Introducing an intergenerational, internet-based tutoring program: Meeting program challenges

Schools face many challenges in preparing students to meet today's state and national academic goals. Intergenerational tutoring programs have been shown to be an excellent resource to help schools and students meet these academic challenges. However, inter-generational tutoring programs can be expensive and face obstacles that include scheduling difficulties and barriers pertaining to physical mobility and transportation needs of older adult tutors. This paper describes an intergenerational, Internet-based tutoring program established to determine whether older adults could successfully tutor middle-school students over the Internet. An asset of this program is that older adults can tutor at convenient times, providing resources that may be unavailable to remote rural areas. Following a brief description of the program, i.e., a reading strategy identified as successful in improving reading comprehension for both older adults and younger students, challenges met in implementing the program are outlined. A description of how those working with intergenerational programs may meet these challenges is then presented.