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The literature speaks to three related areas that are pertinent to this study: the phenomenon of volunteerism and volunteers, effective training of professional instructors generally and volunteer instructors specifically, and characteristics of successful tutorial programs, especially those staffed by volunteers. In this review, I distill information that should be helpful to those who intend to establish volunteer tutorial programs, most specifically those aimed at younger children who are struggling in reading.

Volunteerism and Volunteers
The recent push toward volunteer work spearheaded by the White House (Clinton, 1997) is helping to draw many citizens toward helping in their communities. While millions of Americans are stepping up to work in ways that include baking cookies or singing in the church choir, it has been estimated by Independent Sector, a group that studies non-profit organizations, that only 8.4% of volunteers work in human services. Of this group, less than four percent serve as tutors (Gerson, 1997).
To gain some perspective on the numbers of volunteers in schools, a report by the National Center for Education Statistics (1989) estimated that approximately 1.3 million people volunteered to work in the nation's public and private schools during the 1987-1988 school year. This was up from the 1.1 million estimate made in 1985 (Center for Education Statistics, 1986), with the increase registered mainly in private schools. The same report estimated that approximately 75% of the nation's elementary schools utilize volunteers with just under 50% of the volunteers being used for services to support instruction including tutoring. One can assume that a great number of these volunteers assisted with literacy acquisition.

The Effectiveness of Volunteers
With so much attention being focused on using volunteers as literacy tutors, the assumption is being made that tutoring by paraprofessionals has academic benefits. Several studies have pointed to the effectiveness of volunteer tutoring. In a meta-analysis of findings from 65 independent evaluations of school tutoring programs that use a variety of staffing patterns, Cohen, Kulik, and Kulik (1982) found that most of the programs had positive effects on academic performance and attitudes of the tutees. They also had positive effects on the tutors themselves. Michael (1990) reports that, after reviewing a number of studies dealing specifically with tutoring by volunteers, in no instance did researchers report negative effects on academic performance. Almost all reported academic gains for tutored students greater than those for students who were not tutored or greater than would otherwise have been expected for the tutored students.
When considering literacy tutoring programs only, Plantec, Paramore, and Hospodar (1972) evaluated the effects of "Project Upswing," a volunteer reading tutoring program supported by the Office of Education. The research study, which looked at Project Upswing programs in several large cities in the United States, compared the achievement of first-grade students who worked with trained tutors, untrained tutors, and no tutors at all. Plantec et al. (1972) reported that tutored children made greater gains in reading than those who were untutored whether the tutors had been trained or not. Eberwein, Hirst, and Magendanz (1976) reviewed 34 studies on the effects of volunteer tutoring programs in reading. They noted that experimental students generally showed greater academic progress with tutors than the control students who were not tutored. The tutors, who were parents, other adult volunteers, and cross-age volunteers, helped the tutored students make greater gains than non-tutored students in various measures such as word knowledge, composite reading, and reading comprehension. In a more recent review of reading tutoring programs that have been shown through data analysis to be effective, Wasik (1997) reviewed two programs that compared tutored students to those in a control group using an experimental design. In the Chicago-based Howard Street Tutoring Program, struggling second- and third-grade students were tutored by people who vary from undergraduate college students to suburban mothers to retirees. Morris, Shaw, and Penney (1990), in a 2-year study of the Howard Street program, reported that the tutored students made substantially higher gains on measures that included word recognition, oral reading, and spelling than their non-tutored counterparts. Another project reviewed by Wasik that used an experimental design was the School Volunteer Development Project developed in Dade County, Florida. Second- through sixth-grade students who were tutored by a variety of community volunteers were pre- and posttested using the Metropolitan Achievement Test. After 1 year of tutoring, students who received tutoring gained .50 standard deviations more in reading than the untutored group. The other 15 programs that Wasik examines in her report, although not substantiated through experimental design, did demonstrate the effectiveness of tutoring programs through pre- and posttest comparisons, correlational data, or some similar measures.
Read to Succeed (Bader, 1998b), a tutoring program that has been "repackaged" for the America Reads effort, is based on the SUCCEED program, which has been in existence at Michigan State University since 1984. University students, community volunteers, and AmeriCorps volunteers who work as tutors receive between 6 and 12 hours of training as they are working with children. The program authors state that "the average reading level gain of the children is two grade levels over a one year period. Many students gain two years or more in one semester" (Bader, 1998b, p. 1).
To summarize, millions of Americans choose to volunteer their services in numerous ways, many of which are related to education. Volunteer programs in a variety of subject areas have been shown to be effective in most cases and detrimental in no cases that I reviewed. Perhaps the satisfaction gained by these positive results is what causes so many citizens to freely offer their assistance.

Why Do People Volunteer?
In Gerson's (1997) hard-hitting article in U.S. News & World Report titled "Do Do-gooders Do Much Good?" he makes a point pertinent to a discussion of volunteerism. He clarifies a distinction between "recreational volunteerism" and "human services volunteerism." Recreational volunteers can be found serving in museums, theaters, and parks, positions that are low-risk emotionally. Human service volunteers–those helping out in long-term, one-on-one situations such as becoming a Big Brother/Big Sister, or in tutoring a child or adult non-reader–are much harder to recruit and maintain. He comments:
There is a wide gap between the emotional investment required for a day of cleaning a park and years of working with another human being. Yet the latter is the form of volunteering most likely to get at society's core problems. These approaches have not been tried and found wanting; they have been tried and found difficult. (p. 34)

If human service volunteering is indeed difficult, then why do people volunteer? What are the perceived benefits in offering one's time and energy to a cause or to another human being? A sizeable amount of research relating to these questions has been done in the area of college student service learning. Some college students "volunteer" for service because it is a requirement of a particular course, such as classes in reading methods where students gain experience by working in community schools. Their participation is an expected and/or graded part of the course. Many policy makers and educational theorists believe that community service offers a way to counteract self-centeredness and supplement conventional forms of civic and moral education (Serow, 1991). As a result, community service opportunities are being built into the course offerings at many colleges and universities. But other college students join the volunteer ranks for reasons other than having to do with requirements.
There seems to be a surge in recent years in community service among young people (Boyer, 1987), possibly because of an increase of public awareness campaigns in the media. Two primary concepts, altruism and egoism, have been offered as motivations for volunteer activities (Winniford, Carpenter, & Grider, 1995). This can be expressed simply as a desire to help others, balanced with a hope to benefit personally from volunteer activities. Fitch (1987) has suggested a third reason that students volunteer, that being a sense of social obligation expressed in the statement "I owe it to society." Many students who have a history of offering their services willingly had parents who were themselves volunteers.
In attempting to answer the question of, which of the above motivations is primary, the research literature is divided. Most studies that I have reviewed attribute students' motives primarily to egoistic ones (Serow, 1991; Serow, Ciechalski, & Daye, 1990). According to these researchers, students are volunteering for a number of reasons, but those having to do with meeting personal needs and desires come first. They acknowledge that motivations are not pure or inseparable from each other; rather, they are "complex and variable, potentially encompassing a mixture of self-regarding and other-regarding forces" (Serow, 1991, p. 546). Serow et al. (1990) embedded the complex discussion of motivations in the concept of personal competence which they define as one's ability to master one's environment. Students who are predisposed to offer their services as volunteers generally "have their act together" in most other areas of their lives. Their service is another way to gain a measure of control over various aspects of their personal spheres.
Winniford et al. (1995) found that altruistic motives drove the students they studied, followed by egoistic ones. They acknowledge the fact that their findings run counter to most of the research literature, and they attribute this to the unique cultural environment of the campus at Texas A & M where their research took place. The researchers claim that, at this university, there is a strong "Aggie culture" that conveys a sense of unity and a desire to help others. More altruistic students may be attracted to this institution because of its atypical atmosphere.
The part that religion plays in motivating students to serve, a question that may be of particular interest in this study, is only casually mentioned in the reports I reviewed. Serow te al. (1990) observes that "community service is closely related to religious involvement." But in Serow's 1991 study, only 28% of students surveyed mention religious beliefs as a decision factor supporting their participation in community service. Other items such as a sense of satisfaction from helping others, affiliation with an organization that promoted service, societal duty, and opportunities to acquire skills were mentioned much more often. It is possible that a person's religious orientation is a key factor in the sense of satisfaction he or she gains from serving. Fitch (1987) found that altruistic motivations were more important to the students who were more religious.
No matter what may cause college students to volunteer, the positive outcomes of their service appear to be fairly universal. In one survey of student volunteers, 90% of them reported that their service experience was as valuable or more valuable to them than classroom work (Boyer, 1987). Giles and Eyler (1994) listed significant increases in beliefs that people can make a difference, their sense of obligation to perform service, and their commitment to do so. Their experiences led to more positive perceptions of the people they served and a decrease in the tendency to blame people for their misfortunes. Wade and Anderson (1996) summarize the benefits to college students as having strong effects on students' personal development, career awareness, choice of a service-oriented career, and more confidence in the ability to solve the problems of society. In answering the self-imposed question, "Why does service-learning have such transformative effects on students?" they hypothesize, "Perhaps because experience is the best teacher" (p. 62).
Although the studies cited above focused primarily on younger citizens, it appears that motivations for service and the benefits of service are similar for people of all ages. On the opposite end of the age spectrum, senior citizens, through volunteer activities, can utilize skills and talents gained through a lifetime of experience to benefit others. The opportunities afforded by working in schools can help to fill the personal gap left by the decline in recent years of the extended family. According to Armengol (1992), the American family is less diversified and enriched because grandparents are not as likely to be members of a child's household. Matters (1990) contends that intergenerational programs can help minimize the stereotypes that youth and older adults may have about each other.
Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985) suggest that community service offers people of all ages a type of "interconnectedness" that provides a balance between one's personal and public lives. The personal benefits of service and the public good it engenders exist in a tension that is difficult to dissect when discussing motivations.
To sum, the research reveals several reasons why people tend to volunteer. Many college campuses are making service learning a requirement of particular courses. But for those from whom service is not required, researchers suggest that a desire to help others balanced with a hope to personally benefit from volunteer activities drives most volunteers. A sense of social obligation may also play a role in the motivational aspects of volunteerism. Helping others offers many people a feeling of connectedness or simply a way to acquire or improve needed skills.

The Training of Instructors
Professional Staff Development
Although not the focus of this study, the literature related to the training of professional educators does offer some insight into principles that are helpful in designing effective training programs. Certainly, there is a difference in providing ongoing inservice to experienced teachers compared to training volunteer instructors. But people are people, and one area of practice can inform the other in issues relating to training.

The Joyce-Showers Model for Staff Development
In a recent synthesis of research about school renewal as it relates to staff development, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers (1995) confirm the findings from their earlier meta-analysis (Showers, Joyce, & Bennett, 1987; Joyce & Showers, 1988). Effective training programs for educators must have the following four components if what is learned during training sessions is to be transferred to the classroom: the presentation of theory, demonstrations of new strategies, initial practice in the workshop setting, and prompt feedback about the initial efforts by the trainees. Joyce and Showers (1995) add that teachers are more likely to keep and use these new strategies if they receive expert or peer coaching while they are trying them in the classroom.
In an earlier work by Joyce, Hersch, and McKibben (1983), they attach percentage of retention figures to the above components. With the presentation of theory, there is a maximum of 10% retention; adding demonstration yields another 10% retention; adding practice and feedback results in an additional maximum of 20% retention; only when coaching for application is added does this figure rise to a maximum of 75%.
Joyce and Showers (1995) use the concept of "effect size" (Glass, 1982) when describing the magnitude of gains from any change in practice or any training program designed to impact not only teacher skill enhancement but the learning of students. An effect size of 1.0 would increase the demonstrated achievement of teachers or students by one standard deviation. Modestly effective practices increase learning by up to one-half of a standard deviation. Substantially effective practices increase student learning from between one-half and one full standard deviation. Very effecticve practices increase student learning by over one standard deviation. It should be noted that, even though different staff development practices may induce substantially or very effective changes in the knowledge or skill levels of teachers, this may not transfer into the classroom and thus positively affect students. When analyzing the transfer effect sizes of the above training components both alone and in combination, Joyce and Showers concluded that any one of the components produced some effectiveness when measuring the knowledge or skill of the trainees. Only when theory, practice, feedback, and demonstration were combined in the training experience was there any tranfer into the classroom. The effect size was .39, a modest effect. When coaching was added to the above four components, the effect size blossomed to 1.68, classified as very effective.
If the content is new and unfamiliar to the trainees, the training elements above will need to be more extensive. And, finally, collaborative relationships must be facilitated and structured if the trainees are to press through problems associated with implementation (Joyce & Showers, 1995).
The above recommendations are echoed in another list of professional development strategies suggested by Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1995). They, too, stress the need for collaboration among educators involved in improvement efforts. Mutual assistance, coupled with self-evaluation in the light of theory and research evaluation, helps to ensure that the new information learned in workshop settings will carry through to practice in the classroom.

The Reading Recovery Model
Perhaps the single most intensive and effective (if not most well-known) training program for professional educators that has to do with tutoring at-risk children in reading is Reading Recovery. Developed by New Zealand child psychologist Marie Clay (1993), Reading Recovery is an early-intervention reading program designed to help at-risk first-graders become proficient at reading before they fall hopelessly behind their classmates. Because "accelerated learning for at-risk children is impossible without experienced, highly-skilled teachers who are expert at observing children and making the moment-to-moment decisions necessary to support independent learning" training at this level "requires substantially more than traditional professional development models can deliver" (Reading Recovery Council of North America, 1996, p. 11).
Teachers who receive training to become Reading Recovery instructors are engaged in a year-long, master's level program that combines "academic course work, intensive interaction with colleagues, and ongoing work with children" (Pinnell & McCarrier, 1993, p. 7). Along with the presentation of theory, teachers take turns teaching behind a one-way mirror while their peers observe and critique the lesson. They continue to work each day with four students at their home schools. After the initial training year, teachers maintain their skills through continuing contact sessions, observations by trained teacher-leaders, observation visits by and to fellow teachers, and attendance at Reading Recovery conferences.
This training model incorporates every element of the Joyce-Showers model described above. Weekly training sessions contain plenty of theory, with demonstrations constantly being presented through videotape and live lessons. Trainees gain valuable and concentrated practice in their "behind-the-glass" lessons observed by their classmates. After the lesson, feedback is provided by their teacher-leader and peers as they critique how the session went. On-site visits by the teacher-leader and classmates provide the coaching deemed so important in carrying the new learning into day-to-day practice. It is no wonder that Douglas Kammerer, director of compensatory services for the Marion, Ohio, city schools, calls Reading Recovery "the single most powerful teacher training program I've ever seen–and I've been involved in educational innovation since the late nineteen-sixties" (cited in Wilson & Daviss, 1994, p. 67).

The Training of Volunteer Instructors

Volunteers come to the instructional task with a different set of background experiences than classroom teachers who have had the benefit of working with children as a vocation. And yet one would expect that the key elements of successful, professional staff-development models would remain somewhat consistent for paraprofessionals who intend to do similar tasks as their counterparts.
The research literature having to do with the training of volunteer reading tutors is fairly sparse, especially when studying programs for school-age children. In fact, the articles I located simply report the training scenarios provided by a variety of tutorial programs without providing any comparative or experimental data. Several of these are discussed in the next section having to do with the characteristics of successful programs.
A document titled "Key Elements of Adult Education Teacher and Volunteer Training Programs" (Sherman, Kutner, Webb, & Herman, 1991) outlines effective staff-development practices identified through a review of much of the same professional staff-development literature discussed above. Visits to nine staff-development programs identified as providing effective training for adult education teachers and volunteer instructors provided experiential data from which several recommendations were formulated. Although the programs reviewed were concerned with adult literacy tutoring, an assumption is made that the recommendations will apply to elementary-age volunteer tutoring programs as well.
Sherman et al. (1991) reports these recommendations in two dimensions–those associated with the delivery of training services and those dealing with training content. Four elements are associated with the delivery of training services:
1. Experienced and dedicated training administrator and staff–Staff members who were familiar with the needs of the trainees were key to the program's success. Those who were practitioners themselves brought a valued sensitivity and knowledge to the training.
2. Decentralized training services–Trainees feel that localized training by local practitioners is more accessible and cost-effective. Also, local trainers can meet the specific needs at a site better than those at a centralized location who are focusing their attention on more general needs.
3. Systematic follow-up–Opportunities to provide regular feedback and coaching are essential if trainees are to internalize what is learned in training sessions. Follow-up is best provided through observation and coaching sessions at the local level. Also, offering multiple workshop sessions extended over a period of time allows participants to test and hone their skills.
4. Evaluation of training services–Ongoing and systematic evaluation which assesses the impact of training and the current needs of trainees is essential to an effective program. This evaluation aids in designing follow-up sessions that truly meet the needs of tutors and their students.

Sherman et al. (1991) associated five elements with the content of effective training services:
1. Training in response to teachers' and volunteer instructors' needs–Even though it seem obvious to suggest that training ought to meet the specific needs of those being trained, too often the training is offered in a packaged format that may not address the unique concerns of the trainees.
2. Involving the participant in the learning process–The literature discussed above regarding the importance of practice and feedback in the training scenario is important in this respect (Joyce & Showers, 1995; Showers et al., 1987).
3. Modeling appropriate instruction–Another element associated with the previously cited literature is the necessity of providing demonstrations through video presentations, role playing, or actual tutoring sessions.
4. Placing learning within a theoretical framework–The importance of sound theoretical background substantiated by applied research findings has already been established.
5. Providing training in appropriate content areas–Tutors require a combination of skills to make them effective. Their training needs to address all appropriate areas related to the task they are undertaking.
Tibbetts (1991) conducted a similar survey to assess effective training practices for adult education teachers and volunteer instructors. In addition to the elements above, he cites the importance of maintaining a positive climate in training programs. He also noted that, even though the majority of programs use "one-shot" staff development experiences, these experiences were not as effective as longer-term, multiple-session approaches.

Characteristics of Effective Reading Tutoring Programs
Recommendations by Experts
The America Reads Challenge has begun to evoke a number of recommendations from those experienced in the field of literacy instruction and/or volunteer service programs. As mentioned in chapter 1, not everyone is overly optimistic that volunteer reading tutors can make a lasting impact when used as reading instructors for struggling students. Others, however, take a different view, and have offered sage advice in tutor training and general program operations.
The Committee on the Use of Volunteers in Schools headed by Bernard (1990) surveyed research on school volunteer programs and found that, indeed, tutored students do make academic gains greater than their comparable non-tutored peers. He defined the characteristics of successful volunteer programs, stating that they all featured sound organization and management, support from the administrative level, close cooperation between volunteers and people in the school, and clear expectations of volunteers.
Shortly after President Clinton unveiled the America Reads Challenge, Bader and Kenney (1997) began surveying literacy professors on America Reads issues related to their campuses. Generally speaking, the professors expressed enthusiasm about the plan, but expressed some concerns, the primary one centering on the need for tutors to be professionally trained and supervised. When asked what the America Reads program needed in order to succeed, the professors mentioned the following most often: a sound, simple training guide, committed tutors, cooperative schools, qualified faculty to provide support, training on recruitment and retention of volunteers, and ongoing training and supervision.
Morrow and Walker (1997a) offer more specific advice in getting an America Reads program started. They suggest that tutors be supervised by a reading specialist or experienced teacher who is getting paid for his/her work. They comment, "Volunteering is wonderful; however, those who undertake this supervisory job should be paid appropriately" (p. 30). Tutors, who may be work study students, student volunteers, or volunteers from the community, should be selected by the program supervisors while reviewing applications that volunteers complete after responding to a questionnaire. Tutors ideally should have about 10 to 12 hours of training spread over three to five sessions within a 2-week period. After training, the tutors should have continuing contact with the supervisor through bi-weekly observations and monthly group meetings. Students chosen to be tutored are not to have severe learning difficulties; rather, they should be of average intelligence but struggling with reading more than their peers. Morrow and Walker (1997a) recommend that tutoring not take place during school if it will interrupt other instruction the child might be receiving. Ideally, the child and the tutor should meet three to five times per week for 30-minute sessions. Tutoring materials and books can be chosen by the program supervisor and the child's teacher. A simple, well-written tutoring handbook should be provided to each tutor as well for personal reference.
Pinnell and Fountas (1997a) offer their own suggestions for implementing a successful tutorial program. Several of their recommendations reflect those already stated: the need for expert help, ongoing training that includes demonstrations, observations, and coaching, and a regular, frequent tutoring schedule. They also suggest that the coordinator or tutor trainer encourage volunteer tutors to reflect on their work so that they can make decisions in tutoring a child that are "based on understanding rather than following scripts or sets of directions" (p. 2). Tutoring sessions should include many opportunities for reading and writing, but few "meaningless drills." Finally, the progress that children make should be monitored and documented in simple ways such as listing books read or words learned.
In summary, the characteristics of effective volunteer literacy programs can be organized under five topics: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action plans. These topics were suggested by D. Ambrose (1987) in an unpublished chart showing the results when any one element is missing. (See Table 1.)
While somewhat simplistic in its portrayal of change, I find it a useful tool to begin thinking about what is involved in volunteer literacy programs. Each one of the elements identified by Bernard (1990), Bader and Kenney (1997), Morrow and Walker (1997a), and Pinnell and Fountas (1997a) can be organized using the topics suggested by Ambrose. (See Table 2.)

Critical Components Results
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Vision –>	Skills –>	Incentives –>	Resources –>	Action Plan –>	Change
	Skills –>	Incentives –>	Resources –>	Action Plan –>	Confusion
Vision –>		Incentives –>	Resources –>	Action Plan –>	Anxiety
Vision –>	Skills –>		Resources –>	Action Plan –>	Gradual Change
Vision –>	Skills –>	Incentives –>		Action Plan –>	Frustration
Vision –>	Skills –>	Incentives –>	Resources –>		False Starts

________________________________________________________________________

Note. From "Managing Complex Change," by D. Ambrose, 1987, as cited in Special Education: Past, Present, and Future, by James A. Tucker, 1993, Paper presented at the 14th National Institute on Legal Issues of Educating Individuals With Disabilities, Miami Beach, FL.

In the next section, I examine a number of literacy programs in the light of the characteristics identified in Table 2. Included in this examination, for the purpose of making comparisons and for setting it within the context of literacy tutoring initiatives, are the basic elements of the Adventist Tutoring and Mentoring initiative.

TABLE 2

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TUTORING PROGRAMS CLASSIFIED BY COMPONENTS NEEDED TO
ACCOMPLISH CHANGE

Vision	Skills	Incentives	Resources	Action Plan
• A clear mission and goals ex-pressed for everyone involved • Clear expecta-tions of volunteers	• Ongoing training and supervision of volunteers • Training for leaders on recruitment and retention of volunteers	• Support from the administrative level	• Committed tutors • Qualified faculty to provide support • A sound, simple training guide • Quality materials • Parents are informed and involved • Community support	• Sound organi-zation and management • Close coopera-tion between volunteers and people in the school • Careful selec-tion of students to be tutored • A regular, fre-quent tutoring schedule • Monitoring of student progress • Lessons include plenty of read-ing and writing; few "meaning-less drills"

Analysis of Effective Programs Including the Adventist
Tutoring and Mentoring Initiative
Vision
Vision, the need for organizational clarity about purpose and direction (Wheatley, 1992), is an important element of any program. Without it, confusion may reign, as indicated by Figure 1, frustrating the most well-meaning of efforts. Volunteers in a tutoring program most likely have a vision of what their efforts can accomplish or they never would have "signed on" in the first place. But it remains the task of program organizers and supervisors to maintain and extend the vision of all involved if the desired goals are to be realized.

Clear Mission and Goals Expressed
In my review, two characteristics of successful programs could be classified under the Vision category. First, an overriding mission must be shared with clear goals set for everyone in the effort. The organizers of the Alliance for Youth, the volunteerism "clearinghouse" under which the Adventist effort received its mandate, set five fundamental goals that they hope will be achieved in the lives of at least 2 million at-risk young people (Sahlin, 1997). These goals are
1. An ongoing relationship with a caring adult
2. Safe places and structured activity during non-school hours
3. A marketable skill through effective education
4. A healthy start through adequate health care
5. An opportunity to give back through community service.
President Clinton initiated the more specific America Reads mission by setting the national goal that every American child should be able to read on his or her own by the end of third grade (Clinton, 1996). He calls upon 30,000 reading specialists and volunteer coordinators to mobilize a million volunteer reading tutors all across America. And, as indicated in chapter 1, the goals set by the Adventist Youth Services Network (YouthNet) in its Tutoring and Mentoring project are to:
1. Activate 100 community-based tutoring projects
2. Mobilize 3,000 volunteers
3. Reach 10,000 at-risk children and youth.
The above mission/goal statements are the ones driving this reading tutoring effort at a national level. It is up to the leadership at each local project to specify mission and goal statements that will guide their own individual efforts.
"We sell a product at our school, and that product is reading," states Principal John Monfredo at Belmont Community School in Worchester, Massachusetts (America Reads Challenge, 1996, [p.2]). The school-wide initiative, called "Books and Beyond," is intended to "build the skills and desire of every child to read." Numerous activities and volunteers combine to make sure this happens in a festive atmosphere that is enjoyable for all. In the Student Literacy Corps sponsored by the University of South Carolina in Columbia (Herrmann, 1990), clear, measurable objectives are set for tutored children, for parents, for undergraduate students, for graduate students, and for inservice teachers. The success of the program would be beyond question even if only half of the goals were met for each group.

Clear Expectations of Volunteers
In addition to setting goals, the other characteristic of successful programs connected with vision is the setting of clear expectations of volunteers. This helps to personalize the mission and goals of the project for each individual volunteer tutor. The Handbook for Community-based Tutoring & Mentoring Projects (Sahlin, 1997) given to each participant at the Adventist Youth Services Network training session in August 1997, recommends the following "job description" for tutors:
1. Serve as a positive role model.
2. Be sensitive to the perspective of the at-risk child.
3. Accept the child on an equal basis as a fellow human being.
4. Be a dependable individual who can combine friendship with the business of learning.
5. When asking questions, be willing to accept and respond to the answers.
6. Find ways to show sincere interest in the child. Try not to do more than 1/3 of the talking.
7. Remember that reading skills are the major focus of tutoring.
8. Plan wisely for the time spent with the child. Plan so that the child can succeed.
Certainly, more basic goals and expectations will also need to be set relating to schedules, record keeping, and other details.
Skills
Ongoing Training and Supervision of Volunteers
"A general principle is that the more training volunteers have (provided the training is of high-quality), the more effective they will be. Ongoing training is essential" (Pinnell & Fountas, 1997a, p. 16). According to the Handbook for Tutoring & Mentoring Projects (Sahlin, 1997), "The single most important key to the success of a community-based volunteer tutoring project is the quality of training provided to volunteers" (p. 61). Most other reviews of successful programs I examined echoed these sentiments.
Training for tutors is mentioned in most programs I reviewed, but not all were specific about how the training took place. Obviously, training needs to provide the skills and theory necessary for the tutors to meet expectations. Rekrut (1994) suggests three areas in which training should focus: (1) interpersonal skills: helping without telling, offering encouragement, using positive statements about the attitudes and work of the tutee; (2) management skills: materials needed for the lessons, finding an appropriate place to work, how to sit with the tutee; and (3) content skills: preparing for lessons in advance, reading books prior to introducing them to the tutee, pondering questions beforehand, and creating follow-up activities for the next session (p. 359). All successful programs provide initial and continuing training for volunteers in these areas. Earlier in this chapter, the key elements of successful training programs were discussed in two dimensions–those associated with the delivery of training services and those dealing with training content (Sherman et al., 1991). Effective training programs are taught locally by experienced practitioners. Systematic follow-up is provided, and evaluation of the program is ongoing and covers several dimensions. Training that is responsive to the unique needs of those being trained is important. Training sessions provide opportunities to learn theory, see demonstrations, and practice skills needed in all appropriate areas related to the tutoring task.

Training for Leaders on Recruitment and
Retention of Volunteers

A second characteristic of successful programs that I classified under the Skills heading is related to the above. The supervisors in a program must be prepared for the task they are undertaking. In addition to being very knowledgeable about the tutoring task, they need to know how to successfully recruit and retain volunteers. Sahlin (1997, pp. 55-60) devotes a chapter in the Tutoring & Mentoring handbook to recruiting volunteers. He estimates that, in order to provide basic tutoring for 15 to 20 children, 30 or more volunteers "of one kind or another" need to be secured. Recommendations for promoting the project to prospective workers, conducting an interview, and completing necessary paperwork are detailed in the chapter.

Incentives
Presumably, volunteers offer their services because they perceive that their efforts will "pay off" in one way or another. As discussed earlier, the research is divided as to whether egoistic or altruistic motives primarily drive volunteers. Whatever the case, the motives for volunteering are partly driven by reasons known only to the individual.

Support from the Administrative Level
Some programs offer financial or college credit remuneration to volunteers. In late 1996, the Department of Education announced that it would "waive a requirement in the federal Work-Study program that would require schools to pay a portion of the wages of students working as reading tutors for young children" (Hoff, 1996). The coordinators of the Adventist YouthNet/ACS project have actively sought student volunteers to work in establishing tutoring sites in major cities across the United States. In March 1998, they announced that they had been successful in securing a major grant from AmeriCorps to fund 18 coordinator positions (M. Sahlin, e-mail communication, March 7, 1998, Data File, pp. 29-30). AmeriCorps is a federal program that offers young people college tuition aid or a small stipend in return for community service. The Ohio State University's Reading Recovery pilot tutoring project has also funded student volunteer tutors through AmeriCorps grants (Wasik, 1997). Other projects, such as the Reading One-One program developed at the University of Dallas (Farkas, 1996), fund tutors at the rate of $7.00 per hour by using the host elementary school's Title 1 federal grant money.

Resources
Committed Tutors
The most obvious resources needed in a volunteer program are people–committed tutors and qualified supervisory personnel. Pinnell and Fountas (1997a) list some desired personal characteristics of literacy tutors for young children. Excellent tutors have high energy and commitment, are flexible, love children, are willing to learn new skills and ways of working with children, like to read and write, like to work with other people, enjoy new experiences, and are dependable (p. 8). Program coordinators need to interview prospective volunteers in order to evaluate their suitability for the task.
The purpose of an interview with a prospective volunteer is to determine the suitability of the applicant for volunteering in your program and to select an assignment in which the needs of both the program and the individual are satisfied. Such an interview is essential, since the success of your entire volunteer program depends, to a large degree, on finding the right person for the right position.
Consequently, every applicant should have an interview, no matter how well s/he may be known to you. In many instances the interview serves another purpose: It becomes the first step towards orienting and training the volunteer who accepts and is acceptable to our program. (MacBride, 1990, p. 91)

Qualified Faculty to Provide Support
Most successful tutoring projects place a certified teacher or reading specialist in a key position as coordinator or advisor to the program. Current or former graduate students in reading education act as coordinators in the Charlottesville Volunteer Tutorial project (Invernizzi, Juel, & Rosemary, 1996). The same is true in the Howard Street Tutoring Program (Morris et al., 1990). Wasik (1998) believes that this is possibly the single most important factor in establishing a successful program. She says that programs which do not employ the use of a specialist because of budgetary or other reasons deprive volunteers of the guidance or skills they need to tutor effectively.

A Sound, Simple Training Guide
Volunteer tutors need a sound, simple training guide to which they can repeatedly return for guidance and inspiration (Bader & Kenney, 1997; Morrow & Walker, 1997a). The SMILIES: Helping Children Read (Freed et al., 1997) manual was written to guide those who would be working with the YouthNet/ACS tutoring project. As a contributor to the SMILIES manual, I recall that one oft-repeated encouragement we constantly gave to each other was "Keep it simple!" The manuals that I have reviewed to date written specifically for the America Reads effort (Bader, 1998a, 1997b; Morrow & Walker, 1998b; Pinnell & Fountas, 1997a, 1997b) are written in an easy-to-follow and implement format with helpful checklists, assessment tools, forms, lists of suggested books and resources, and sources for other materials.

Quality Materials
Among the other materials recommended by these programs are books, used both for children's readers and for reading aloud by adults, writing materials including pencils, markers, crayons, paper, glue, staplers, and scissors, writing surfaces like chalkboards and dry erase boards, magnetic letters, word games, and other written material such as telephone books, comic books, and newspapers. These items may be supplied by the program sponsors, by public libraries, by the participating schools, by the tutors themselves, and/or even by the children.

Informed, Involved Parents
I have also included informed, involved parents under the resources needed to implement an effective program. The now classic report, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), declared strongly that parents are a child's first and most important teacher. When examining five of the nation's most effective school-based programs for preventing reading failure, Pikulski (1994) noted that all five programs had a strong home-school connection component. He states, "Effective early intervention programs encourage communication between home and school" (p. 38). The assumption can be made that this is true for effective volunteer tutoring programs as well.
One program that is exemplary in this dimension is the AmeriCorps SLICE program in Simpson County, Kentucky, which is featured on the America Reads web site (America Reads Challenge, 1996, [p. 1]). Tutors, who are called "coaches" in the program, have four 30-minute tutoring sessions weekly with their students. They also visit the students' homes every other week to find out more about the families and to include the parents as "full partners" in the program. In the 1995-1996 school year, SLICE students improved their reading comprehension scores by an average of 2.7 reading levels.

Community Support
Successful programs are driven by organizations that have a vested interest in student performance. Universities, local school districts, local government, community organizations, and churches combine their efforts in various ways to work with families to promote literacy. Sahlin (1997) states that
collaboration is vital to the creation and operation of your tutoring project. Without collaboration you will not get children in the community to come to your project, you will not likely have a location to work in or any of the supplies, materials, and funding that you need. Without collaboration you will find it difficult to provide the training your volunteers need and the additional services that your children will require as you discover health, emotional, and other needs in their lives. And without collaboration your project will certainly not gain the visibility and credibility in the community that your sponsors in the church want it to have. (p. 35)
An exemplary program in this respect is the Urban Curriculum Partnership (Austin, 1990). The partnership was initiated by those in the Black community who were concerned about the disproportionate numbers of non-Blacks on the faculties of both the local school district and the nearby university. A dinner meeting of community organizations, parents, and education professionals from the local school district and university was held to begin the process of collaboration. In spite of initial differences, every party at the meeting expressed the same concerns, and a partnership emerged.

Action Plan
Sound Organization and Management
The Handbook for Community-based Tutoring and Mentoring Projects (Sahlin, 1997) very adequately clarifies an action plan for local project organizers to follow. The handbook is packed with organizational helps, forms, handouts, and advice on setting up a quality tutoring program.
For programs to maintain a high degree of success, clear supervisory roles must be established. Literacy programs cannot maintain a consistent impact without direct supervision from those with organizational skills and current knowledge about literacy. In the Charlottesville Volunteer Tutorial program in Charlottesville, Virginia (Invernizzi et al., 1996), tutors are trained and overseen locally by reading professionals who act as coordinators. The coordinators are supported by the McGuffey Reading Center at the University of Virginia. Similarly, trained parent volunteer leaders oversee tutors and provide training themselves in the Reading Together program in Philadelphia (Neuman, 1995). These leaders are overseen by a reading professional at the local university.

Close Cooperation between Volunteers and
People in the School

Many programs are based in the child's school. This helps to facilitate close cooperation between reading tutors and their teachers, a characteristic of highly effective programs. In the Charlottesville Volunteer Tutorial program (Invernizzi et al., 1996), children to be tutored are recommended by their classroom teachers. A reading coordinator, who is a current or former graduate student in reading education, coordinates the tutoring a child receives with the classroom teacher and the child's Title 1 reading teacher. Children in the Reading Together program (Neuman, 1995), based at five schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are also recommended for the tutoring program by classroom teachers. The program is encouraged and supported by the principals, teachers, and parents at each school. The schools provide the space and many of the materials for the program workers and their students. VISTA leaders coordinate the details between the school, the tutors (most of whom are parents of students), and the home. Care is taken to ensure that the children receive tutoring during non-academic times in the school day.
The volunteers in the Jackson, Tennessee, Tutoring Program (America Reads Challenge, 1996, [p. 5]), a program that is not school based, check in with teachers by calling the local school district's "Lesson Line" to listen to daily recordings of the assignments given by teachers to their students. Tutors also coordinate lesson strategies by calling parents, teachers, and other tutors. The program is sponsored by 10 area churches and 11 public housing projects.

Careful Selection of Students to Be Tutored
Morrow and Walker (1997a), discussing students who are chosen to be tutored, assert that "classroom teachers and reading specialists select students for the reading program. Typically, students to be tutored are of average intelligence, but are struggling more than other students. Children with severe difficulties should be taught directly by trained personnel" (p. 31). This is the case in the Reading Recovery/AmeriCorps pilot tutoring project based in three Ohio schools (Wasik, 1997). The AmeriCorps volunteers do not work with the lowest achieving first-grade students in these schools. Instead, they tutor children who are reading better than the lowest 20% (those typically targeted for instruction by trained Reading Recovery teachers) but are still reading below the average expected for first grade.

A Regular, Frequent Tutoring Schedule
The tutoring schedules varied greatly for the programs I reviewed. Some children are tutored as few as twice per week while others work with their tutors up to five sessions each week. Tutoring in some programs takes place after school or evenings, on weekends, or during the summer, but most programs function within the typical school day schedule. Wasik (1997) and Bader (1998b) both recommend that children should work with their tutors for a minimum of 1½ to 2 hours per week. Morrow and Walker (1997a) believe that it is preferable for tutoring to occur three to five times per week in 30-minute sessions. Sahlin (1997) recommends that at least two tutoring sessions of no longer than an hour in length are necessary for significant impact on a child's academic achievement. Whatever the frequency, all experts say that children should see the same tutor (if possible) on as regular a schedule as possible.

Monitoring of Student Progress
All effective programs provide ways for tutors or coordinators to monitor the progress that students are making. But the methods used to evaluate the students vary widely between programs. Minimally, tutors should keep simple records on student attendance, titles of books read, and lists of new words introduced and mastered. Tutors should also plan for lessons using a standardized form provided by program coordinators.
The Read to Succeed program (Bader, 1998a, 1988b) represents one where this type of record keeping is prolific. The tutor's manual has the appropriate materials for administering a graded word test and an unfinished sentence test, both designed to help the tutor and coordinator assess the initial strengths and weaknesses of the child and to administer as a posttest. Planning guides (lesson plans) are provided for students in various grade levels. The tutor completes an "End-of-Term Evaluation" form at the end of each grading period that is a narrative-based assessment of the child's progress. Other provided forms include a home reading record, a supervisor observation evaluation, a parent evaluation form, and a master pre- and posttest/attendance form.

Lesson Content–Reading and Writing
Although no empirical evidence exists to suggest that a book-oriented approach is more effective than a drill-oriented approach in tutoring by volunteers (Wasik, 1997), most programs center around the sharing of children's literature and writing extended text such as sentences and stories. Perhaps this is because some feel that volunteers are not equipped to deal with the technicalities of phonics rules and a scope-and-sequenced skills curriculum (Fry, 1997; Smith, 1997). But Pinnell and Fountas (1997a) believe that a print-rich approach is simply the best way to teach reading, whether by professionals or volunteers. They state, "We do not advocate meaningless drills. We use a wide range of quality books and meaningful writing experiences because we believe that children learn to read by reading and to write by writing" (p. 3).
Wasik (1998), based on her research of effective tutoring programs, suggests that each lesson should have several basic components that include the rereading of familiar stories or text, word analysis work that causes the child to focus on the orthographic structure of a word, writing of sentences and stories, and the introduction of new stories.

Summary
In this review I have demonstrated that, according to the experiences of those who have gone before, volunteer tutors can and do make a difference in the lives of the people with whom they work. No published report that I reviewed indicated that volunteers in academic programs had a negative effect on their students; rather, most indicated positive outcomes that were well worth the investments made.
The literature also indicates that tutors themselves benefit by a tutoring arrangement. Whether the motives for volunteer service are primarily egoistic or altruistic is secondary to the mutual benefits reported by volunteers and those whom they serve.
When considering training options for volunteers, those who are knowledgeable on the subject point to the preponderance of literature on professional staff development when making recommendations. The key elements of theory presentation, demonstration, practice, feedback, and coaching were consistently mentioned by most reviewers. Other more practical recommendations were also given by those who have implemented reading tutorial programs similar to what the President has proposed in his America Reads initiative.
Several characteristics of effective tutoring programs were examined and elucidated. Quality programs clarify a vision of what can be accomplished, extend the skill level of participants through training, provide incentives, utilize numerous resources, and implement an action plan through effective management.