SEARCH/TEACH TUTORING

OVERVIEW

The SEARCH/TEACH Tutoring approach has a dual approach which tries to identify students who are at risk of failure as soon as possible and then provides intensive tutoring in skills related to reading, writing, and spelling.  A randomized evaluation of SEARCH/TEACH Tutoring found that did not have any impact on any of the measured outcomes: word comprehension, phonetic analysis, reading/decoding, written spelling, and reading achievement.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Elementary school-aged children

SEARCH/TEACH Tutoring is an intervention for children entering elementary school who are at-risk for later academic failure.  The SEARCH component of the program is a screening battery which identifies children at-risk for reading failure.  During the TEACH Tutoring sessions, children meet one-on-one with a tutor for half-hour sessions for 25 weeks.  At these sessions, children work with the tutor on visual, motor, auditory, body image, and intermodal tasks.  The program has been used in 85 different schools and with children of many different backgrounds.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Mantzicopoulos, P., Morrison, D., Stone, E., & Setrakian, W. (1992).  Use of SEARCH/TEACH tutoring approach with middle-class students at risk for reading failure.  The Elementary School Journal, 92(5), 573-586.

Evaluated population: 225 children ages 5-7 from four school districts in California.  The children were from upper-middle, middle, and lower-middle class households.  Three-quarters of the students were white, 8 percent were black, 6 percent were Asian, and 5 percent were Hispanic.

Approach: At the outset of the study, each kindergarten student was evaluated for 3 consecutive years using the SEARCH instrument for identifying delayed acquisition of spatial and temporal orientation.  Children who scored below the 33^rd percentile on five SEARCH subtests were classified as “at-risk” and those who did not meet this criterion were classified as “not-at-risk”.  Researchers selected an equivalent number of at-risk and not-at-risk students from each classroom.  At-risk students were matched on SEARCH scores and randomly assigned to one of three groups: the TEACH intervention, a phonetic intervention, or a control group.  Children in both TEACH and the phonetic intervention groups attended half hour, one-on-one tutoring sessions with credentialed tutors twice a week for 25 weeks.  During TEACH sessions, students worked on visual, motor, auditory, body image, and intermodal tasks.  During phonetic sessions, students worked for 30 minutes on reading and spelling drills.  Children in the control group attended their regular classes but did not receive any additional instruction.

Results: 57 students dropped out of the study resulting in 75 percent completion.  When researchers analyzed for non-random attrition, they found no differences between any groups.  At the first and second grade follow-up periods, children in the phonetic group intervention had higher scores on a word attack test than children in the control group.  The TEACH intervention had no impact on word attack.  The TEACH intervention did not have any impact on word comprehension, phonetic analysis, reading/decoding, written spelling, and reading achievement.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

Mantzicopoulos, P., Morrison, D., Stone, E., & Setrakian, W. (1992).  Use of SEARCH/ TEACH tutoring approach with middle-class students at risk for reading failure.  The Elementary School Journal, 92(5), 573-586.

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: 5-7 years / Program age ranges in the Guide: middle childhood

Program components: mentoring/tutoring; school-based

Measured outcomes: education and cognitive development

Program information last updated 8/4/08