Publications
 The Tutoring Revolution: Applying Research for Best Practices, Policy Implications, and Student Achievement
by Edward E. Gordon, Ronald R. Morgan, Charles J. O'Malley, & Judith Ponticell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006
The Tutoring Revolution presents a comprehensive research–driven perspective on what we know and don't know about tutoring. The authors link theories, research, and practice together in a coherent, consistent manner to form a new foundation of specific recommendations and strategies to help improve tutoring across America. The book includes practical guidelines for selecting a tutor and proposes ethical and regulatory tutoring standards for use by tutors and state agencies. It will be useful to educators, researchers, and parents. If a true tutoring revolution is to benefit American education, their participation will be essential to further research on effective tutoring and improve consumer safeguards. |
The Tutoring Revolution includes:
- Research based best practices for better student achievement
- Consumer guidelines to identify highly qualified tutors
- Ethical standards and regulatory guidelines for tutoring programs
- Concepts drawn from educational psychology that better support and inform the tutoring process
About the Authors
E. Gordon, R.Morgan & J. Ponticell
Edward E. Gordon, Ph.D. is an international expert on tutoring, individualized education, and literacy issues. He is the author of Centuries of Tutoring (1990), Tutor Quest (2002), and Peer Tutoring (2005). Gordon is the founder and principal of the research firm Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago and previously taught at DePaul, Loyola, and Northwestern universities in Chicago.
Ronald R. Morgan, Ph.D. is an expert in the psychology of learning and instruction. He is a professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Educational Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.
Judith Ponticell, Ph.D. is associate vice president for academic affairs and professor of educational leadership at the University of South Florida, Lakeland. She previously worked as an accreditation, program, and grant evaluator in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida. She served as a consultant to schools, school districts, state departments, and businesses at local, state, and national levels.
Charles J. O'Malley, Ph.D. is an independent education consultant specializing in public policy–related issues and provides policy development assistance to national, state and local organizations. He has served as executive assistant for Private Education to three U.S. secretaries of education (Ted Bell, Bill Bennett, and Lauro Cavazos), and recently returned to the U.S. Department of Education as a policy consultant to the deputy secretary of education.
Reviews:
"This is critical information . . . outlining key components that support high-quality tutoring. . . . [T]hese research-driven perspectives are necessary to make specific recommendations for the best use of NCLB funding. Summing Up: Recommended. Research and professional collections."
-Choice
"[The] co-authors . . . present a comprehensive reivew of current research about tutoring as it relates to how students learn. . . . The final sections of the book deal with the ethics and future of tutoring. With sample contracts and commentary on what companies typically include in their programs, these sections serve as an important quality-control tool for anyone who is responsible for making the slection of a tutoring program for the school district."
-The School Administrator
Comments on The Tutoring Revolution:
"As both government–financed and privately–paid tutoring explode on the periphery of K–12 education this perceptive guidebook is welcome indeed, the more so because it examines what works, not just what's happening."
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
"The Tutoring Revolution provides . . . very useful perspectives on . . . research–based best practices, student achievement outcomes, and policy development. The four authors . . . blended expertise . . . provide an academic treatment of tutoring. The extensive bibliography is especially useful for those who would like to pursue research and teaching in tutoring."
Eunice N. Askov, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education
Penn State University
Co–Director Emerita
Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy
Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy
"[The Tutoring Revolution was] a text that for me was easy to understand (not a bunch of educationese) and was truly enjoyable to read. I know there are 'how to' tutoring books out there, but this book is a research–based 'how to think about' tutoring book, and I really appreciated the difference. I especially liked the discussions of the education theories that support and inform the tutoring process."
Dianna Baycich
Literacy Projects Coordinator
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Kent State University
"The Tutoring Revolution presents a fair and unbiased look at he successful world of private tutoring. . . Parents as well as educators in private practice will find the book a useful tool. It is a succinct guide for parents attempting to choose the most appropriate tutor for their child, and it is a masterful piece of research for educators wishing to improve their tutoring practices."
Jim Giovannini, Founder
Academic Tutoring Centers
Park Ridge, Illinois
"The Tutoring Revolution is a great asset. . . The authors explain No Child Left Behind (Supplemental Services) so that people can realize the implications to all tutorials. . . "The Tutoring Revolution can help identify a framework to facilitate good tutoring practice. . . These authors act as an agent to change schools and to revolutionize tutoring."
Mike Zenanko, Director
Instructional Services Unit
Jacksonville State University
"The Tutoring Revolution [indicates] that tutoring done by well–trained professional can have a significant impact on learning outcomes . . . [and] that the nation would be well–served if there were undergraduate and graduate courses on tutoring . . . methods, curriculum, and research methodology."
Daniel F. Bassill, President
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Chicago, Illinois
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Tutor Quest: Finding Effective Education for Children and Adults
by Edward E. Gordon
Publisher: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation |
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Featured on CBS television network's "The Early Show"
Click here to see the program |
Tutor Quest is a practical handbook for individuals looking for learning assistance, whether for themselves or their children. Not only does Dr Gordon provide expert background information on tutoring, but he also includes a handy checklist to make evaluating the tutoring market easier and more effective. Case studies drawn from over 10,000 students he has tutored show what a qualified tutor can accomplish. School administrators and teachers also will find this guide valuable when extra assistance is needed to help struggling learners. Everyone can use this book to check out the National Better Business Bureau Trade Practice Standards and Professional Guidelines for Educational Tutoring.
News Stories:
In an interview on CBS4 TV Boston, Dr. Gordon expressed the need for state regulation and a set of standards for the tutoring industry to prevent consumer fraud. Drawing from Tutor Quest's guidelines on how to select a tutor, this interview contains 11 important questions to ask when choosing a tutor or tutoring service.
See the complete CBS4 interview.
Reviews:
"With the tools provided in Tutor Quest, especially the tutoring quality rating scale and the consumer's guide to tutoring services, students and parents have a foundation to protect them from inadequate educational services. . . . Gordon, your book deserves a four star approval. . . . Overall, a great read and reference for those looking to find an effective tutor."
-Bryan McNutt
Tutorz.com
"Tutor Quest provides detailed information for education consumers seeking to find the best tutor for their needs. . . . As tutoring becomes a key element in empowering parents to choose the best educational opportunities for their children, the practical advice of practitioners like Ed Gordon is sure to be widely sought.
–Robert Holland
School Reform News
"Dr. Gordon provides an excellent handbook for the lay person looking for help in learning for themselves or their children."
–Chris Yelich, Administrative Director
Education Industry Association
"This useful 122–page book ... is a consumer guide to tutoring services: how to find a good one, what to look for, what to expect, what it will cost, etc."
–Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
"Tutor Quest will be an invaluable guide on how to make an intelligent choice of a tutor."
–James E. Baumhart, President
Better Business Bureau of Chicago & Northern Illinois
"The case studies in Tutor Quest can reduce the fear of failure and teach students how to learn. Tutor Quest shows what a powerful contribution this is for lifelong learning success."
–Dan Bassill, President
Chicago Tutor/Mentor Connection
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Peer Tutoring: A Teacher's Resource Guide
by Edward E. Gordon, Ph.D.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Education
In this era of high stakes testing, teachers across America are struggling with the demands of raising student achievement. Tutoring programs can become important learning strategies that will assist students in learning to solve problems, collaborate with others, and think creatively.
Peer Tutoring: A Teacher's Resource Guide gives teachers specific instructional methods to help students raise their skills and critical thinking abilities. It provides step–by–step guidance on:
- Designing a tutoring program
- Training tutors
- Conducting meaningful assessment and evaluation
This guide offers a wide variety of success stories drawn from published research that describes how ordinary teachers have effectively used peer and cross–age tutoring in a wide variety of elementary, high school, and college applications. Sample forms are also included that teachers can adapt for their needs.
Reviews:
"With decades of experience, Edward E. Gordon is a reliable source for strategies regarding the design and implementation of peer and cross-age tutoring. In Peer Tutoring: A Teacher's Resource Guide he explores what makes tutoring an effective tool, and which students are likely to benefit. The book features practical approaches for elementary, high school, and college level programs, including tips for training tutors, and sample program assessment forms. He also traces success stories from real research."
-NEA Today
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Centuries of Tutoring: A History of Alternative Education in American and Europe
by Edward E. Gordon and Elaine H. Gordon. Foreword by Gerald Gutek.
Publisher: University Press of America
The book examines both the development of tutoring as a form of education and its influences on "schooling," early childhood education and women's issues. It offers a review of what past educators wrote on their work, the lives of their students, and the wider socio–cultural ramifications during centuries of tutoring. The role of the tutor and the tutor–governess is reviewed in education at home as well as the corollary use of tutors in the school. The nineteenth century in Europe and America witnessed the widespread use of tutors and the gradual adoption of mandatory tax–supported public schooling. The study concludes with a review of the contemporary uses of tutoring and an analysis of its historical contributions to Western education.
Reviews:
"... a book not likely to duplicate any others on one's shelf, and one that suggests a variety of productive applications in research and teaching."
–History of Education Quarterly
"... a fascinating good read, well–researched and documented, scholarly but hardly dry and never boring or tedious. Moreover, it is an essential and significant addition to feminist history and politics."
–Educational Studies
"Historians of education often observe that there are far more to the history of learning than the history of schooling, and it is to Gordon's credit that he has attempted to document this important point."
–The American Historical Review
"In an attempt to 'investigate tutoring's widespread applications throughout the history of childhood in the Western world,' the Gordons make excellent use of historical insight and primary sources to produce a very readable history and an interesting perspective on the development of schooling in general. The emphasis on the one–to–one nature of early education is enlightening, especially the account of how the act of tutoring others helped shape the educational philosophy of some of history's greatest thinkers.... Well–written text and superb reference material in the appendixes and source list."
–Choice
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Literacy in America: Historic Journey and Contemporary Solutions
by Edward E. Gordon and Elaine H. Gordon. Foreword by Gerald Gutek.
Publisher: Praeger/Greenwood
This book is the first comprehensive history of how the American people achieved varying degrees of literacy from early colonial times to the modern era. The authors demonstrate that literacy education is not synonymous with schooling. By focusing on people rather than statistics, including literacy among women and minority groups, they explore the literacy agents, methods, and materials used at different times and places throughout the history of the country.
Reviews:
Edward and Elaine Gordon are back with a highly readable monograph/textbook hybrid...[H]ow the Gordons illuminate specifics, and how they compare and contrast places and trends, gives their text an edge in reader–friendliness without sacrificing scholarly rigor. The index and standard bibliography are both thorough... The Gordons really know how to tell stories. Readers will appreciate how they reconstruct the lives of teachers over two centuries, largely in settings outside formal schooling. Scholars and students of the roles of women in the history of education will find a wonderful archive of material.... In their areas of emphasis, and in the book's readability, scholarship, and ease of use as a reference tool, the Gordons succeeded admirably."
–History of Education Quarterly
"A major contribution to the history of literacy with appeal well beyond the scholarly audience. Every teacher of literacy would be enriched by reading it. A strength of the book is its careful attention to regional differences. Throughout, the authors detail how literacy experiences were mediated by geography, religion, race and ethnicity, social class and gender.... The book is rich in gripping anecdotes."
–Journal of American History
"This well–researched history of literacy in the US extends from Colonial New England to the 21st century.... Scholarly historical treatment of a critically important and contemporary topic. Highly recommended. All levels."
–Choice
"The strength of this book is in its variety of first person sources.... These stories and others of approaches to literacy education add color and credibility to more standard histories of education in the United States."
–American Historical Review
"As a wonderful collection of stories from 300 years' worth of American social and educational history it is a compelling and readable 'historic journey'."
–Paedagogica Historica
"Literacy in America provides a well–documented account of the variety of ways people learned to read and write throughout America's history.... By emphasizing the particular experiences of readers and teachers over more comprehensive discussions of literacy levels, the Gordons stress the various 'journeys' to literacy traversed in different periods of American history and the ways in which these were reinforced by the support of family, religious groups, and the workplace, as well as in the schoolroom. The models they find in the historical patterns of individualized instruction and the responsibility for literacy education shared by many social groups offer intriguing models for addressing the pressing need for more sophisticated and widespread literacy in today's population."
–Anthropology & Education Quarterly
"An extensive, meticulously researched, and superbly organized and presented historical survey of literacy in America.... No definite Education History or American History reference collection can be considered complete without the inclusion of Literacy in America."
–Midwest Book Review
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Closing the Literacy Gap in American Business
by Edward E. Gordon, Judith A. Ponticell, & Ronald R. Morgan
Publisher: Quorum/Greenwood
The authors present their perspectives on workplace literacy past, present, and future and describe how twenty–first–century technology produced America's "literacy gap." The book reviews strengths and weaknesses of current literacy programs, and discusses research on difficult employee literacy problems. Actual case studies describe Individualized Instructional Programs (IIP) for hourly workers, support staff, managers, and professionals. It includes a game plan on how to establish company "Work Force Education" policy and offers multi–level, cost justified programs. Finally, international responses to workplace literacy are considered, along with the development of employee literacy into the next century.
Reviews:
"A well–researched book [that]...offers tested strategies and programs to improve worker skills in an increasingly complex labor market. Of compelling general interest is the author's documentation of the current workforce literacy and skill crisis."
–Carol Kleiman
Chicago Tribune
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