|
Many of the components of a successful after-school tutoring
program for early elementary school children are included in the skills of
a good teacher at that level. There are additional things that are important
to do or know for program success. We have included a number of items we have
found to be important in the list below. The list below is expected to grow as
we learn more and refine the program. This list is not in order of importance.
While a complete list of factors to a successful program may never exist,
this is a start.
1. The most efficient time to improve a child's education is in their
earlier years. This observation underlies the Head Start programs,
Early Childhood Education, and a host of other programs.
It is also noted that unless the child continues to receive support,
they lose any boost they have received from the early childhood program
and they tend to sag to the level of performance supported by their environment.
2. Helping the children get their homework done regularly improves
their academic self image and expectations. It also provides the children
with the experience of academic success sufficiently early in their
educational career that they have a better chance of habitually working to do well.
3. Kids like to get their home work done and to be able to raise their hand
in class and say in class "Yes, I know the answer."
4. A child will remain interested as long as they are learning.
The longer day is not a deterrent if they have good tutoring.
5. A child's expressing their thoughts during the course of
their studying enhances their learning(1). Talking out loud(2) (on topic),
or telling or explaining it to another, both help the learning.
6. Successful education and development includes individual attention,
in addition to any classroom activity, independent study, and homework or practice.
A parent, a tutor, a mentor or friend may supply the individual attention and motivation.
Exceptions occur where students succeed without any individual attention,
but they are not common. This is the special role that after school programs
provide in a child's life.
7. Incentives, such as stars on a chart or prizes for work accomplished,
are effective as a game to motivate children to strive to complete short term targets.
Changing incentives during the course of the year are necessary
as any particular incentive loses its excitement after a while.
8. Children are recruited to this program by recommendations from
their classroom teachers who have recognized that these children need the extra help
in order to succeed. This prevents the program from being
a babysitting service and helps just those students who really are not getting
the help elsewhere.
9. Getting children to express themselves orally is part of the learning
and development process. This is achieved by having the children
to explain things with which they are having trouble.
Using middle and high school students as tutors capitalizes on the observation that
children will talk more openly to other children than to an adult.
10. Interacting with another person increases the learning accomplished by a child(3).
This form of interaction is very limited with teacher-directed attention
in the normal classroom. In fact, interaction with others is usually frowned upon
during daytime classes. The small group setting of one tutor with three students
easily allows child-child discussions on the subject matter.
11. Children crave attention, and even negative attention is often preferred to no attention.
A child that misbehaves in class gets enough individual attention in
the small group tutoring setting that they quickly settle down and cease misbehaving.
Additionally, the help that the tutor gives in clearing up areas where the student
has wrongly or not understood something also contributes to better behavior.
12. Eight-year-old children, (approximately third grade) and younger
do not respond to negative reinforcement(4). They do respond to praise
and positive reinforcement, and will work harder to get more praise.
While positive reinforcement works for all ages, its use is stressed to the tutors,
since many of the tutors are middle school students, and are not known for kind words.
In the tutoring setting, they are remarkably kind.
References:
1. This observation has been found repeatedly at several ages and for
normal and autistic children. Several references are listed, and one I failed
to bookmark when I first read it. I am still looking for it.
2. George Mason University (2008, March 29). Preschool Kids Do Better When
They Talk To Themselves, Research Shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 29, 2009,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/03/080328124554.htm
3. University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign (1998, September 8).
Kids Who Don't Get Along With Others Also Less Likely To Learn. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved December 22, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/1998/09/980908073710.htm
4. Understanding Colorado's Achievement Gap,
An Analysis of Student Performance Data by Race and Income.
By Jennifer Sharp-Silverstein with Andrew J. Hartman, Angela Frye and Rich Jones,
The Bell Policy Center, August 2005.
|
