STUDENT TO STUDENT: SCALE's National Youth Literacy Network

How to Start a STUDENT TO STUDENT Program on Your Campus

If you administer a campus-based literacy program for college student tutors, we hope you will consider implementing a STUDENT TO STUDENT program.

“There is an urgent need to focus efforts on the literacy needs of adolescents,” explains Kathy Sikes, Executive Director of SCALE. “While there have been national literacy initiatives focused on young children and older adults, there has not been the same kind of effort made for our nation’s young adults. We believe that college student tutors have a unique opportunity to work with middle and high school students to engage them in learning and help them do better in school.”

The pillars of any effective literacy tutoring program are best practices that are outlined in SCALE’s Starting a Campus-Based Literacy Program: Ten Easy Steps. Additionally, five critical but easy-to-implement steps can guide you as you plan a STUDENT TO STUDENT program:

Step 1. Develop a Community Partnership An essential building block of a STUDENT TO STUDENT program is a community partnership with a middle school, high school, afterschool program, or other organization that hosts adolescents and is interested in providing tutoring to them through your college students.

See: Memorandum of Agreement: Campus and Community Partner

Step 2. Recruit College Student Tutors You will want to recruit a cohort of tutors interested in working with adolescents. It will be important to be sure that tutors are aware of their responsibilities and that you have carefully screened them. You will also need to develop a tutor training schedule throughout the academic year to provide ongoing training and support to your college students.

See: Tutor Recruitment Plan
Tutor Responsibilities
Tutor Application
Memorandum of Agreement: Campus and Tutor
Tutor Training Schedule
Tutor Training Evaluation

Step 3. Train Your Tutors Refer to the STUDENT TO STUDENT Tutor Training Manual for a comprehensive training plan for your tutors.

See: STUDENT TO STUDENT Tutor Training Manual

Step 4. Working with Learners Your tutors should visit their learners at least once a week for an hour (and ideally twice a week).

There are several important steps that are essential to building a meaningful relationship with an adolescent learner. It begins with engaging and motivating the learner and creating an understanding about what the tutor’s role is and how the tutor and learner can best work together. This begins in the first two sessions between tutor and learner.

The first two sessions are critical, both to set the stage for the relationship and to assess what the learner’s needs are. STUDENT TO STUDENT has developed assessment tools for tutors to use with their learners to figure this out easily.

After the first two sessions, tutor and learner can begin to work on the specific skills that will build confidence and ability in the learner.

The STUDENT TO STUDENT Tutor Training Manual outlines lesson plans to use including specific activities that address a learner’s particular needs.

See: STUDENT TO STUDENT Tutor Manual
Tutor-Learner Agreement
Parental Permission Form
Parental Permission Form in Spanish
Learner Survey
Learner Attitude Survey
Learner Information Sheet
Lesson Plan, Reading
Lesson Plan, Writing

Step 5. Evaluation It will be important to know if your STUDENT TO STUDENT program is making a difference for the learners you will be tutoring and for the tutors who are involved. Refer to several key surveys to regularly evaluate your program.

See: Learner Self-Evaluation
Parent Survey
Teacher Survey
Tutor Survey