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xxix Fourth, visualization is when a student can create a picture or movie in
their mind while reading text. Another way of looking at visualization is to think about bringing words to life.
Fifth, summarizing is a comprehension strategy that also needs to be taught. Summarizing is telling what is important about the text. A summary might
include the answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how. http:en.wikipedia.org
wikiReading_comprehension.
B. Teaching Reading Comprehension
Urquhart and Weir 1998: 172 state that teaching reading involves students being given a written text, and being required to read it. Usually, they are
also expected to respond overtly to some task requirement. A teacher should organize his activities to make the students engaged with
what they are reading. Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language. It is important that they should be allowed
to express their feelings about the topic. Meanwhile, teaching reading is not easy. Consequently, teacher should insert interesting activities before, during and after
reading in order to make reading comprehension activities more amusing and optimally understandable
Roles of teacher which can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies are as follows:
1. by modeling the strategies, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students
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xxx how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they
begin to read word by word. 2. by allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting
activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
3. by using cloze fill in the blank exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps students learn to guess meaning from context.
4. by encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what
strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies
http:www.nclrc.orgessentialsreadingstratread.htm .
C. Definition of Peer Tutoring
Peters in http:www.unicommons.comnode6975
says that Peer tutoring is a type of collaborative learning strategy in which students support each other’s
learning rather than relying solely on an adult teacher. Peer tutoring is one
collaborative approach where pairs of students interact to assist each other’s
academic achievement by one student adopting the role of tutor and the other the role of tutee. Peer tutoring has been well validated for promoting the development
of low-level skills, such as reading. Most teachers expect an effective classroom to be quiet and orderly.
Students are seated and not talking to each other. Students are trained to become passive observers rather than active participants in their own education. Most
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xxxi teachers are themselves taught in such a traditional classroom of teacher-centered
instruction. Hence, Peer tutoring gives teachers more time to work with students individually and also obtain a detailed understanding of each student’s learning
style and degree of subject mastery. Peer tutoring helps create child-centered classroom.
Peer tutoring refers to the process of having learners help each other on a one-to-one basis Dueck in
http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm . Two
types of this kind of peer tutoring are found in adult literacy and basic education: 1 near peer in which one learner is more advanced than the other; and 2 co-
peer in which the learners are fairly well matched in skill level Whitman in http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm
. Examples of near peer pairings include more academically capable learners working with those experiencing
difficulty. When co-peers are paired, learners are able to work together as equals and gain a better understanding of the materials by learning from each other.
Although peer tutoring is done with pairs of learners, sometimes having learners work in groups of three better meets the needs of both the learners and the
learning task Dueck in http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm
. The old adage, those who teach learn twice, holds true for peer tutoring
and is frequently given as the basis for using the approach. Although a teacher can anticipate problems, questions, and concerns, no teacher can learn for another
individual. Thus, when peer tutoring is adapted, learning becomes much more effective
because learners
are teaching
themselves Whitman
in http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm
.
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xxxii Peer tutoring can enhance learning by enabling learners to take
responsibility for reviewing, organizing, and consolidating existing knowledge and material; understanding its basic structure; filling in the gaps; finding
additional meanings, and reformulating knowledge into new conceptual frameworks Dueck; Whitman in
http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm .
In either co-peer or near peer situations, both learners are likely to understand the material better by applying it in the peer tutoring setting.
Both learners and teachers will find that peer tutoring changes their roles as well as the learning environment. When peer tutoring is used, the instructional
environment usually becomes more learner as opposed to teacher directed, and the learners have a more significant role in helping shape the learning Imel,
Kerka, and Pritz in http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm
. The teacher becomes a co-learner and facilitator, acting as a guide and a coach. The teacher is
no longer the person with all the answers; instead, the teacher talks with learners and offers opinions, explores strategies, and helps set goals Goldgrab in
http:www.ericdigests.org1994tutoring.htm .
Peer tutoring is an organized learning experience in which one student serves as the teacher or tutor, and the other student is the learner or tutee. This
approach to tutoring provides students with an opportunity to use their knowledge in a meaningful, social fashion. Peer tutors reinforce their own learning process by
reviewing and reformulating their knowledge. Tutees receive the opportunity for skill development in a non-threatening context. Both tutors and tutees gain self-
confidence, the tutor by seeing self-competence in his or her ability to help
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xxxiii someone and the tutee by receiving positive reinforcement from peers. All
students with some level of responsibility can be given the opportunity to be tutors. Guidelines for pairing tutors and tutees are fairly broad and will likely
depend on the material being reviewed and the format of the activity. Peer tutoring can be implemented on an individual basis one tutor and tutee pair,
class-wide, or school-wide. Therefore, Gardner in
http:ltrc.edc.polyu.edu.hkstudent02_1.html gives
the role of peer tutors and tutees. Tutors have four roles. First, they motivate students or tutees to learn motivator. Second, they share personal experiences
with tutees counselor. Third, they provide comments on tutees’ effort advisor. Fourth, a peer tutor is the bridge between tutees and subject lecturers middle
man. Meanwhile, Tutees are expected to review relevant subject matters before tutorial session, raise questions before or during or after tutorial sessions, be
cooperative and take active part in all tutorial activities, solve problems individually or as a team, be punctual and attend all tutorial sessions.
Peer tutoring is characterized by specific role taking: at any point someone has the job of tutor, while the other is in a role as tutee Topping, 1996: 234. Two
large categories of peer tutoring can be distinguished. Children can be paired with other children from within their own classroom. This variant is called same-age
tutoring. The specific form of same-age tutoring in which the students alternate on regular basis between the tutor and tutee role is called reciprocal same-age
tutoring Keer in http:www.onderwijskunde.ugent.bedownloadsVan20Keer
.
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xxxiv pdf. The second variant is called cross-age tutoring and refers to older students
tutoring younger students. However, good peer tutoring programs are reciprocal, meaning both
students in a learning pair or “dyad” have turns playing the role of the tutor or teacher and tutee or learner during the same tutoring session. This prevents
negative feelings of always having to be the learner, as well as prevents feelings of superiority in always being the teacher.
In conclusion, peer tutoring gives teacher specific instructional methods to help students improve their skills and critical-thinking abilities. It can become an
important learning element that assists the students in learning how to solve problems, collaborate with others, and think creatively.
D. Procedures of Peer Tutoring
