Cross-age tutoring and the development of three thinking strategies in additiion

This study explored the effects of cross-age tutoring as an instructional mode in the development of thinking skills in Mathematics. Six mixed-ability Grade One students were tutored by six high-ability Grade 6 students in three thinking strategies in addition. A tutoring model was developed to facilitate more effective tutoring of the thinking skills. The tutors modelled, rehearsed, allowed their students to apply the strategy and encouraged students to reflect on what they had done. This model was later modified as a result of the research findings. Subjects were tutored daily over a four week period in the `min' model, Near Doubles and Build to Ten strategies. Tutor-student interactions were recorded. A Tutoring Scaffolds Protocol was developed to categorise tutors' scaffolds. A significant similarity was found in the techniques that tutors use to correct students' responses. To assist in developing understandings of the tutoring process tutor responses were placed within the six scaffolded functions proposed in the work of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). A model of tutors' repair strategies was proposed to explain tutors' scaffolding functions. It was concluded that tutoring was an effective method for teaching thinking skills when it was used with other activities that encourage the development of shared understandings of the learning process. It was proposed that repair strategies offered by the tutors could be taught in tutor training sessions, thereby fostering the metacognitive understandings of students involved in tutoring programs.