HELPING BUDDY PEER TUTORING, COLLABORATIVE AND COOPERATIVE

An Action Research Report

Usha Thangamani, 2016

Introduction
Reading has been a widespread problem among my pupils who learn English as the second
language. Most of the pupils have low engagement and poor reading proficiency because of
their mother tongue influence. Some pupils have lack of motivation and low self-esteem
when comes to reading. My dominant concern in this study is to overcome the reading fear
among my Year 2 pupils by using peer tutoring strategy called Helping Buddy. Reading
process requires pre requisite knowledge of letters and sounds. I noticed that, poor readers in
my class do not look for what the text means and have not grasped the flow of language.
Meanwhile, they look for pictures or any other guidance to read and understand the meaning
of a text read. I always use many interactive activities in my reading class. However, I
observed that, these activities could only bring up enthusiastic among the excellent pupils.
Thus, I wanted to increase the confidence level and reading proficiency among poor pupils
with the help of the excellent pupils. I believe that, collaborative and cooperative learning
environment occurs in peer tutoring could facilitate this issue.
The Process
There were few steps taken in preparing this action research. The steps are as shown below.

Pre assessment / Diagnos

Reporting the outcomes
Reflection

Figure 1 : Concept flowchart for action research project

Evaluating

I used screening test to gauge pupils risk for reading as the first step. I did not design any
special screening test for this, while I used the LINUS screening. Screening helped me to sort
pupils into two groups, those who require an intervention and those who do not. Those who
do not require intervention would be the tutor while those who require intervention would be
their tutee. The screening involved skills such as letter knowledge, phonological awareness,
word identification and fluency.
The second step, I assigned a main stream pupil to be the tutor for each pupil who oblige an
intervention. They will be working as a tag team in order to mend their reading abilities and
proficiency. They will be given some tasks and the teacher set the time limitation. The tutors
took over teachers role to assist, guide and facilitate their partner to improve their reading
skills. Every week, they will be assigned with various tasks. Tutors were permissible to help
their tutees to get done with the task given whenever they were free. However, I as the
teacher still had to play a role where the teacher got feedback and reports from the tutors once
a week regards their partnership.
The third step is the assessing part. End of each week, the tutees were assessed. During the
assessment, the tutors were not allowed to guide their partners and the tutees had to stand on
their own feet. Each of them were graded individually and this could show an authentic
results. Though they had been graded individually, it was not an arduous task for them
because they had gained enough guidance and drilling from their partner. At the end of the
action research project, the best team was selected and awarded.
The Results
I noticed a change in my low achievement pupils reading proficiency. This project has given
a lucrative results for them. They portrayed themselves to be more self-reliant and
enthusiastic when comes to reading. The prominent change was all of them could read.
1. The children had a much better phonological awareness and letter recognition.
Originally, they were not able to recognize all the alphabets and blend the phonemes.
As time went on, they began identify the letters and blend the sounds correctly by
their own as a result of their partnership.
2. The children were self-reliant and enthusiastic. The pupils who used to be passive
and daunted just because they were not good reader, has become exuberant and
enthralled by the motivation to read.

3. The children were learning to learn cooperatively and collaboratively. All the
while, these students hushed themselves during English lesson especially speaking
and reading classes. After they learned with a partner, they could build a rapport with
the friend and this has helped them to learn better.
Helping Buddy has proven to be an epitome for peer tutoring, collaborative and
cooperative learning to produce best results. As another way of interpreting the results of my
project, I asked the low achievers personally what they liked about Helping Buddy. From
their responses, I could ascertain that this is an intriguing way of learning.
Conclusion
Trying a more learner centred approach in enhancing reading skills definitely addressed my
central concern about my teaching and my pupils learning. Certainly, I could say that I have
improved my teaching in this area when I delegate my pupils. The action research project
profited both my pupils and me. Moreover, it is vital for all teachers of continually evaluating
of our teaching.