutees were placed on reading materialat the first level at which they scored below 75% correct on the multiple choicecomprehension test.

Baseline

Tutor and tutee pairs one to four worked independently for 6, 8, 10 or 12 baselinesessions respectively. Readers were told they could do anything that helped themunderstand and remember the passage. Blank note paper was supplied. Criterion forsubsequent promotion to a higher text level for all subjects was set at two consecutivepassages with questions answered 100% correctly. This remained constant throughoutthe study. Should subjects complete all the material at a particular level withoutreaching the promotional criterion, material would be re-read.

Training

As each tutoring pair completed their baseline, initial training for comprehensionmonitoring and the summary strategy was given in one 45-minute session. Both tutorand tutee were present. A tutor's guide to tutoring sessions, a checklist, a summaryguide and summary examples were supplied as a package and discussed. The firstauthor modelled the comprehension monitoring and summary writing procedures forthe tutor, verbalising the strategies, and completing part of the story as an example.The use of recording and evaluation sheets was demonstrated. The tutor thenexplained and demonstrated the comprehension monitoring and summary writingstrategies to the tutee, and both parties practised the procedures. The experimenterlistened to the tutor discussing the tutee's summary statements and gave feedback andguidance to the tutor. Training in the story picture strategy took place in a secondsession of about 20-30 minutes. It was taught in a similar way to the summaryprocedure, through written and oral instruction, modelling, strategy verbalisation,practice and feedback. The experimenter monitored the tutors as they gave feedback tothe tutees, for three of the first six tutoring sessions. Thereafter, oral feedback to thetutors from the first author was given intermittently.

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Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies 71

Strategies 1: productions

This first tutoring phase had two components:(1) a constant monitoring component; and(2) a variable strategy production component. Specifically, following training,each pair read silently from copies of the tutee's reading material, using guidelinesfrom checklists to monitor their comprehension of the text; both parties thenengaged in one of two "specific performance strategies"; these were either:

(A) writing a summary of what had been read; or(B) drawing a labelled and titled picture about what had been read.

The instructions for the writing summaries strategy followed the suggestions ofBrown & Day (1983) and Brown et al. (1981) together with the development of listingimportant details suggested by King et al. (1984). Instructions included dividing thetext passage into sections then considering all paragraphs in the section and integratinginformation across paragraphs; leaving out unimportant detail and not repeatinginformation; grouping lists; stating the main idea or action; using one's own words andnot copying verbatim; listing important details.

For the labelled and titled picture or illustration strategy subjects were instructed toform a picture in their minds as they read. They were to think of background, objects,people, animals and actions. They were then to illustrate the image, using quicklydrawn stick figures, and to give an appropriate title. Tutors evaluated their tutees'summary or picture production according to the guidelines given to them. Reading apassage and completing a written summary took at least twice as long on average asmerely reading the passage. Reading and completing a captioned illustration took lesstime than reading and completing a summary, but more time than merely reading thepassage.

Monitoring of text comprehension whilst reading was encouraged through use of achecklist developed from previous research (e.g. Babbs, 1984; Paris, Cross & Lipson,1984). The checklist encouraged readers to identify problems in the text, at the wordor idea level, through checking the sense of the passage at the end of a sentence,paragraph or section. Problems were identified, and certain strategies were suggestedto try and resolve the difficulty—such as re-reading the sentence or paragraph,checking punctuation, reading on, using a dictionary or asking for help. The perform-ance strategies of writing summaries or drawing story pictures were alternated acrosssessions, and counterbalanced across days of the week and types of reading material(i.e. the longer reading workcards and shorter speedcards).

Strategies 2: oral recall

In this phase, two changes were made. First, tutees selected which of the twoperformance strategies (summaries or pictures) they wished to use in each session.Secondly, writing or illustrating on paper was not required. Instead tutees were told tomentally form summaries or pictorial images as they read. After reading the tutees toldthe tutor about the summary or image of the story that they had formed while reading.Tutors were instructed to probe for clarification or expansion of their tutee's summaryor image if this seemed necessary. Tutors made no written evaluation, except to recordwhich of the strategies the tutee had used, and the time taken. Reading and retellingthe passage during Strategies 2 reduced the time taken to closer to baseline times.

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72 J. Pickens & S. McNaughton

Strategies 3: independent phase

In the Strategies 3, or independent phase, no tutoring took place. All subjects readindependently from material at their own level. At the commencement of the phase,subjects were told by the first author that they would be working independently andwere reminded to monitor their understanding using the checklist.

Reliability

(1) Multiple choice comprehension questions were marked according to the pub-lisher's marking sheet.

(2) Reliability checks on both exact and appropriate cloze replacements wereundertaken by independent observers on passages. One such check was made on eachsubject's data during each of the baseline, tutoring and independent phases (total 24).For exact substitutions, a mean agreement of over 99% was reached. For appropriatesubstitutions, a mean agreement of 92% was reached.

(3) On measures of performance strategies, three reliability checks were made foreach subject, for each of the nine summary measures and each of the four picturemeasures. For all but one of these measures a mean agreement of 95%, or greater, wasreached.

(4) On the standardised test of Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, six pre test andsix post test analyses were tape recorded and independently reanalysed by a secondobserver. Mean agreements of 97% (accuracy) and 99% (comprehension) werereached.

Results

Tutees

Comprehension questions. Fig. 1 shows the tutees' scores on the multiple choicecomprehension questions across baseline and three strategy training phases. Themultiple-baseline demonstrates changes in level or trend in comprehension scores fromthe beginning of training for three of the four tutees. For the remaining tutee (Tutee2) there is an increasing trend during the tutoring phase but the data do not show clearchanges from the beginning of intervention.

Data for the strategies 2 phase indicates that tutees tended to maintain the levelsthat had been established during Strategies 1. All tutees achieved mean comprehensionscores of over 80% across the summary and picture strategies together. Fig. 1 showsthat increased comprehension scores were maintained over successively more difficultreading levels. Three subjects increased their reading levels after tutoring commenced.Preferences for the summary strategy over the pictures strategy were shown by threetutors (Tutees 1, 2, and 3) during the Strategies 2 phase, while Tutee 4 showed apreference for the picture strategy. For Tutee 2, though summaries were preferred,they appeared overall to be not as effective as pictures. No differences specificallyattributable to use of either one of the two strategies were evident for the other tutees.Data for Strategies 3, the independent phase shows that all tutees maintained theimproved levels established during the previous two tutoring phases. This indicatesthat the 'fading out' effectively maintained performance after the withdrawal oftutoring procedures.

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Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies 73

FIG. 1. Percentage multiple choice comprehension questions correct for tutees across phases. • : Summaries;O: pictures; • : no tutoring; T : level change.

Delayed cloze. There were positive changes in level of delayed cloze recall for all fourtutees, coincident with the tutoring programme (see Fig. 2). Gains were made for bothexact and appropriate substitutions, and were particularly strong for appropriatesubstitutions. The levels of delayed cloze recall established during Strategies 1 weremaintained during subsequent phases with the exception of Tutee 4. Delayed clozerecall did not appear to be related to the type of strategy employed, (whethersummaries or pictures).

Tutors

Comprehension questions for tutors. Scores on multiple choice comprehension questionswere taken during baseline and independent phases, with probe measures taken duringthe tutoring phases. Tutors were not engaged in generative productions on their own

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74 J. Pickens & S. McNaughton

Delayed cloze. Figure. 4 shows that tutors delayed cloze scores did not appreciablychange with the commencement of tutoring. Tutors' scores show no clear changes in

FIG. 2. Percentage exact and appropriate responses on probe measures of one week delayed cloze recall fortutees. • : Exact; • : appropriate; T : level change; S: summaries; p: pictures.

reading material, although they did have available the matacognitive checklist, after thecommencement of the tutoring phases. These data are shown in Fig. 3.

The multiple baseline design suggests some improvement in performance as afunction of tutoring for Tutor 3 (change in trend) and Tutor 4 (change in level)following the commencement of the Tutoring 1 phase. Results for Tutor 1 wereconfounded by the change in reading level coinciding with the phase change and forTutor 2 there appears to be a gradual rise in performance across phases. For Tutors 1,2, and 3 there were gradually increasing trends across the three Strategies phases.These rising trends in comprehension are particularly apparent during Strategies 2 and3 and were maintained despite increases in book level. For Tutor 4, the change in levelnoted for the Strategies 1 phase was maintained across the Strategies 2 and 3 phases.

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Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies 75

FIG. 3. Percentage multiple choice comprehension questions correct for tutors across phases. T : Levelchange.

level, but do display gradually rising trends, perhaps indicating that general pro-gramme participation was having a positive effect on their performance.

Pre and post measures

Comprehension. The gains on repeated comprehension measures were supported bygains on the two standardised reading tests of comprehension—Gap and Neale. Theseresults are summarised in Table I.

For both tutors and tutees, the mean gains in months on the Neale Analysiscomprehension measure were considerably greater than those expected for the threemonths of study and were also greater than those of the contrast group. Gains for theexperimental group of tutors and tutees (x=29.6) were found to be significantlydifferent from those for the contrast group (x=15.6) (Mann-Whitney U test, U = l l ,p<.05). The data for both tutors and tutees on the Gap Reading Comprehension

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Baseline Strategies 1

FIG. 4. Percentage exact and appropriate responses on probe measures of one week delayed cloze recall fortutors. • : Exact; • : appropriate; T : level change.

(Form R) measure also show gains in tested reading comprehension which are greaterthan an expected three months gain. Although the mean gains in months for bothtutors (x=11.5) and tutees (x=11.4) are twice those for the contrast group (x=5.8),the differences were not significant (Mann-Whitney U test, U=20/>>.05).

Accuracy. On the Neale Analysis accuracy measure all pupils except one made gains,but there were no significant differences between the two groups (tutors and tuteesx=7.6; Contrast x=5.4; Mann-Whitney U Test, U=21,/>>.05).

Strategy Measures

Summary strategy. All readers generated summary statements on all required occa-sions, meeting many of the pre-determined criteria, such as using one's own words andidentifying a text character or topic, and producing little incorrect information. The

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Peer Tutoring of Comprehension Strategies 77

major criterion of identifying the 'main ideas' was the most difficult to achieve, beingachieved a mean of 56% of the time for tutees, and 72% for tutors. The 'main ideas' ofthe passages, which were used to evaluate the subjects' summaries, had been previouslyidentified by the first author. In order to socially validate this judgement eightexperienced special education teachers each wrote a six-sentence summary of adifferent reading passage. These summaries were then compared with those for thesame passage written by the first author. All special education teacher summariesincluded 90% to 100% of the 'main ideas' selected by the first author.

Illustration strategy. All readers generated story-related pictures containing severalelements. All tutoring pairs except pair 3 generated titles for most of their pictures.There were no overall differences between tutors and tutees in style of illustrationused, in ability to generate story-related titles, or in mean number of illustrated itemsor captions. The quality or appropriateness of illustrations or captions was notassessed.

Other Measures

A range of other measures were taken relating to knowledge of strategies and effectivecharacteristics. (The detailed results are available from the first author.) There was anoverall low level of verbalisable knowledge of appropriate monitoring and specificstrategies, both before and after the tutoring. Tutors and tutees showed gains on someof these knowledge measures. Measures of self-concept, attitude to reading andsociometric rating indicated few systematic changes.

Discussion

Both tutors and tutees made gains in reading during the tutoring programme, asindicated by repeated measures on multiple choice comprehension questions anddelayed cloze recall, and by results on two standardised reading tests. The multiplebaseline data show that tutees improved their reading comprehension and recall as aresult of tutoring in specific cognitive comprehension strategies and in meta-monitor-ing activities. They maintained these improvements during an independent phase.Academic outcomes on standardised reading tests were also generally positive for bothtutors and tutees. Gains for tutors and tutees compared with those of the contrastgroup were significantly superior on one comprehension measure. Small positiveincreases in knowledge of effective reading strategies were noted for both tutors andtutees. These results support those of previous research on peer tutoring in reading,especially those where tutoring has involved engagement with texts. Such studiesreport positive academic outcomes for tutees (e.g. Limbrick et al., 1985; Wheldall &Mettem, 1985), and in a smaller number of studies, positive academic outcomes fortutors, (e.g. Limbrick et al., 1985).

Previous research has offered a number of explanations for these outcomes of peertutoring programmes. Limbrick et al., (1985) accounted for the positive effects oftutoring programmes on both tutors and tutees in terms of increased 'academicengaged time' (Rosenshine & Berliner, 1978). Academic engaged time refers to thattime in which a student is actively engaged in processing the curriculum. Increasingallocated curriculum time is not synonymous with increasing academic engaged time.

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78 J. Pickens & S. McNaughton

In the present study, curriculum time in reading did not increase for the tutors andtutees group compared with that of the contrast group. However it is possible thatacademic engaged time did increase for the tutors and tutees group. For example, theobservations showed that when tutoring strategies were introduced, tutees spent moretime reading their texts prior to answering the comprehension questions than they haddone during baseline. The additional academic engaged time may have been acontributing factor in the greater gains on standardised reading tests made by thetutors and tutees group. However, the extra time spent reading was a product of usingspecific strategies, where initially no such strategies were observed to occur. Thetutoring programme was an alternative to the regular classroom reading programmeand so did not represent additional reading curriculum time. Thus, the present studydid not separate out the effect of using the performance and monitoring strategies fromthose of merely increasing academic engaged time. Increasing time through just beingasked to re-read the passages may have resulted in gains in comprehension similar tothose achieved when using the strategies. Even if that were so, strategies which resultin students voluntarily increasing their academic engaged time merit further attention.

An alternative explanation is that the results are attributable to the instruction andpractice of effective reading strategies. Brown (1982) suggests that critical readingrequires both effort and strategic ingenuity. The present study aimed to provide acontext in which both of these could occur. Consistent with this interpretation is thefinding of greater gains in comprehension than in oral accuracy, on the standardisedmeasures. In this programme which provided tutoring in strategies, tutors wereengaged in the silent reading of material at, or slightly below, their own instructionallevel. They were also engaged in cognitive strategies which involved checking theirown understanding of the material in order to provide evaluative feedback to theirtutees. This form of academic engagement which was an integral part of the tutoringprogramme was a crucial factor in accounting for the gains made by tutors. This viewis supported by the greater gains in reading made by tutors compared with the tutorcontrast group.

Overall, repeated measures did not show either of the two strategies, summarisationor illustration, had a superior effect on comprehension—both strategies facilitatedcomprehension. It appears that readers could be trained with either, or both, strategies.Some types of reading material may lend themselves more readily to one strategyrather than the other.

Faw & Waller (1976) and Rothkopf (1974) point out that in many situationseffectiveness (i.e. learning more) is more important than efficiency (i.e. learning in lesstime). The critical variable is thus the total amount learnt, rather than the time spentlearning it. Tasks which promote deeper processing of texts and increased academicengaged time, as in the present study, provide support for readers' efforts to meet thedemands of comprehending and recalling texts.

Both tutors and tutees made greater gains on a variety of comprehension measuresthan they did in accuracy. Previous research has indicated that gains in oral accuracyare not always accompanied by gains in comprehension (e.g. Mollod, 1970), or thatgains in comprehension may be smaller than those in oral accuracy, and not maintained(Wheldall & Mettem, 1985). The training programme in the present study addressdcomprehension skills directly, without concentrating on improving oral readingaccuracy. Results for both tutors and tutees indicated that substantial gains incomprehension may be made without corresponding gains in standardised tests of oralaccuracy. A recent study involving reciprocal teaching (Brown & Palinscar, 1985)

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which also aimed to address comprehension skills directly, reported larger gains incomprehension compared with accuracy. Questionnaire results showed that tutors feltthat their contribution to tutee progress was valuable and effective. However, pre andpost questionnaire measures of self concept and peer rating showed no overall changes,although informal observations indicated developing friendship bonds between tutorand tutee pairs. It appears either that tutoring same age peers may have no effect onself concept and peer status or, alternatively, that pre and post questionnaires mayprovide inadequate measures of such factors and that perhaps behavioural observationsmay serve to highlight changes that are not apparent through questionnaire responses.

Tutor 1 was the only tutor who carried out all her tutoring responsibilities at a nearoptimum level. The other three tutors had difficulty in one or more of identifying themain idea, giving positive feedback and adequately maintaining their evaluation sheets.They tended to accept less than adequate contributions from their tutees. However, alltutees made progress under the tutoring programme, showing that tutoring need not be'perfect' in order for it to have a beneficial effect on tutees. These findings areconsistent with previous research. In a reciprocal peer teaching programme involvingsummarisation (Brown & Palincsar, 1985) tutors were also able to promote compre-hension skills in their tutees, despite their being less than gifted teachers, although theywere good at modelling the required strategies.

It has already been noted that tutees maintained their improved reading, asevidenced by results on comprehension questions and cloze recall, during an indepen-dent phase (Strategies 3) in which no tutoring back place. Results of multiple choicereading questions and delayed cloze recall on tutors' own reading material support theclaim for that their reading skills had generalised across behaviours and settings. Thegenerally positive outcomes for both tutors and tutees, together with the ease ofimplementation, suggest that peer tutoring in comprehension strategies and monitoringmerit further attention in the classroom.

Correspondence: Dr Stuart McNaughton, Department of Education, University ofAuckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

REFERENCES

BABBS, P.J. (1984) Monitoring cards help improve comprehension, The Reading Teacher, 38, pp. 200-204.BAER, D.M., WOLF, M.M. & RISLEY, T.R. (1968) Some current dimensions of applied behaviour analysis,

Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 1, pp. 91-97.BRIDGE, C.A., BELMORE, S.M., MOSKOW, S.P., COHEN, S.S. & MATTHEWS, P.D. (1984) Topicalization and

memory for main ideas in prose, Journal of Reading Behaviour, 16, pp. 61-80.BROWN, A.L. (1978) Knowing when, where, and how to remember: a problem of metacognition, in: R.

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