Literacy Tutoring Research Articles

Disrupting Storylines: A Case Study of One Adolescent’s Identity, Agency, and Positioning During Literacy Tutoring

ABSTRACTDespite evidence that youths’ literacy practices and identities are important contributors to literacy learning, studies of secondary literacy instruction often focus on understanding classroom storylines from the perspectives of teachers and schools. The purpose of this case study was to examine how one youth, Leo, shaped the storyline of his one-on-one literacy tutorials by attending to his deviations from his tutor’s storyline. Framed by theories of identity, agency, and positioning, findings indicate that deviations were acts of agency that manifested as collaborative authoring or improvisation and provided insights about Leo as a reader, writer, and person. Findings highlight the situated and collaborative nature of meaning-making and the importance of theoretically grounded literacy instruction that attends to how students negotiate their positions in relation to teachers’ storylines.

A Research Review of Literacy Tutoring and Mentoring in Initial Teacher Preparation: Toward Practices That Can Transform Teaching

Our goal through this literature review is to report and synthesize the findings from research into literacy tutoring and literacy mentoring in initial teacher preparation. We identified a total of 62 published articles that met our selection criteria. We identified four conceptual areas of focus to organize and represent our findings: (a) the structural and design features of the one-to-one or small-group experiences, (b) preservice teacher learning and growth within the tutorial/mentoring experience, (c) preservice teacher learning and growth beyond the tutorial/mentoring experience, and (d) mediating factors associated with preservice teacher growth. We discuss the challenges and promises for this line of research for transforming teacher preparation through the attention to third and hybrid spaces for mentoring experiences.

Community of practice versus community of readers: the literacy tutors’ dilemma

This paper describes a journey undertaken by literacy tutors who were caught between incompatible values and needs in building apprentices’ literacy. The highly literate tutors were committed to teaching critical literacy. They believed that improved literacy could support learners’ aspirations to advance their prospects at work, build their connections within their community and improve their health. Hence, the tutors aimed to guide their learners into membership of an imagined community of fluent readers. They found, however, that the apprentices, along with their managers and training coordinators, saw literacy as instrumental rather than a desired outcome in its own right. Essentially, achieving a sufficient level of literacy was needed for the apprentices to become members of workplace communities of practice. Tutors then questioned their prior assumptions about the intrinsic importance of literacy, slowly accepting a dichotomous way of thinking where industrial ways of learning and knowing were predominant. Tutors’ realisation that apprentices already possessed embodied and oral literacies helped them to support the apprentices in escaping (though not leaving) workplace contexts that were becoming increasingly document-driven in character and featuring rising expectations of improved print literacy.

The role of family literacy classes in demystifying school literacies and developing closer parent–school relations

This paper is based on a large study of family literacy provision in England, which was carried out between July 2013 and May 2015. It explored the impact of classes on parents’ relations with the school and their children, and their ability to support their children’s literacy development. The study involved 27 school-based programmes for pupils aged between five and seven, and their parents. It used mixed methods, which involved surveys of 118 parents and 20 family literacy tutors, telephone interviews with a sub-sample of 28 parents, analysis of teaching plans and observations of classes. Findings showed that parents wanted to learn the ways the school was teaching their child to read and write, and by demystifying school literacy pedagogies and processes the programmes developed greater connectivity between home and the school, and parents felt more able to support their children’s literacy development at home.

Responsibilising parents: the nudge towards shadow tutoring

This article considers moral agendas projected onto parents that mobilise them to supplement school literacy education with private tutoring. The theoretical frame draws on the concepts of responsibilisation as emerging market-embedded morality, ‘nudge’ social policies, edu-business and hidden privatisation in education. This framing is applied to two empirical moments: firstly, debates around the Australian government’s ‘Tutorial Voucher Initiative’ of 2004; and secondly, tutoring advertisements and items in school newsletters collected in early 2016. In the first moment, parents were somewhat reluctant to take up free supplementary tutoring; in the second, private literacy tutoring is increasingly normalised and legitimated as parents are nudged to supplement the work of the school.

Benefits of Structured After-School Literacy Tutoring by University Students for Struggling Elementary Readers

ABSTRACTThis study examines the effectiveness of minimally trained tutors providing a highly structured tutoring intervention for struggling readers. We screened students in Grades K–6 for participation in an after-school tutoring program. We randomly assigned those students not meeting the benchmark on a reading screening measure to either a tutoring group or a control group. Students in the tutoring group met twice per week across one school year to receive tutoring from non–education major college students participating in a service-learning course. The goal of this study was to determine whether tutors without prior teaching experience or instruction could improve student reading outcomes with minimal training, a structured reading curriculum, and access to ongoing coaching. Tutored students displayed significantly more growth than control students in letter-word identification, decoding, and passage comprehension, with robust effect sizes of 0.99, 1.02, and 0.78, respectively. We discuss the implications and limitations of these findings.

Chandra’s Story: An Adult Education Student Journeys from Fear to Gratitude

This article presents the story of Chandra (her real name), a middle-aged, Guyanese-American woman attending an adult education center in the Northeast United States. Chandra grew up in extreme poverty in Guyana, and was taken out of school at age eight to help meet the family’s basic needs. At age 22, she immigrated to the United States in hopes of better opportunities. Through narrative methods, Chandra’s story is constructed from 34, narrative and expository, written texts that she composed for a literacy tutoring program, as well as three, in-depth, oral interviews. The result is a moving account of Chandra’s childhood in Guyana, immigration and acculturation in the United States, and her determination to continue her education despite the obstacles she has faced.

Pedagogical language knowledge: preparing Australian pre-service teachers to support English language learners

ABSTRACTIn Australia all initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are required to address the needs of students learning in and through English as an additional language (EAL) as a national priority area, including “effective teaching and learning strategies for teaching second language learners in the context of the mainstream classroom and the range of key learning areas.” However, research into the complex language and literacy challenges faced by EAL learners suggests that many mainstream secondary school teachers feel inadequately prepared to meet their needs. To address this issue, Hammond (2014, p. 503) calls for “more wide-ranging, theoretically robust accounts of teacher learning” to support EAL/D learners in particular. This paper presents research conducted as part of a broader investigation into the various components of teacher learning made available to Australian pre-service teachers (PSTs) in an undergraduate teacher education programme, and the relative ways in which they contributed to PSTs’ developing knowledge of language and literacy pedagogy. In particular, it reports on the specific type of knowledge made available to a smaller group of PSTs who participated in a literacy tutoring programme conducted at a secondary school with a large EAL student population. The study yields a rich description of the PSTs’ developing pedagogical language knowledge as they engage in professional learning under the guidance of an academic mentor. It charts their emerging and developing knowledge as they are trained to analyse core curriculum content for opportunities to provide targeted language and literacy support, as well as their growing understanding of the diversity of language and literacy needs of EAL learners. Furthermore, the study describes PSTs’ evolving self-reflection as they become “apprenticed” into the role of professional teachers who assume responsibility for their students’ language and literacy development as a key way of facilitating their access to curriculum content knowledge.

Service Learning in Communication Sciences: Literacy Tutoring through a Multidisciplinary Lens

In this article, I describe a literacy service learning tutoring project developed to support authentic learning for future speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who will serve as part of a Response ...

The Mermaid’s Thesaurus, and: Don Quixote, and: Spun off Lilacs

The Mermaid’s Thesaurus, and: Don Quixote, and: Spun off Lilacs Kallima Hamilton (bio) The Mermaid’s Thesaurus It’s unbecoming to glean from all the boys who wallow in pirate gold. When I’m doused, dizzy with spume and stuttering angel-mouthed uncertainties, it behooves me to have a compendium of fossilized words. Words that can tell the time underwater, blindly, at random. Huge attempts to ferry down, fall in love, paint the town red, but all I do is float like kelp. Got to be some help out there, juke-joints other than this kingdom beyond sound alone. Trade all my emerald fish scales for a limber pair of gams. Etymology’s a gorgeous wench on these jagged rocks. She’ll make you forget hausfraus steadily weaving, weaving. Siren songs waft in the mesmerizing eyes of beluga whales while blonde fish-bottomed girls blow deathly come-hithers. Metaphysical, I arrive at absurd conclusions, whisper flamboyant syllables as if they were real swan tears, synonyms for something salted with fire. [End Page 75] Don Quixote Another flea-bag motel but he’s happy as a sheik because Sancho’s out for nachos and a Coke and there’s not a windmill in sight. Yellow-tipped red tulips on the windowsill give rise to some speculation, white knights backing down and dove-slick peace wafting like skunk perfume up the canyon. He watches My Favorite Martian on the antique tv whose rabbit ears (he’s sure) are extraterrestrial antennae. Cockroach angels scurry with garbled messages of chivalry and dulcet dreams. No arguing with sundown, those pink-squeezed rainbows raining crazy ideas about Eastside damsels, wet-sand castles. Sweet lies hurting no one where a bare light bulb slowly illuminates love-drunk shadows on the wall. [End Page 76] Spun off Lilacs Was it a blue horse or a green horse? Chagall. Green horse, violin. No woman lounging. On a dream hammock, arms akimbo in a silk red dress. Barefoot, under a purple sky. Something whispered, an outline of possibility like invisible hummingbirds inside the horse’s mouth. Maybe it was a mule. Long ears. Smiling. And you noticing lilacs in hot bloom against the white houses. Scent of anise. Feel of wild fennel. When I scoop down in the water fountain I cup up a handful of love. It is blue. No. It is clear translucent beaming free. Liquid. Your eyes, pooled with the juice of moon glyphs. Look—how quickly reality shifts, a dazzle. My legs a part of the earth, a gypsy skirt twirling to the fiery heat of this bold magnetic violin that is not there, only hinted at in a stroking curve, my heart a marionette of improvised certainty. [End Page 77] Kallima Hamilton Kallima Hamilton works as a literacy tutor and esl instructor in Haslett, Michigan. Her poetry has appeared in the Mudlark, Wallace Stevens Journal, and Shenandoah. She is the author of Outside the Lava Fields (Aldrich P). Copyright © 2013 University of Nebraska Press

On the Use of Automatic Speech Recognition to Facilitate Increased Literacy Rates in Jamaica

This paper makes the case for the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) in addressing the issue of increasing the rates of literacy of children in the developing world, using Jamaica as a test case. It gives an overview of the current state of affairs, which underscores the need for developing innovative ways of delivering literacy education. Following a review of the state of the art in ASR-based literacy tutors, the technical and pedagogical challenges of developing such a system for Jamaica are discussed.

‘Seeing the bigger picture’: Experiential learning, applied ethnomusicology and the use of gamelan music in adult literacy education

Highlighting the application of ethnomusicology beyond the traditional boundaries of the academy, this article investigates the use of music in adult literacy education. In 2005, as part of the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society (LEIS) project, adult literacy tutors working in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom (UK), were invited to enrol in short, professional-development courses that required their participation in a Balinese gamelan ensemble – an orchestra comprised mainly of metallophones, drums and gongs. During each course, tutors were encouraged to reflect upon their learning processes to help them become more empathetic with some of the difficulties faced by adult literacy students. By focusing on the tutors’ experiences of learning gamelan music, this article provides insights into how participants used these development courses as a means to critically reflect upon issues of approach to teaching adult literacy education.

Older adults, computer literacy, and web-based intelligent tutoring

Older adults, computer literacy, and web-based intelligent tutoring

Language of instruction, literacy, teacher qualification and supplementary tutoring

We begin this issue of the International Review of Education with two articles which look at language of instruction in two very different contexts. Based on her research into staff and students’ participation in information and communication technology (ICT) at the University of Dar es Salaam (USCM), Torill Aagot Halvorsen reports a gradual increase in academic online use of Kiswahili even though English remains the dominant medium of instruction in Tanzanian higher education. She points out that one sizeable colonial legacy is its continuing influence on modern education and language. Despite this, ICT-competent staff and students have taken the initiative to produce and incorporate Kiswahili internet content. Halvorsen makes the case for establishing Kiswahili as a language of instruction in Tanzanian universities and introducing English as a foreign language subject. This would end discrimination against students who currently have to attend lectures and produce coursework in a language they are not proficient in. Without the language barrier, the author argues, these students would be enabled to engage much more with the content of their studies. Gabriela Meier also looks at language of instruction, albeit in a two-way immersion (TWI) model practised in primary and secondary education in Germany’s capital city, Berlin, which has a very multicultural population. Written in German, the article begins with a brief overview of bilingual education practices in Europe and in the United States of America before introducing the bilingual approach of the Staatliche Europa-Schule Berlin (SESB), which offers nine language combinations to children with different mother tongues in 17 primary schools and 13 secondary schools. The author’s research, involving 603 students, found that this model results in a number of peace-linguistic benefits that can promote two-way social integration, besides fostering personal and societal multilingualism. The article suggests that the SESB model is ahead of its time, as

Unforeseen outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges faced by tutors who were providing remedial literacy support to New Zealand apprentices. Design/methodology/approach – As part of a wider, triangulated study of employers, tutors, apprentices, and industry training coordinators, the author undertook a qualitative analysis of ten in‐depth interviews with apprentices’ literacy tutors. Findings – It was found that three issues strongly affected what tutors could achieve for their students. First, tutors experienced substantial role ambiguity; second, apprentices were working in oral and experiential modes more than in print‐literate modes; and third, tutors found they had to employ an instrumental approach to their teaching in response to the situation they encountered. For example, this often meant serving as a scribe for their student rather than being able to focus on building the apprentice's print literacy. Research limitations/implications – It is possible that the difficult situation faced by these literacy tutors may be replicated in similar situations where funding is insufficient to build competence in literacy. Practical implications – The constraints on what the tutors could actually achieve within tight funding limits meant that most students, while on track to successfully complete their apprenticeship, still remained of low print literacy. Originality/value – The study reveals how tutors’ instrumental approach ran counter to their traditional ethical stance associated with building empowered, competent citizens who could participate fully in their civic, social and economic settings. It also shows how this literacy support enhanced the apprentices’ confidence, yet they probably became further reinforced in their little‐changed, oral work culture.

Teaching as a social practice: The experiences of two Moroccan adult literacy tutors

This article offers an ethnographic case study of two Adult Basic Education (ABE) teachers' characteristics and their literacy instruction. It draws on the New Literacy Studies tradition and used ethnographic tools (in-depth interviews, classroom observation and the think-aloud protocol) to explore the characteristics of two ABE teachers and examine the ways in which their knowledge, ABE beliefs and the contexts where they work are translated into their literacy instruction. The results indicate that despite these teachers' limited training and financial reward, unfavourable working conditions, differences in their motives and pedagogical orientations, they are highly motivated and strongly committed to the success of their adult literacy instruction mission. These findings suggest that the people in charge in Morocco should capitalise on ABE teachers' positive attitudes in order to enhance adult literacy instruction and learning.

Critical and social literacy practices from the Scottish adult literacy experience: resisting deficit approaches to learning

AbstractScotland provides an interesting context for studying adult literacy in that it is one of the few countries that explicitly acknowledge the idea of literacy as a social practice. By drawing on two initiatives we illustrate literacy learning derived from a mixture of social practice and critical literacy perspectives. Together they provide insights into how literacy may develop to challenge relationships of inequality and oppression. The role of the literacy tutor is critical to this process and needs to begin from a position which challenges the idea of literacy as a decontextualised, skill. To help learners question what it means to be literate, and to create genuinely empowering experiences, it is important to locate literacy in the wider social and political relations in which it is embedded.

Training Parents as Effective Literacy Tutors: Increasing the Procedural Integrity of Tutoring

We trained parents to tutor their child through implementing a repeated reading procedure designed to increase oral reading fluency. Our study was conducted over a two-week winter break at the homes of the parent and child. Baseline data for each child were collected using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to determine an instructional reading level prior to the tutoring session. Following baseline, we trained parents as tutors to implement all aspects of the reading procedure including administering, scoring, and recording data. All sessions were audio recorded to assist with the data collection, scoring, treatment integrity, and interobserver agreement (IOA). According to results from our study, parent tutors were able to accurately score the reading probes and implement the repeated reading procedure with a high level of treatment fidelity following the training. In addition, parents were satisfied with the tutoring experience and the reading fluency for all children increased at the completion of the tutoring sessions.

Do apprentices' communities of practice block unwelcome knowledge?

PurposeThis study aims to examine how well print‐literacy support being provided to New Zealand Modern Apprentices (MAs) is supporting their study and practical work.Design/methodology/approachThe authors undertook a qualitative analysis of a database of 191 MAs in the literacy programme, then in 14 case studies completed 46 interviews with MAs, their employers, industry coordinators and adult literacy tutors to obtain triangulated insights into each MA's learning.FindingsA strong sense of disjunction appeared between the work culture and the norms of being print literate which adult literacy tutors worked to draw apprentices into. Interviewees perceived a divide between practice and theory, or “doing the job” and “doing bookwork”, so that MAs were faced with trying to be two different kinds of people to succeed in their apprenticeship.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research may explore the ways in which differing value‐sets that apprentices encounter can compete with and undermine creation of knowledge and skills.Practical implicationsDesirably, apprentices' literacy tutors should possess sufficient familiarity with trade terminology and practices to help bridge the divide between trade and print‐literate assumptions and values to the extent possible.Originality/valueThis study questions Lave and Wenger's assumption that mastering knowledge and skill requires newcomers to participate fully within their community of practice. It proposes instead that varying values, which apprentices must come to grips with need to be better aligned with one another.

Virtual Tutor Training

In this study, the experiences and beliefs of volunteer tutors using a multi-user virtual environment to teach literacy instruction are examined to get a better understanding of the benefits and challenges of learning within this environment. Literacy tutors who were teaching adults with poor reading skills served as participants. During the study, participants delivered direct instruction reading lessons to researchers in Second Life and adult learners during live face-to-face tutoring sessions. Immediately following each session in Second Life, tutors were provided with corrective feedback on specific teaching behaviors. Data on rate of acquisition and generalization from the virtual environment to the natural environment was collected for each participant. At the conclusion of the study, tutors were asked to describe their experiences of learning to teach in a multi-user virtual environment. Results indicate that effective teaching behaviors trained in a virtual environment generalize to face-to-face instruction. However, tutors tended to disagree with the researchers’ perceptions of what constitutes effective teaching practices.