ionship is not exactly equal in social status. Both Lucy and the first graders have gained academically (repetition and practice) and socially (self-determining behavior and social acceptance) in the cross-age tutoring model.Although many educators favor and embrace cross-age tutoring model some criticism still remains. More specifically, criticisms of students with high-needs as tutors are noted: (1) Strategies utilizing students with disabilities as tutors were insufficiently developed and validated; (2) peer tutoring procedures other than "specific cooperative learning strategies, cross-age tutoring, the tutor 'huddle' and classwide peer tutoring" were insufficiently validated; (3) the fidelity of peer-tutoring interventions had not yet been examined carefully enough; (4) few peer-tutoring procedures had been compared to alternative teacher- or materials-mediated procedures; and (5) there were "no commercially available peer-mediated curricula." In other words, some think convincing scientific research is not yet available. Another reason cross-age and other forms of peer tutoring is still not widely used may be that, as Damon and Phelps put it, "Virtually all schooling, in this country and elsewhere, is structured around the traditional belief that knowledge is best transmitted from adult to child in linear fashion" (1989b, p. 136) However, aside from the argument not to break with tradition, little criticism remains for cross-age tutoring, from the scientific community or otherwise. Damon and Phelps conclude: The case for children's peer relations has been made repeatedly and conclusively in developmental theory and research . . . Repeated studies have shown that peer interaction is conducive, perhaps even essential, to a host of important early achievements: children's understanding of fairness, their self-esteem, their proclivities toward sharing and kindness, their mastery of symbolic expression, their acquisition of role-taking...
