Peer tutoring: does it work?

Many schools now have peer tutoring programs. Peer tutors are usually juniors and seniors who help either their peers or younger students. Many students fulfill their community service requirements this way.

I have talked to many parents who say that they have had trouble with peer tutoring. Of course, we don't hear about the students who are getting benefit from these programs, because if peer tutoring is working, these parents are unlikely to contact us. But I am sure peer tutoring does help some students.

For peer tutoring to work, I believe the same factors are at play as in professional tutoring. The peer tutor and the student need to create a professional, yet friendly bond. The tutor needs to be good at explaining things and following through with examples (this may be peer tutoring's biggest downfall. Students have a tendency to move on too quickly when tutoring other students. They sometimes do not have the ability to pull back and read the situation like a professional tutor can.) And, the tutor needs to keep the student focused, which can be difficult to do since they are of similar age. A lot depends on the tutor. How mature is she? Does he have skills and strategies to focus the student? How much successful tutoring experience does she have?

In our experience, peer tutoring can be very effective if the student just needs some extra practice, or if the student has a specific question about a specific problem. However, when students need to be re-taught concepts, when learning gaps need to be rooted out and filled, and when students want to improve by a grade level or more, then peer tutoring usually is not adequate.