Peer tutoring among elementary students: educational benefits to the tutor.

Three typical second-graders took turns teaching spelling words to classmates.

Each child served as tutor one day and tutee the next.

The class used simple flash-card drills and praise for correct answers.

The kids learned spelling words just as well when they taught as when they were taught.

Words that never appeared in either role stayed misspelled, so the practice mattered.

Paul et al. (1987) later repeated the idea with 211 first- and second-graders and still saw the same boost, showing the 1977 result holds in large classrooms.

Morgan et al. (2020) moved the same logic down to preschool and switched the goal to naming objects. Again, both tutor and tutee gained new words.

Adkins et al. (1997) kept the peer-teaching setup but aimed at social skills for classmates with autism. Social bids rose for the autistic students, proving the tutor format stretches beyond spelling.

You can raise academic scores without adding staff. Pick a peer, hand over flash cards, and let the class run itself for ten minutes. Rotate pairs daily so every student gets a turn to teach. You will see spelling gains in the tutors while you free up time to collect data or give extra help elsewhere.