Abstract
A tutoring program for first grade inner city children, employing student teachers as tutors, was developed and evaluated. Tutoring had no discernible effects on performance on the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Ability. However, tutored children were placed in the highest reading group, and were rated by the regular classroom teacher as having completed the first grade reading series more often than controls. Tutors saw their children as becoming more responsive over time. Classroom teachers rated the tutored children as more competent in the classroom, more confident, and as viewing the classroom as more benevolent. In contrast to controls, student teachers maintained favorable attitudes toward teaching in the inner city, and they claimed to have benefited in practice teaching from their tutoring experience. However, relatively few actually took teaching positions in inner city schools after completing their training.
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This project was supported by a grant from Community Progress, Incorporated, New Haven, Connecticut. The work was completed while the senior author was a member of the Psycho-Educational Clinic of Yale University. We are indebted to S. B. Sarason and our colleagues there for assistance in developing and completing this project. Mitchell Sviridoff, then Executive Director of CPI, and Frank Corbett, formerly of CPI, and now Associate Professor of Social Welfare, SUNY at Buffalo, encouraged us to develop this project and aided in obtaining support. John Wesolowski, Principal of Scranton Street School was helpful with difficult administrative problems. Mr. Robert Smith, currently with ABCD in Bridgeport, served ably as the nonprofessional research assistant and as a clinical aid on the project. We also are appreciative of the service rendered by our student teachers through the course of this project.
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Levine, M., Dunn, F., Brochinsky, S. et al. Student teachers as tutors for children in an inner city school. Child Psych Hum Dev 1, 50–56 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01434589
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01434589