Young children's self-perceptions of competency in literacy during one-on-one tutoring.

Abstract

Findings from this study provide evidence of the importance of one-on-one instruction for children considered at-risk for school failure in influencing continued engagement in literacy tasks (reading and writing), the tutors' use of positive feedback that seems to promote positive self-perceptions of competency in literacy, and how children's feelings about their competence and their literacy performance change over time. As a whole, the children's increase in self-efficacy paralleled their literacy performance across the year.

Data from field notes, tutoring transcripts, and attitude assessments were used to determine changes in the children's self-perceptions of their competency in literacy. Pre- and postreading and writing assessments were used to determine changes in literacy performance. Based on self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1986, 1995), the research addressed the questions: (1) What changes in the participants' self-perceptions of competency occur over the year of the tutoring? (2) What interaction patterns with the tutors during the tutoring seem related to those changes? (3) How does the participants' literacy performance seem related to their self-perceptions of competence?

The research described in this paper explored young children's feelings of competence to engage in print-related tasks within the context of one-on-one instruction. Over an eight-month period, six randomly selected low-achieving first-grade children (three boys and three girls) were observed and audiotaped weekly as they were tutored by college students.

Social interaction in the form of positive verbal feedback to the children's literacy performance (reading and writing) appeared related to the children's positive changes it, self-perceptions of competency. The positive feedback provided instantaneous encouragement and support of the children's reading and writing attempts, thus enhancing motivation to continue engagement in print-related tasks during the tutoring.