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The Need. Enthusiasm and a desire to help children learn are not enough to ensure that tutoring will be effective. Without strong pre-service preparation and ongoing training and support, tutors will have only the capabilities and preconceived notions they bring to the program. Good tutor training and ongoing support capitalizes on a tutor's initial energy and increases the likelihood of success. Tutors benefit from training in both content and pedagogy--appropriate to the age group of the students being tutored--before they begin working with students. Good tutor training, according to current practitioners, teaches the mechanics of mathematics instruction and helps tutors develop skills to motivate and communicate with young students. The Trainers. Tutor training can be provided by program coordinators, faculty, classroom teachers, other qualified personnel, or a team of trainers with wide-ranging expertise, including mathematics or related fields. The Mesa Community College Literacy Education and Development through Service program, for example, selects a diverse group of trainers from various disciplines, including sociology, reading, bilingual language development, psychology, and children's literature. Training Workshop(s). While tutor training can take many shapes, there are certain methodologies that have proven effective for many America Reads campuses. In general, they include the following components:
Mathematics Tutor Training Materials. The Education Development Center, through a contract with the National Science Foundation, has developed a set of mathematics tutor training materials that can help trainers and/or program coordinators devise strong content-specific training workshops. These materials-have been designed by four grade bands and four content strands. Two of the content strands (number sense and algebraic thinking) are currently available to download and the other two (geometry & measurement and statistics & probability) will be available in January 2000. These materials are newly developed and are considered works-in-progress. Should you have questions or comments, please send an e-mail to America.Counts@ed.gov. Ongoing Support. Experience shows that continuous training and feedback enhances tutor quality by allowing tutors to refresh their memories about specific points after contact hours begin, reinforce key instructional methods, and address questions that arise from tutoring experience. The Bay Area Youth Agency Consortium in San Francisco, for example, encourages a learning spiral: tutors acquire new skills through training, deliver service, reflect on their experiences, evaluate results, and incorporate lessons learned into subsequent tutoring. Some of the ways that tutoring programs have provided ongoing support services include:
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[Tutoring Materials]
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