Learning by doing: preservice teachers as reading tutors

Abstract

Whilst early childhood educators are well aware of the importance of meeting the needs of individual children when teaching ‘struggling readers’, finding the time for frequent one-on-one support is difficult. Studies have established that with a well developed and structured tutoring programme, as well as high quality training and supervision, volunteers can be used to provide tutoring in a one-on-one early intervention reading programme. The current study suggests that there is an opportunity for preservice teachers to gain valuable information to increase their knowledge of the reading process, while providing effective support to schools as trained tutors. The small-scale exploratory study examines the skills and knowledge gained by preservice teachers while employed as trained tutors in an early intervention reading programme.