Peer Support Strategies: Improving Students’ Social Lives and Learning

Peer supports really work: they’re a great, efficient way to help all students learn, make the most of teacher/ paraprofessional time, and increase the achievement level of challenging students. This is the concise, practical guide every middle and high school needs to implement peer support strategies - including cooperative learning and peer tutoring - to benefit students with moderate to severe disabilities and their peers. With this reader-friendly, step-by-step planning guide from the foremost authorities on peer supports, educators, paraprofessionals, and other school staff will: discover how peer supports are a ‘two-way street’, boosting the academic outcomes, social skills, and self-esteem of students with disabilities and the peers who support them; determine which students might benefit most from peer supports; and, recruit and match the students most likely to form mutually beneficial relationships.