Preservice Tutors and First-Grade Students: Instruction, Interactions, and Faculty Feedback

This study describes the tutoring interactions of four early childhood preservice tutors, two able and two less able, to document the tutoring strategies they applied as they provided support for their first-grade student at point of need. The two more able tutors provided various prompts to foster their students' use of strategies, thus demonstrating their ability to skillfully apply course learning to their work with children. The two less able tutors were unable to balance prompting, as they focused more heavily on correct word reading and appeared to have a limited understanding of how to support growth through reading. In addition, the instructor's online feedback was investigated and four categories identified: confirming, suggesting, directing, and teaching. The more able tutors used this feedback to fine-tune their tutoring sessions. Online feedback was not sufficient for helping the less able tutors develop a more strategic teaching stance. The findings suggest important implications for strengthening preservice literacy coursework and for scaffolding preservice tutors.