Increasing At-Risk Students' Literacy Skills: Fostering Success for Children and Their Preservice Reading Endorsement Tutors

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine how the reading skills of children at-risk are affected by tutoring by preservice reading endorsement students, (b) to identify differences by setting, gender and grade level, and to (c) identify effective strategies and influences on student success in a four-month tutoring program. Data were collected from six different groups of students over six years. The unique remediation treatment included each student authoring a children's book; the students' writing became the tool for remediation. Grade level gains and weighted score gains were analyzed. Findings indicate that there is likely no differentiation by gain in grade level of reading skill because of setting, gender, or even grade. The mean gain in grade level averaged 1.1 years for both oral reading comprehension and word recognition and 1.2 years for listening comprehension over the four months of tutoring.