Classwide Peer Tutoring

Description of the Strategy

Classwide peer tutoring (CWPT) refers to a group of teaching strategies in which students are taught by peers who are trained and supervised by their classroom teachers. The most widely researched classwide tutoring approach was developed and refined at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project in Kansas City, Kansas during the past 20 years. Juniper Gardens' CWPT provides instruction in reading, math, and spelling to all children in the classroom simultaneously for approximately 30 minutes per day in each subject, 3 to 5 days per week.

CWPT methods are highly structured and can be used across a variety of age levels and subject areas. They are most appropriate, however, for students who are in need of academic, behavioral, or interpersonal assistance, as well as those who might benefit from providing such help. When structured appropriately, CWPT produces mutual benefits for tutors and tutees. The Juniper Gardens' CWPT model was designed initially for students in first through sixth grades but has since been extended to secondary content-area courses in general and special education settings.

Primary Features

The Juniper Gardens' CWPT program has four primary features: (a) weekly competing teams, (b) highly structured tutoring procedure, (c) daily point earning and public posting of pupil performance, and (d) direct practice in functional instructional activities. When teachers use CWPT, their primary role changes from deliverer of instruction to facilitator and monitor of peer-teaching activities.

Research Basis

An Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) search found that at least 25 published studies have shown CWPT to be superior to conventional forms of teacher-led instruction in improving students' academic outcomes. Perhaps the most compelling support, however, comes from a 12-year experimental longitudinal study, during which the performance of groups of students who received CWPT was compared to the performance of groups of at-risk and nonrisk students who did not receive CWPT. CWPT increased students' active engagement during instruction in first through third grades, improved student achievement in second, third, fourth, and sixth grades, reduced referrals for special education services by seventh grade, and decreased dropping out of school by the end of 11th grade.

CWPT also has been used successfully to integrate students with autism into the general education curriculum, teach health and safety-related information to children with mental challenges, improve the academic, linguistic, and social competence of Englishlanguage learners, and teach physical education majors to conduct cardiopulmonary resuscitation with consistently high levels of accuracy.

Case Study

Each Monday morning, Ms. DiCara creates two competing teams in her fifth-grade classroom by having students select either a red or blue piece of paper from a covered box. She has 24 students, so she places 12 red and 12 blue pieces of paper into the box. After each student has selected a piece of paper, Ms. DiCara pairs up students with the same colored paper into tutoring dyads (i.e., 6 red and 6 blue pairs). Team membership and partners stay the same for the remainder of the week.

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