Talking Tutoring: Tutoring 101

Delia Pompa: Many kids struggle with reading. And sometimes a problem can’t be solved during the regular school day. How do you decide when a child needs tutoring? What options are available to help? Please join me for Tutoring 101, the first segment of the Reading Rockets webcast “Talking Tutoring.”

Narrator: Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast series is provided by the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Delia Pompa: Hello, I’m Delia Pompa. Welcome to the Reading Rockets webcast, “Talking Tutoring.” In this segment of our four part series, we’ll give a tutoring overview. Who needs help? And why? And what are their options?

Joining me are three experts. Dr. Marcia Invernizzi is a Professor of Education at the University of Virginia’s Curry School and Director of UVA’s McGuffy Reading Center. She is the co-creator of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening tool (PALS), and a co-founder of the Book Buddies community tutoring program.

Carole Prest is the Chief Strategy Officer for Building Educated Leaders for Life or BELL. BELL is a nationally recognized provider of after-school and summer tutoring for inner city children living in poverty.

And Anne Hoover is a Director of the Kingsbury School’s Tutoring Division. Kingsbury is based in Washington, D.C., and focuses on the needs of children and adults with learning disabilities. Thank you all for joining us.

Let’s start by looking at the bigger picture. Marcia, what sort of statistics are we seeing when it comes to literacy? And how can tutoring affect these numbers?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, it depends on what figures you want to talk about. But, of course, the most widely acclaimed statistic that you hear from the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) is that about 37 percent of our fourth graders are not able to meet basic reading levels on the NAEP test. Which means they can’t get basic information out of grade-level appropriate material.

Another statistic that you might think of for the big picture is about 20 percent of our school enrollment has been designated “learning disabled.” And of them, the majority of them, about 80-90 percent, have reading disabilities.

But right here in Virginia, you might look at… where we practice universal literacy screening, you might look at what’s coming in the door in kindergarten. And it’s about 15.5 to 16 percent of our kindergarteners are starting school without the rudimentary literacy foundations for emergent literacy that will help them take off and run with literacy instruction easily.

Delia Pompa: Those are dramatic numbers. Anne, when we talk about tutoring, what do we mean? Is it homework help? What is it?

Anne Hoover: Well, certainly many parents do hire tutors to help their students with homework. However, as we’re thinking about reading in particular, but certainly other subject matter as well, tutoring often focuses on students’ remedial needs. Which means that the tutor really needs to go back to where the child is functioning comfortably and build up those basic skills. So that the child is functioning closer to grade level.

Sometimes homework can be part of that. But given the amount of time that’s usually allotted to tutoring — sometimes two or if they’re very lucky three sessions a week — the focus really for most children struggling with reading needs to be on the remedial aspect.

Delia Pompa: I see. Marcia, let me come back to you again. What are some of the tutoring models out there? And are they expensive? And are they all expensive?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, there are lots of different tutoring models. And by that, you might mean tutoring formats, whether it’s small group, how many are in the group, whether it’s one-on-one. There are also kind of pre-established tutoring plans in a box so to speak that are… that can be purchased.

There are… pretty much every basal reading company has their own intervention plan. Which usually consists of simply re-teaching material that students didn’t get the first time around. There are tutoring models that involve experts, reading specialists, and highly trained teachers delivering a very individualized tutoring lesson to struggling readers.

And there are also tutoring models that use volunteers or paraprofessionals who are closely trained and supervised in an ongoing way. Such as the Howard Street Tutoring model or Book Buddies. So there are lots of different tutoring models out there. And they differ not only in the size, but also in the expertise of the teacher.

Delia Pompa: What about location? Do they happen in-school and out-of-school? Or is there a predominance of one over the other?

Marcia Invernizzi: That varies a great deal as well. There are in-school tutoring models during the day, after-school tutoring models, even before-school tutoring models.

Delia Pompa: For children.

Marcia Invernizzi: Many tutoring models that are in collaboration with schools occur at the school site. But others may actually send their children to another building for tutoring. And, of course, a lot of tutoring goes on in homes across the nation.

Delia Pompa: Well, does cost have an effect? I mean, expensive versus free. Is one better than the other usually?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, of course, cost has a lot to do with what parents can choose or what schools choose to do in terms of their planning. Um, when you talk about one-on-one tutoring, of course, you’re talking about something that’s expensive. But it’s certainly a good investment in the future of our children.

But, you know, the cost can be mitigated by smart use of resources. So if you have a reading specialist or someone who is very knowledgeable about reading, rather than using that highly trained specialist to work one-on-one with individual students which would be very expensive indeed, that person can train other people and supervise their work that is planned by the expert.

And thus, reduce the cost substantially. And that’s what we’ve done in Book Buddies and in several other tutoring models that adopted that same type of format.

Delia Pompa: So how do parents find out what the tutoring options are in their area? Carole?

Carole Prest: Well, as Marcia said, it can be pretty overwhelming. There are so many different places you can go to, different price points. What I normally say is they should start with the parents talking to their classroom teacher.

Because that classroom teacher will probably understand the specific areas that child needs help. If they have specific kinds of learning disabilities like dyslexia, they may say go to Kingsbury. The other place to go to is: go to the principal. The principal will know all the resources that are available.

And, you know, for some parents — for example, if parents qualify for a reduced lunch - many schools are able to provide free tutoring, up to $2,000 worth of free tutoring to a parent at that income level if their school is eligible. So I would start with the classroom teacher. And then the principal. And they will help navigate the field.

Delia Pompa: And Marcia gave us some really dramatic numbers that had to do with literacy and how well our children read. How do literacy setbacks affect a child’s emotional level or well being? And how can tutoring help with that?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, children are smart. Whether they’ve been able to read along with their peers are not, they quickly sense when they are being successful in school. And, of course, if school becomes a place of anxiety and fear, then that’s going to affect their self-esteem and it’s going to affect their wanting to go to school, participate, raise their hand.

So it really does have a strong effect on their emotional development and wellbeing. Everybody wants to be successful.

Delia Pompa: Specifically though when you’re working with a child who’s had some emotional setbacks because of the literacy level, are you working on the literacy skills and the emotional skills also? Is it apparent that you’re doing one or the other? How do you do that?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, you try to do it very discretely. And one of the ways of doing it is using games or things that a child is interested in to help them see that they can be successful. None of us likes to be put in the position where we don’t know what we’re supposed to do or the answers.

So you start where a child is successful and build on those successes in order to help them.

Delia Pompa: How does a teacher know which kids should get tutoring? Marcia?

Marcia Invernizzi: Well, through assessments. And through the progress that they’re making in response to their instruction. They’re the two primary ways. A good teacher will be using formative assessments to plan instruction. And will be individualizing and differentiating instruction as much as possible in the classroom to meet all of her children’s needs.

Children’s response to that instruction is a teacher’s best source of information about whether they’re going to need more. And if the instruction is in fact tailored to the child’s specific level and needs, and is comprehensive and meeting the entire array of literacy needs, and the child is still not making adequate progress, then the teacher should make arrangements to have additional instruction in the form of either small group or one-on-one tutoring.

Delia Pompa: Thanks. Carole, we know that the signs of reading difficulty can be spotted early on in elementary school. But is that too young to be considering tutoring?

Carole Prest: Absolutely not. There’s something called the achievement gap that has been very well documented by researchers. And what they find is that when a child comes to school as a kindergartener, if they’re from a low-income home, they might be a few months behind their peers.

But that gap expands year by year. Such that by the time a low-income child has reached fifth grade, they can be two or three years behind their peers. And so why wait until fifth grade to try to adjust that achievement gap?

The other thing that educators will often say is that from kindergarten through third grade, you learn to read. But from fourth grade on, you read to learn. And so we really need to give children at a very early age all of the capability that they can to be successful.

Delia Pompa: We’ve been focusing on the child. But there are three other key players, Anne. The parent, the teacher and the tutor. What’s the dynamic between those three? Or what should it be?

Anne Hoover: Well, it’s really a critical dynamic. Generally, the parent is the one who is asking for tutoring and wants tutoring. Some parents think that they shouldn’t let the tutor know… the teacher know that their child is having tutoring.

We certainly have had the experience of knowing that the teacher figures it out pretty readily that the child is getting help someplace else. And tutoring is much more effective if everyone is working on the same goal at the same time.

So we feel that that kind of communication is essential, that we want the parent, the tutor and the teacher talking on a regular basis and reaffirming that everyone is at the same place and the same time.

Delia Pompa: Okay. What questions should parents ask about their child’s tutoring sessions? Carole?

Carole Prest: Well, I would start with the basics. Because not all tutoring sessions are created equal. I would ask the qualifications of the people who are doing the tutoring. Are they certified teachers? I would ask about the class size. Is it one-on-one? Is it small-group? Is it a larger group session?

I’d want to know is there a curriculum that they follow? I’d like to know as a parent how often am I going to get progress reports? How will I know how my child is doing?

And finally, I’d ask the question of just how much tutoring is my child going to get? Is it one hour a week? Is it more than that? How many weeks? So I would ask the same questions you’d ask about any other service that you would… that you would purchase.

Delia Pompa: Thank you, everyone. This is a great beginning. We’re going to wrap up this segment now. But our discussion isn’t over. Please join us for part two of this webcast when we’ll be talking about what makes a strong tutoring program.

For more information about how you can help the struggling readers in your life and to watch this webcast, please visit us at www.readingrockets.org. And while you’re there, please let us know your thoughts. Click on webcast to find our online survey. Again, thank you for joining us.

Narrator: Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast Series is provided by the United States Department of United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.