ST. LOUIS, April 14 (UPI) -- Students with older tutors made 60 percent more progress in reading than those without, U.S. researchers say.
The study finds students with Experience Corps tutors -- volunteers age 55 and over -- made progress in learning two critical reading skills: sounding out new words and reading comprehension.
The two-year, $2 million study, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, involved more than 800 first-, second- and third-graders at 23 elementary schools in three cities. Half of the students had Experience Corps tutors and half had none.
"The difference in reading ability between kids who worked with Experience Corps tutors and those who did not is substantial and statistically significant," study lead researcher Nancy Morrow-Howell of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis says in a statement.
The researchers say as an intervention, Experience Corps compares to smaller class size -- the equivalent of a student assigned to a classroom with 40 percent fewer children, the study says.
The study is at http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/RP09-01.pdf.
