Building Student Success | Peer Tutor Training Workbook By Teach Tutors

It’s that time of year when we as educators are busy setting up classrooms and programs and welcoming new students. If you are like me, you are a bit sad to see the relaxed pace of summer come to an end but also excited about working with students again with a renewed energy and passion for making a positive difference for others.

One important way that I’ve found has made a positive difference, is to arrange for peer mentors and peer tutors for my students. Peer tutoring programs have so many benefits not only to the students receiving the tutoring, but also to the students providing the tutoring. But taking on the task of setting up a peer tutoring program and training peer tutors can seem daunting in light of all of the other responsibilities that we have as educators.

Because I feel so passionately about peer-to-peer instruction, I wanted to create an easy-to-use resource that would make training tutors much easier for educators and as a result, I wrote a training workbook. Building Student Success: A Training Workbook for Tutors and Instructional Aides is a 47-page, research-based workbook designed to teach individuals to serve as effective peer tutors and classroom aides. The topics contained in this curriculum, originally published in 2006 and newly updated in July of 2018, have been carefully selected to address the elements identified by research as being critical to quality tutor instruction including:

• Creating and maintaining positive rapport based upon respect
• Working effectively with students of varying abilities
• Keeping students focused and attentive
• Asking questions that stimulate creative thinking, problem-solving and deeper learning
• Motivating and encouraging students
• Providing students with clear and appropriate feedback
• Incorporating study skills into tutoring sessions
• Understanding student differences including those who are second language learners and those with special needs
• Teaching students to develop a “growth mindset”
• Maintaining appropriate boundaries, professionalism and confidentiality
• Adhering to a tutor/instructional aide code of ethics

The workbook can be used as part of a peer tutoring course curriculum and comes with a new 18-page Teacher’s Guide, written in July of 2018 that is now included with purchases. You can also choose to provide the workbook to your peer tutors and ask them to complete the study questions at the end of each section as a self-study course.

Please feel free to contact me at www.teachtutors.com if you have any questions or if you would like more information. I would love hearing about your peer tutoring program and am happy to help in any way that I can. I wish you a smooth start to the new school year and the best of luck with your tutoring program.

Author Bio:

Dana Monaghan, M.S., CCC-SLP of Teach Tutors is a public school speech language pathologist, educator and peer tutor program facilitator with over twenty years of experience in the field. She has also written a curriculum to train peer tutors.