Cooperative learning methods are known to substantially improve student achievement in most subjects and grade or year levels (Slavin, R. 2012). They essentially promote the idea that young people’s learning is best served when they have opportunities to learn with and from each other engaging themselves in the learning process rather than being passive receivers of information. Peer tutoring as a component of cooperative learning can help teachers effectively manage the challenges of limited instructional time, multiple curricular requirements and appropriate social engagement among students (Okilwa and Shelby, 2010). In peer tutoring, students practice and learn academic content and skills from their peers regardless of ability level. In addition, researches prove that peer tutoring has a positive effect on struggling readers and it is a method associated with reading fluency improvements, thus it should be an important component of reading fluency program (Padak, 2008). The development of fluent reading is a primary educational goal not only for elementary school-aged children but also for secondary students. However, despite the fact that the Department of Education enforces Every Child A Reader Program (ECARP) and ensuring that every child is a successful reader as one of its main thrusts in the Basic Education Curriculum, many school children have failed to learn to fluently read up to expectations. In the advent of the K-12 program, this is indeed observable to students even in Senior High School. In this regard, this study sought and analyzed the effect of peer tutoring to reading fluency of Grade 12 students in Academic Senior High School of the City of Meycauayan. The study employed quantitative research method to measure the effects of peer tutoring to reading fluency. To measure the quality of a student’s reading fluency, the researcher adapted and used the four-level scale first developed for the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading (Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, and Oranje, 2005). The result revealed that after the conduct of peer tutoring as a strategy in improving the fluency of students, a significant effect took place (as shown in Table 4). Thus, the study explains that peer tutoring has a positive effect on struggling readers and is a good method associated with reading fluency improvements as stated by Padak, 2008. Recommendations for practice and research are provided.
Keywords: Cooperative learning, peer tutoring, reading, reading fluency