Teaching math skills to at-risk students using home-based peer tutoring.

Four elementary girls in foster care got three-minute math lessons every night. Their foster sisters, served as tutors after a single 90-minute training.

The researchers used a multiple-baseline design across four math skills. They tracked accuracy on subtraction with regrouping, two-digit multiplication, dividing decimals, and converting fractions.

All four girls jumped from 20-a large share accuracy to 80-a large share within two weeks. Gains stayed above a large share for about half of the skills three to five months later.

The peer tutors needed only occasional reminders to give praise and points. No extra rewards were given to the learners or the tutors after the first week.

Hursh et al. (1974) first showed peer tutors could run math groups in classrooms. H et al. moved the same idea into foster homes, proving it works without a teacher present.

LeBlanc et al. (2003) broke story problems into four precurrent steps and taught them directly. H et al. skipped component analysis and still got fast gains, showing peer delivery can be simpler yet effective.

Ruppel et al. (2021) and Martin et al. (1997) also ran home programs, but parents delivered the lessons. H et al. replaced parents with peers, cutting adult training time to 90 minutes while keeping the gains.

If you serve foster youth, train a same-age peer in one afternoon and start nightly three-minute flash-card rounds. No clinic, no extra staff, and you still get mastery plus partial maintenance. Try it on any skill that fits into quick trials—basic facts, sight words, or safety responses.