Peer tutoring helps students accomplish more

“I understand it, Lilia!” These are the most exquisite four words I can hear when I am tutoring students.

After graduating middle school and entering my first year of high school, I felt a gap in my life. Everyone seemed to have a specific skill and I had not yet acquired mine. I decided to do something different where I could find an appropriate balance that would suit all my school and volunteer requirements and still allow me to maintain a social life.

So I started volunteering for my middle school English teacher, Marcelyn Bible. As a result, I began grading papers and decorating the classroom on Wednesdays — which was all right. However, I wanted to do more.

Shortly thereafter, Bible began noticing some drops in grades and needed the children to come after school for extra help. I started tutoring and thought, “How am I going to do this? What if my qualifications of being someone so close to their age are not useful?” Despite my worries, I began with simple memorization techniques for vocabulary to editing essays and making suggestions for projects.

I volunteered with two other peers. We all had our obvious jobs; I would tutor in math and science and the other girls would take English, history and foreign language. Sometimes, Bible and I came across weeks where only I would attend and we had to divide up the students and get to as many as we could in one hour. We started working with three to four students and sometimes we had a full class staying with us after school.

I often took over and managed. Bible gushed about the outstanding improvements the students had in grades and how more students would attend our after school tutoring.

Our observations are supported by research on the effectiveness of tutoring programs. According to several recent articles published by the Council for Learning Disabilities and Reading Rockets, tutoring increases self-confidence and self-efficacy.

According to Bible, the students have seen a tremendous difference in their academic studies as a result of the tutoring. “I can get a group of peers that are likely to be here,” Bible said. She felt that besides the tutoring, the interaction with the tutor and students could make a difference in the students wanting to complete assignments.

“Just having someone sitting with them while doing homework can help,” Bible said. By doing so, the students became comfortable to do their assignment and ask for help when needed. “By doing homework the children got good grades,” Bible said.

A couple students were shy about asking for my help at first, which is something that often happens at the beginning of tutoring. They often preferred the teacher’s help, which was understandable. One student, Daniel, said, “The teacher is more experienced but I guess sometimes when I need help I do ask peers around me.”

He was comfortable with calling a friend at home or getting help from a friend in class when he needed further clarification on an assignment. Most of the other students agreed with Daniel. Another student, Josh, however, liked the idea of coming to the after school tutoring, “It’s good to know I can go there and ask tutors for help if I do not understand something,” Josh said. Most students still did not come to after school tutoring, because it is early in the year. However, they were glad to know that they had that option and would come if necessary.

One student in particular, Andrea, would have a very difficult time in her studies, and Bible could not find a way to keep her focused. I began to help her, and when she was isolated with just me, I saw improvement.

Andrea would share her thoughts with me and ask for advice even outside of tutoring, which helped me connect to her. Week after week, I realized how helpful peer tutoring can be. “I want the Lilia girl… Is she coming next week?” Andrea asked one time. I was surprised to hear students requesting my help.

She often asked my advice with friend troubles and would somewhat get off topic. However, I always tried to be a friend to her as well as a tutor, which was something difficult to balance at first. Bible also noticed her grades improving, which was the ultimate goal.

Other students have preferred one-on-one tutoring as well. Hamlet, a student in Bible’s class a year back, would often have difficulty sitting or concentrating on his homework. He would try to avoid the tutors by asking to go to the restroom or getting snacks. When it was just him and myself, however, I got him to concentrate and he opened up to me about what he found difficult.

“I find science really hard,” he told me. I was able to interact with him and show him easy studying techniques, such as extra practice quizzes he could take in the back of the book or writing down all his vocabulary on a separate paper.

According to teacher Eric Kursinski, who runs CSF tutoring at Clark Magnet, one-on-one tutoring is highly effective. He said that sometimes teachers explain assignments in words that can be hard to comprehend for students, and that those students are sometimes too shy to ask what words mean. However, during one-on-one tutoring the tutor explains it in “layman’s terms.”

The tutoring at CSF helps “both the student and the tutor,” because students can also teach the tutor something. The first week of October marked the first week of CSF tutoring, so it was difficult to see a major difference in students’ grades. However, Kursinski said that he does track the students’ progress throughout the year.

In the same way, In Bible’s classroom, some inexperienced tutors have just been grading papers and cleaning. I remember their position when I started volunteering and I know that they will have the same gradual growth to helping students and also learning from students. When I first started tutoring I also felt just as awkward as the student to ask them if they needed help; however, there comes a time where I needed to connect to them and it made a closer bond with the student as well as improvement in their grades.

Tutors who have joined Bible’s class this year saw many benefits in peer tutoring as well. Emilia, a tutor in Bible’s class, said, “Sometimes the teacher does not explain it well and tutoring can help the student understand it better.” She was fond of the idea of tutoring; however, she had not tutored anyone before and she felt tutoring can help students get extra studying time with someone older who is not the teacher.

Liya, another former student of Bible, said, “I feel more responsibility when I tutor elementary students.” Even though it is easier to teach elementary students, she said that she learns a lot from them even at their young age.

Many students, like Liya, have seen improvements from peer tutoring, something that is borne out in research, too. According to the National Education Association website, “Some benefits of peer tutoring for students include higher academic achievement, improved relationships with peers, improved personal and social development as well as increased motivation.”

I have seen this result myself. I know I have found my student activity and do not consider it a participation event but something I do for the satisfaction of the “light bulb” moment on the student’s face. Peer tutoring benefits students by one-on-one communication, it increases self confidence, and it can help the students as well as the tutor learn something new.