Testing the Feasibility and Impact of Train-the-Trainer Delivery for a Peer Tutoring Reading Programme in Chile

Abstract

Peer tutoring through a structured low-cost approach to reading in pairs using the Paired Reading programme has resulted in attainment gains in reading in English (UK) and Spanish (Colombia), using developer-led training in schools. Given the continued issues with poor reading attainment globally, in preparation for the scalability of Paired Reading in the Global South, a train-the-trainer delivery programme was developed, implemented, and assessed using a matched study design including 6 classes and 98 Grade 6 students in a high-poverty region of Chile. The results indicate that the Paired Reading train-the-trainer programme (Latin American Spanish version) is feasible to implement in elementary schools in high-poverty areas in Chile and is capable of improving children’s reading ability as measured by an independently designed standardised reading assessment. Positive results were found (effect size d = +0.67, g = +0.66) for the children who engaged in the technique when assessed against a matched control group. The results indicate that this programme is now ready for assessment using a randomised controlled trial in Chile to test the effectiveness of using this more scalable method of delivery, including with standardised digital resources, for sustainable delivery in the Latin American region.

1. Introduction

We report on the development of a scalable train-the-trainer (TTT) delivery model of a previously tested Paired Reading programme delivered by the programme developer, which improved reading attainment for elementary age children in Latin America (Thurston et al., 2023). This is a cost-effective peer tutoring intervention with an established evidence base from UK trials for a socioeconomically disadvantaged English-speaking population (Tymms et al., 2011; Thurston et al., 2019). Given continued issues with reading standards globally, finding cost-effective evidence-based programmes to improve reading attainment which can be delivered at scales across a region using a TTT approach is an urgent matter which this study addresses.

As in other regions of Latin America, in Chile, there remain stubborn issues to address, with education attainment scores unchanged for 15-year-olds between 2018 and 2022, measured through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessments in 2022, reported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (OECD, 2023). Reading results had declined since 2015 and were more akin to those reported in 2006 and 2012, with 34% of students unable to achieve Level 2 compared to the 26% OECD average (Level 2 being the baseline for demonstrating sufficient reading skills for active participation in life situations) (OECD, 2023). There continues to be a need to improve reading development from the elementary stage to improve standards here. A recent study using a representative sample of Grade 2 students (N = 1153) from 68 schools in a large metropolitan area of Chile showed that 60% of children from schools in different socioeconomic areas lagged in their reading comprehension scores (Claro et al., 2024). Furthermore, when examining their comprehension difficulties, 88% of these students lacked sufficient word reading skills and 58% of them struggled with vocabulary meaning. These results point to the need to develop early interventions that target specific reading components.

Peer tutoring is an evidenced approach to improve the educational attainment of elementary age students by approximately 5–6 additional months, and it is particularly effective for low-attaining students (Education Endowment Foundation [EEF], 2025).

Paired Reading was first developed by Thurston and Topping (2007) to enhance reading outcomes in the UK. As a type of peer tutoring, this approach was assessed in over 100 schools in the UK with elementary age children (Tymms et al., 2011). Cockerill and Thurston (2015) further developed the programme, working in collaboration with high school teachers, and a randomised controlled trial (RCT) was then undertaken in England. The approach was found to have been successful at transitioning between upper elementary and high school stages. Importantly, reading gaps in attainment between struggling readers with low literacy levels and their peers who also used Paired Reading were closed (Thurston et al., 2019). This study builds on previous findings of using Paired Reading in the UK, and on findings from the first Latin American Spanish version of Paired Reading, where training was delivered by the programme developers to teachers in schools in Colombia. The findings indicated that this programme could be transferred to Spanish language contexts in Latin America, and positive improvements of approximately two additional months were detected for children’s reading (Thurston et al., 2023). It is clear, given the crisis in reading attainment in this region, that a sustainable and scalable solution is required to improve reading standards for children and young people using cost-effective interventions. The current matched study therefore tests a TTT delivery model of Paired Reading for sustainable implementation across the region.

Drawing on the literature about scaling programmes through delivery by trained trainers who are not programme developers, a workshop and cascade TTT model for delivering Paired Reading in Latin America was designed and tested in this study. We present here the findings of this matched study, including six Grade 6 classes and 98 children, to understand whether TTT delivery of the Paired Reading programme in Chile is implementable and capable of improving children’s outcomes and detecting similar effects in reading as the previously tested developer-led version of Paired Reading. Programme trainers were trained by the programme developer to train schoolteachers, deliver teacher training, and support classroom implementation. The programme was implemented for a whole class, once weekly, for 30–40 min over 16 weeks over one academic year. To establish the potential for TTT delivery for Paired Reading in Chile, treatment and control children were assessed pre- and post-intervention with an independently designed standardised online test, and teachers provided feedback about how they found engaging in the training and delivering it.

1.1. Paired Reading Programme Theory of Change

In line with previous studies of Paired Reading in the UK (Thurston et al., 2019) and in Colombia (Thurston et al., 2023), it is theorised that, by providing structured Paired Reading instruction to children led by teachers who have been trained and supported by standardised resources for modelling and undertaking the peer tutoring process, professional skills in reading instruction will improve, resulting in improvements in children’s reading attainment. In addition, this study theorises that using a TTT delivery approach will not dilute the effects of Paired Reading found in previous studies. This is because the mechanisms of change in providing Paired Reading instruction to children by trained teachers remain unchanged.

1.2. Research Questions

This matched study addresses the following research questions, using the impact and process measures described in the Methods section.

• Can the TTT Paired Reading programme be implemented in elementary-stage classrooms in Chile?
• Do children who engage in the process of Paired Reading instruction improve their reading outcomes?

Answers to these research questions guide the recommendations for next steps, including the programme’s readiness to be tested under RCT conditions, and its potential for scale-up. As part of this, calculating effect sizes between the control and intervention group was necessary to help in the design of a future scaled trial to test the main effects.

2. The Evidence for Paired Reading and Using TTT Delivery

2.1. The Foundations and Existing Evidence for Paired Reading

With roots in the work of Vygotsky (1985), who advocates for children learning together in structured peer learning to improve their educational performance, and Palincsar (1998), who later supported this view, suggesting that peer learning provides a balance between cognitive challenges and social relations, peer learning is exemplified through Paired Reading, as children collaborate in their learning in pairs as one child acts as tutor and the other as tutee. Tutoring provides a scaffolded structured process where peers are challenged cognitively during learning, with space to reflect about the learning. Social interdependence between peers is developed as tutor and tutee each carry out their roles well, such that their individual goals are linked through common goals and mutual support. This relational process is the method through which gains in the tutoring process are realised.

During Paired Reading, collaborative learning takes place as each student in the pair either takes the role of tutor or tutee. Social interdependence theory (Johnson et al., 2010; Johnson & Johnson, 2012) underpins this kind of collaborative learning, providing a framework necessary for collaboration to succeed. A goal structure is required where the tutor and tutee work together with the purpose of reading together. Positive interdependence then develops through clear patterns of behaviour, as the tutor and tutee fulfil their specific role using the Paired Reading technique. As each member of the pair has responsibilities within their role, they are individually accountable, and each student has time to consider their individual performance as well as that of their partner. The Paired Reading structure is designed to enhance promotive interaction and group processing, thereby enhancing collaborative skills as the peers relate together.

From the work of De Lisi and Golbeck (1999) in the United States, Paired Reading, as well as what would be expected to occur during this kind of collaborative learning, was developed and recently tested in the UK (Cockerill & Thurston, 2015). This included the following key elements: (a) children or young people learn together by reading a book; (b) the tutor first allows the tutee to read with them and, when the tutee is ready, they signal with an agreed sign to their tutor, enabling the tutee to continue reading alone; (c) the tutor supports their partner by reading part of the book together. When the tutee makes a reading error (whether they are able to self-correct or are corrected by the tutor), they are also supported by their tutor; and d) the pair discuss the text, ask questions about it, and reflect on their behaviours during Paired Reading. During this Paired Reading process, the pair will undertake a discussion about the text, and questions will be discussed by the pair. A social interdependence between the tutor and tutee (Johnson et al., 2010) is required as the student pairs read together, as the tutor needs scans the text ahead to think of questions to ask, and during the discussion period between the pairs. This requires processing of what each student already knows and the process of thinking about thinking to link their prior knowledge with the current text being read. Self-regulation is facilitated through these processes and also nurtures metacognition, as the processes are interlinked (Eggen & Kauchak, 1997). This leads to learning, including of the learning of new ideas of words. Reflection by the pair following every Paired Reading session is what leads to the deeper understanding of the new cognitive structures, and ongoing praise nurtures social relations between the tutor and tutee during Paired Reading. In this way, the development of metacognition fosters independent learning by equipping the tutor and tutee with the ability to monitor and evaluate their progress.

During Paired Reading, there is evidence in favour of using an attainment differential between tutors and tutees (Duran & Monereo, 2005). Without a reading differential gap, both the tutor and tutee can be under-stimulated (Greenwood et al., 1992). For this reason, each member of the pair has a specific role in the collaborative learning process: the tutee focuses on selecting the book and reading aloud, whilst the tutor concentrates on correcting errors, checking their peer’s understanding through questioning, and praising their partner. Evidence of the benefits of using this technique for both tutor and tutee are well reported (Duran & Monereo, 2005). A large-scale RCT of Paired Reading in schools with younger children in the UK found that reading attainment increased by an effect size of +0.2 (Tymms et al., 2011), with positive findings also reported when implemented in high schools in England (Thurston et al., 2019). A recent study of Paired Reading using the newly developed Spanish version, which was used in the setting of Bogota, Colombia, also found that children’s reading improved, with effect sizes reported of +0.16 (Thurston et al., 2023). Although successful in improving the reading outcomes of children, these studies were all conducted using developer-led training. To scale a programme such as this, a sustainable TTT delivery model would be required.

2.2. Best Practice Design for an Effective TTT Approach

To prepare for scaled delivery in Latin America, a TTT delivery version of Paired Reading in the Spanish language was used. This study tested the feasibility of this Paired Reading programme, which was previously used effectively through developer-led training in the UK (Tymms et al., 2011; Thurston et al., 2019) and latterly in the Spanish language in Colombia (Thurston et al., 2023). The TTT version included a model where trainers were trained, who in turn trained schoolteachers, who in turn disseminated their knowledge to children in schools. This TTT model included standardised materials such as training PowerPoints, manuals, and videos aligned to recommendations of what works well from studies in various fields, including social sciences and health sectors (Gask et al., 2019; Gore et al., 2021; Maxwell et al., 2021) and a recent RCT which found positive results in reading when using TTT implementation at scale (Povey et al., 2023). This particular design mitigated the key challenges often found in knowledge mobilisation when transitioning from training delivered by the expert developer to a TTT delivery approach. Specifically, this workshop and cascade delivery, which includes structured resources and engagement in a collaborative community of practice during training and delivery, provided a structured design with a clear training framework, standardised materials, and sustained monitoring and collaboration between the programme developer and the new trainer, including quality control through sustained support and reflection. This design was used to avoid the following issues: (1) the possibility of diluting key messages when training new trainers mentioned by Turner et al. (2017); (2) the tendency for lower pedagogical quality, which can result from less experienced new trainers mentioned by Popova et al. (2021); and (3) the risk of reduced quality control mentioned by Anderson and Taira (2018).

3. Methods

A matched study was undertaken in six classes in Chile to test the feasibility and impact of the newly developed TTT Paired Reading programme for training use by new university trainers based in Chile, equipped to train schoolteachers to deliver Paired Reading. The TTT Paired Reading programme adapted the Paired Reading materials previously tested using developer-led training in the Spanish language (Thurston et al., 2023) for use in TTT delivery. The matched study was designed to establish whether there was enough evidence of the feasibility of the implementation of this TTT delivery model, and the extent to which its implementation improved the reading ability of those children who engaged in the Paired Reading process. The results of the matched study inform questions about scaling up this programme in Chile and across the Latin American region, given there would be a greater independence from the developer for future sustainability. An independently designed student reading measure was used to assess the impact of the intervention on children’s reading outcomes. In addition to teacher perception feedback, naturally occurring process measures, including training attendance and Paired Reading dosage, were used to understand implementation factors.

3.1. Ethical Approval

The study was approved through two ethics procedures. The matching, combining, and analysis of data was approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work of Queen’s University Belfast. The study interventions and assessments were additionally approved by the school leadership of study participants. Parents and guardians were informed through a letter about the Paired Reading programme taking place in their son or daughter’s school. The letter included details about the peer tutoring programme, including the time required, information about pupil assessments, and information about the data privacy policy.

3.2. Inclusion Criteria, Sample, and Allocation

Schools at the elementary level, which were state funded and from a high-poverty region of Santiago in Chile, were recruited to participated in this small matched study. This enabled us to test the implementation of the TTT Paired Reading programme. Schools invited to participate were required to have multiple class entries (at least three classes) and be willing to work on the project and participate fully in all evaluations throughout the study.

In total, 6 classes, including a total of 98 Grade 6 children (53 identifying as male, 43 identifying as female, and 2 who did not identify their sex), participated in this study, including 6 Grade 6 teachers. The six classes were located at one school in a high-poverty region of Santiago in Chile, with an over 80% level of poverty. The IVE (School Vulnerability Index) is a measure used in Chile to determine the socioeconomic vulnerability of students in order to assign resources. It is calculated using several variables, such as parent income, educational level, and school enrolment. A school with a range 1 index (76.7% to 100%) is considered highly vulnerable (Agencia de Calidad en la Educación, 2009). A sample of three classes received the TTT Paired Reading programme, and three Grade 6 classes from the previous year who received the usual teaching acted as a matched control. Grade 6 students who received the treatment were therefore matched with Grade 6 students from the same school from the previous academic year who had not received Paired Reading and had received the usual teaching, and who had completed the same reading measure.

3.3. The Intervention

The intervention took place in the Santiago area of Chile, where a training hub was developed, and the programme developer trained new trainers to implement the Paired Reading programme in schools in Chile. A workshop and cascade design for TTT delivery was used, including digital training materials, digital standardised teacher manuals, and student Paired Reading resources. Spanish language implementation resources previously developed for the region were also utilised by teachers and children (Thurston et al., 2023). The TTT design with its digital elements prepared the programme for scaling up beyond the current study.

The current study intervention was implemented by trained teachers in Grade 6 classes over a period of 16 weeks, once weekly for 30–40 min, where a child tutor was paired with a child tutee during the implementation process.

The Paired Reading process in classrooms included the following steps:

(a)

Teachers select the student pairs to create a tutor with a reading ability higher than the tutee. If using the same age, the teacher ranks the class by reading ability and divides the class into two such that the best reader (ranked first) is paired with the middle reader (ranked 16 in a class of 30). Then, the second-best reader is paired with the child ranked 17 in a class of 30 and so on, until there are 15 pairs created in the class. Once the pair selection is complete and the school has timetabled the Paired Reading sessions into the school day, the process can begin.

(b)

Book selection: The schools provide reading books suitable for children in Grade 6, aligned to curriculum texts. Working alongside their peer, the tutee selects the reading material which interests them and which is suitable for their reading ability, using the ‘five finger test’, which they are taught to use, including a template provided for children. If the pairs are selected well, the tutor should be able to read the selected book independently, whilst the tutee would generally require support (not knowing all the words).

(c)

Paired Reading technique: The tutor and tutee are trained by their teacher to use the technique, each with their individual role. The pair start by reading together and, when feeling confident, the tutee signals to read alone. If the tutee makes an error with a word and is able to self-correct, the tutor and tutee continue to read together. If the tutee feels ready to read alone, they indicate this to their tutor, and the tutee continues reading individually. If the tutee is unable to correct the error, the tutor corrects them by saying the word which the tutee repeats, and the pair continue reading together until the tutee signals to read alone. At every stage of this process, the tutor is responsible for praising the tutee as they complete each step of the process. The pair continue this process of Paired Reading for approximately 20 min, excluding the book selection time. Following this process, the pair have a period of questioning about what they have read and reflect together on each other’s role, finally recording their behaviours and successes in a reading journal.

The following adaptations were made during this study:

In addition to the guidance included in the teacher manuals and during teacher training about book selection, during this study, the research team helped the librarians select books. Books were selected as suitable for the students working in pairs, based on the ranges of Lexile measures for Chilean Grade 6 students. Librarians also ensured that there would be an ample variability in topics, difficulty levels, and genres. Book boxes were provided for each participating classroom. Should this approach prove successful, further detailed guidance would be included during teacher training in future studies.

Teacher professional development:

Teachers were trained in the Paired Reading programme, including in the pairing of student pairs, book selection, the Paired Reading technique, and the support of pairs throughout the programme. Teachers attended two online and one in-person one-hour sessions which included the following elements: an overview of the technique, a demonstration of the programme, a training video and digital teaching materials, and student resources including slide decks and laminated Paired Reading templates. Teachers were trained in modelling the Paired Reading technique to their students during implementation. The manual was given to each teacher to support them during their delivery of the sessions in school. The teachers received ongoing support in the form of book selection prior to implementation, clarifying emerging questions and how to group pairs. A final support session with teachers took place where teachers were able to share their experiences of implementation, including their successes and challenges, and to evaluate the project.

3.4. Analysis Plan

As this was a matched study with treatment and control groups using a small sample of 98 children, the study was not scaled or powered to determine the main effects of the intervention compared to a control group, with no plan to model effects. Instead, the main effects of pre/post-test reading attainment changes in intervention and control classes are reported as effect sizes (Cohen’s d and Hedges’ g) with 95% confidence intervals. We decided to calculate effect sizes using both Cohen’s and Hedges’ formulas, as Cohen’s is generally accepted as better when there may be unequal variance between samples, but Hedges’ gives a more conservative estimate of effects (Cochrane, 2025). This is appropriate for this stage of development. It also provides data to inform the experimental plan if the results indicate that the TTT version of the programme is ready to proceed to be assessed using RCT methodology. In the current matched study, a within-condition Student’s t-test is undertaken to determine the significance of changes as per best practice for studies that are not designed to have sufficient power to determine between-condition effects, as suggested by the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT, 2010). This will also inform our plans for the next steps with respect to understanding patterns of children’s reading achievement with and without the intervention.

3.4.1. Primary Outcome Measure

Reading outcomes: Reading outcomes were assessed using Dialect Assessment, a Spanish-language reading test that measures reading comprehension. This test was developed by Universidad de los Andes, Chile (UANDES), as a digital, adaptive assessment. Dialect is a platform grounded on a whole-to-part diagnostic approach (Cunningham, 1993; Stahl et al., 2020). This approach begins with assessment at the ‘whole-text’ level, and, based on the performance of comprehension tasks, assesses the performance of other reading subprocesses to identify strengths and weaknesses at an individual level. Students who use Dialect begin by reading and answering short text questions and, based on their scoring, move on to longer, more semantically and syntactically complex passages. There are 40 passages in total, but the test stops if the child makes 5 consecutive mistakes. If the fifth error is at or above the expected grade level (measured in Lexiles), no more testing is required. If the fifth error is below this level, students are automatically redirected to complete other reading assessments for areas such as vocabulary, decoding, or listening comprehension. Scoring is automated and immediate, and measures are provided for each area assessed. DIALECT reports an alpha of 0.97 when tested with a sample of 1186 Grade 3, 893 Grade 5, and 1531 Grade 8 students (MetaMetrics, 2015). Given that this is an adaptive assessment, it can require 10–12 questions to establish a reading score for a student. This measure was selected for its standardisation and high reliability, and given that it was successfully used in a previous trial of developer-led Paired Reading in Bogota, Colombia, with capacity to detect effects of the intervention (Thurston et al., 2023).

3.4.2. Process Evaluation

An evaluation of the process of implementation was undertaken to supplement impact measures and to assess the implementation of the TTT delivery version of the Paired Reading programme. The evaluation to assess implementation was planned to understand staff training attendance and engagement in the delivery of the Paired Reading sessions, and whether the sessions were delivered for the time specified. The evaluation was in line with the MRC Framework (Medical Research Council) guidelines (Moore et al., 2015).

4. Results

4.1. Impact Evaluation Results

Dialect Scores

Mean pre- to post-test Dialect scores for control and treatment (Paired Reading) groups are presented in

Table 1. Mean pre- to post-test Dialect scores for control and treatment (Paired Reading) groups.

		Pre-Dialect	Post-Dialect
Control	Mean	27.865	26.04
	N	52	52
	Std. Deviation	6.0164	7.759
Treatment/Paired Reading group	Mean	24.761	26.93
	N	46	46
	Std. Deviation	7.0967	7.350
Total	Mean	26.408	26.46
	N	98	98
	Std. Deviation	6.6949	7.544

. We found missing data to be lower than 5%.

One-way ANOVA indicated a significant difference pre-test, with the control group outperforming the treatment (Paired Reading) group (F(1, 96) = 5.49, p < 0.05) (IBM, 2025). The pre-test was used as a covariate in the ANCOVA to determine whether there was a main interaction in the control/treatment group. ANCOVA indicated that the treatment (Paired Reading group) made significant gains compared to the control group; F(1, 95) = 5.69, p < 0.05.

The data reported in Table 1 indicate that, whilst the mean Dialect score for the control group fell by −1.83, scores for the treatment (Paired Reading) group increased by +2.17. This equates to an effect size (calculated as Cohen’s d due to the low sample size) of d = +0.67 [CI 95% +/−0.02] in favour of the treatment (Paired Reading) group. Hedges’ g was also calculated, as this is the likely measure that would be used to calculate the sample size in a larger efficacy trial. For the sample, Hedges’ g was +0.67 [CI 95% +/−0.02]. There was therefore a negligible difference in this study between Cohen’s d and Hedges’ g.

4.2. Process Evaluation

An evaluation about the process of implementation was undertaken to supplement impact measures and to assess the implementation of the TTT delivery version of the Paired Reading programme in Chile. The purpose of this evaluation was to understand the extent to which the implementation was faithful to the programme design. The evaluation included key elements outlined below, in line with the MRC framework (Medical Research Council) guidelines (Moore et al., 2015).

4.2.1. Implementation Process

Training and Resources

Training: New trainers who were trained by the programme developer provided training for teachers. All teachers attended the training sessions, engaged in the support visits, and attended the final feedback session.

Resources: The three schoolteachers, in addition to the school project lead, received key resources, including a staff instruction manual, and both teaching and student resources, including teaching PowerPoint slides and a short video to illustrate the peer tutoring process. Student resources included a Paired Reading journal record and Paired Reading templates to support the technique during the sessions, including a template for selecting books of the right level. The school used their own books, which the teachers selected aligned to curriculum texts, for use during Paired Reading delivery. These included 30 age-appropriate books per class, including texts which were fiction and non-fiction.

Paired Reading Staff Development Training (For Teachers)

Participating teachers from the three classes who received the intervention and a Grade 6 lead attended training sessions 1 and 2 before the programme implementation started and session 3 once the implementation was completed, during which staff provided feedback about the implementation process, including dosage and the delivery process (n = 4), and provided a group case study of implementation. Additionally, the three intervention class teachers and the staff lead received two visits from the delivery trainer during the implementation phase. During these visits, teachers had an opportunity to clarify doubts and describe their classroom experiences. Teachers reported that their students made good use of their reading time while working in pairs, and that some dyads completed long books that they would otherwise not finish reading. Also, the staff were provided with a programme instruction booklet and Paired Reading classroom resources to scaffold the student dyads during delivery.

Dosage

Schools kept records of when the Paired Reading sessions were implemented on a weekly basis and provided feedback about dosage during the post-implementation session to assess if the programme was delivered as intended. The recommended delivery was 12–16 weeks. All classes received 16 weeks of Paired Reading, with each session lasting 40 min.

4.2.2. Post-Programme Teacher Feedback

Following the completion of the intervention, teachers provided feedback answering key questions about dosage, timetabling, book selection, and the Paired Reading implementation. They also completed a questionnaire about delivery, including yes and no answer options. Their responses are presented in

Table 2. Staff feedback responses following programme completion. Questions 1–8 were the same as those used to assess implementation with staff during a previous developer-led study (Thurston et al., 2023). Question 9 was included to assess staff experiences of the trainer, given that this is a TTT delivery model.

Four Teachers Completed the Questions	Yes	No
1. Did you like the Paired-Reading programme?	4	0
2. Where the Paired-Reading resources useful for the successful implementation of the programme?	4	0
3. Do you think Paired-Reading was useful to encourage reading among children?	4	0
4. Were you able to use Paired-Reading in the classroom?	4	0
5. Were the students able to use the Paired-Reading process?	4	0
6. Do you think that Paired-Reading helped the children improve their reading?	4	0
7. Do you think that Paired-Reading helped the children improve their reading motivation?	4	0
8. Do you think you would continue to use Paired-Reading?	3	0
9. Would you recommend the trainer and their support to others?	4	0

.

Engagement and training attendance: All staff attended training and all treatment group class teachers and the school lead (n = 4) received the manual and resources. Teachers provided oral feedback during the post-implementation session in addition to a group case study.

In total, three teachers, in addition to the lead teacher, provided feedback about their experiences. Their feedback suggested that they engaged positively with the Paired Reading programme and that they liked the training and resources they received. Also, three of the four teachers indicated that they would continue using the programme and would recommend it to another teacher. All respondents reported that Paired Reading was useful for encouraging reading among children and thought that Paired Reading helped children improve their reading as well as their reading motivation. All teachers reported that they were able to use the technique in their classroom and that the children were able to use the Paired Reading process. Overall, the staff respondents were all satisfied with the Paired Reading programme implementation and with the training and support they received from the trainer.

4.2.3. Dosage and Difficulties Reported About the Implementation Process

Attendance records from the three treatment classes indicate that the mean attendance was 84% for the Grade 6 children who participated in Paired Reading. The school reported that the attendance of students continues to be affected by post-COVID experiences. The mean school attendance in Chile for 2023 was 83.3%, so the participating school did not differ too much from a typical Chilean school (Foxley, 2025). Nevertheless, given that the design recommends 12–16 weeks delivery, despite the 84% attendance, students received Paired Reading over 13–14 weeks in total, which is in line with the programme recommendation.

4.2.4. Progression to an RCT

Professional development and ongoing programme support for Paired Reading was delivered as planned to the participant school staff in Chile by a newly trained partner who was there as part of the TTT delivery design in this study. For the sustainability of delivery across Latin America in the future, the aim was to establish TTT delivery for the Paired Reading programme, including standardised training and school resources which could be delivered by a local partner within the region. Independent standardised reading tests, which were successfully used in a previous trial of Paired Reading in Colombia (Thurston et al., 2023), were also found to detect effect sizes when used in Chile during this matched study, and therefore we recommend their use for future trials.

Teacher feedback about their experience in the training and delivery of Paired Reading instruction with their Grade 6 children indicates that it was possible to transpose this pedagogy from the training undertaken by the programme developer to a TTT delivery model. The reading attainment section of the results indicates that there were positive effect sizes for children using the technique when compared to a matched control group. The conclusion of these observations is that there is enough evidence to recommend the programme be tested under RCT conditions using the TTT model of delivery used in the current study, including a process evaluation alongside the impact evaluation.

5. Discussion

The key purpose of the current study was to develop and test a TTT version of the previously successful developer-led Paired Reading programme which has resulted in positive improvements in children’s reading when used in various languages and countries. The TTT Paired Reading programme was therefore developed using a best practice training and cascade model, including standardised resources and structures and a collaborative community of practice to support knowledge mobilisation capable of yielding positive results for children’s reading outcomes (Maxwell et al., 2021; Povey et al., 2023). A training hub was established in Chile to deliver the TTT Paired Reading programme to prepare for the sustainable scaled delivery of the programme in the region, should the model prove successful. The development study used a small, matched design to test the feasibility of the implementation of the TTT Paired Reading programme and to assess its effectiveness in improving children’s reading attainment. This study makes an important contribution, as it seeks to find scalable solutions to improve reading attainment for children in the Global South.

This matched study was well conducted and used the recently developed TTT Paired Reading programme, where a newly established training hub in Chile delivered training to school staff who then worked with Grade 6 students from a high-poverty urban setting in Santiago in Chile. Overall, the effect sizes were +0.67 for reading attainment, which is higher than effect sizes previously reported from the programme when implemented in the UK (ES of +0.24) in a large, matched study using developer-led training (Tymms et al., 2011). The results from the current study were also higher than those reported in a recent developer-led implementation of the Paired Reading programme in high-poverty settings in Colombia, which reported an effect size of +0.16. However, in the study in Colombia, the majority of students only received 6–9 sessions of Paired Reading, which is below the recommended dosage, which may have accounted for the lower effect sizes (Thurston et al., 2023).

Tymms et al. (2011) reported higher gains for cross-age ability pairings (ES of +0.24) than for same-age cross-ability pairings (ES of +0.2), possibly owing to the acknowledged benefits of having a cognitive development differential between the student pair to maximise the improvement of the tutee (Duran & Monereo, 2005). The context in Chilean schools, as was the case in Colombia, meant that implementing cross-age pairings was not feasible within the school system in this region, given a lack of interaction between year groups and difficulties in school timetabling. Therefore, an alternative delivery methodology was used, with a smaller differential between the student pair given that both tutor and tutee were from the same class, with the better reader acting as a tutor and the less able reader as the tutee. Although same-age pairings were used in the developer-led Paired Reading study in Colombia and the current TTT Paired Reading study in Chile, both delivered in Spanish, positive results were reported in both studies. The developer-led Paired Reading study in Colombia used RCT methodology in a small trial and reported a small effect of ES + 0.16. The current matched study in Chile, which tested the TTT Paired Reading programme implemented through a newly established training hub in Chile, detected a larger effect of ES + 0.67 compared to the developer-led Paired Reading study in Colombia. The delivery dosage is recommended for 12–16 weeks, and, despite a mean of 84% attendance, the students received the TTT Paired Reading programme for between 13 and 14 weeks, thereby meeting the programme dosage recommendation. This demonstrates that the TTT Paired Reading programme is feasible to implement in the Global South in high-poverty schools using a same-age format. This result compares favourably to other peer tutoring interventions for similar same-age groups, such as PALS, which reported an improvement of ES +0.12 in a randomised controlled trial in England, with lower effects of +0.09 for socioeconomically disadvantaged 9–10-year-old children (Lewin et al., 2024). We recognise that large-scale trials would generally report lower effect sizes than smaller trials (Kraft, 2019). Notwithstanding the smaller size of the current matched study, its TTT design and positive results using a standardised independently designed reading test demonstrate considerable promise for its use in the Latin American context, where collaborative learning pedagogies using peer work are little used. These results, together with the positive feedback from teachers about the programme’s training resources and implementation fidelity, suggest that the TTT Paired Reading programme should now be tested at a greater scale with a robust random allocation design.

The value of the Paired Reading approach may rest in the ability of child pairs working collaboratively as peers to scaffold peer learning, such that the structured process keeps the tutee concentrated on what they are expected to do, enabling them to focus on the skills they are developing. This is a clear advantage of many forms of cooperative learning which lie at the heart of social interdependence theory. The behaviours during Paired Reading which are closely prescribed nurture children to challenge themselves in the process of reading and pair discussion in a scaffolded structure which promotes positive interactions. In accordance with Vygotsky (1985), language abilities play a part in regulating cognitive development. Language and text-rich home environments positively affect the reading development of children. Compared to children from more literate backgrounds with greater reading resources at home, children living in a milieu where reading resources are not readily available or where they do not have sufficient opportunities to develop their verbal discourse ability are negatively affected in their ability to read and comprehend when in upper elementary school (Sikio et al., 2016; Strand & Schwippert, 2019). In Chile, we know that children living in high-poverty environments have less access to books. It is estimated that there are, on average, 55 books per household in Chile, but 40% of households own less than 10 books (Fundación La Fuente, 2006). Similarly, although the Ministry of Education provides public schools with well-curated classroom libraries, these are often underused (Torres-Méndez et al., 2024; Strasser et al., 2017). Thus, the implementation of Paired Reading can extend the opportunities of low-income children to interact with books collaboratively.

Therefore, we can conclude that the language opportunities experienced by children using Paired Reading in Chile enabled them to develop their reading and literacy skills using this novel collaborative learning methodology, which is innovative for children in this region and of great benefit to the education system. The improvement observed results from the student pair’s opportunity to use the structured reading technique with its high-quality discourse and discussion about text, including the promotion of mutual appreciation experienced within a scaffolded environment of collaboration. It is this social interdependence which develops within Paired Reading that provides a good context and medium in which to develop reading and literacy skills for children who are struggling readers.

Limitations

Although this study demonstrated that the TTT Paired Reading programme was successful and provides a sustainable solution for wide delivery across the Global South, there were certain limitations and/or suggestions for further research with respect to study design. First, the study included a small sample that does not capture the heterogeneity of low-income schools in Chile. The school was located in an urban region, which is not fully representative of other school districts such as rural and indigenous communities. Second, book collections could have been more appealing to students if a reading interest inventory had been applied prior to the intervention. Providing students with a wider range of books is especially important in the Chilean context, where families do not have too many books at home. Finally, in the current study, we assessed reading ability via a reading comprehension measure and only assessed the student’s reading motivation through teacher perception questions; therefore, in future studies, it would be interesting to examine other variables such as students’ reading motivation, self-efficacy, reading habits, and their perceptions of how their reading ability changed as a result of having participated in Paired Reading sessions. Paired Reading observations should also be undertaken to assess various elements of the Paired Reading process and student behaviours, including pairs reading together, tutee self-correction, tutor correction, and questioning between pairs.

There are other limitations of the study that present statistical challenges. The sample size was small. This may have contributed to pre-test differences. Either way, there is a risk that pre-test differences alter the way in which a sample responds to an intervention, and this can result in sampling errors (Twisk et al., 2018). Minimisation on the basis of the pre-test in a larger trial would overcome this. These pre-test differences are problematic, and this matched study should not be taken as providing a definitive analysis of the main effects.

There is now a need to undertake an RCT of the TTT Paired Reading programme that takes account of these issues, including a larger sample size and wider variety of contexts, including urban and rural settings, prior to scaling the programme region-wide.

6. Conclusions

The study’s findings suggest that the TTT Paired Reading programme used in Chile was feasible to implement and yielded improvements in primary age children’s reading outcomes. This finding compares favourably with previous implementations using developer-led versions of the Paired Reading programme in the English language in UK school settings and in the Spanish language in Colombia. The current study makes an important contribution to the development of the Paired Reading programme and its scalability, providing a TTT version of the programme which is implementable in the Spanish language with primary age children in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. Despite the limitations of this study, the TTT Paired Reading programme has demonstrated improvements in children’s reading and now offers a sustainable implementation for the Global South in Latin America. The TTT Paired Reading programme, including standardised digital resources and an established Latin American led training hub for schools, now provides a platform for scaling this low-cost programme across the region. The pedagogy should now be assessed at greater scale and using a more robust evaluation methodology, such as through an RCT, including a larger sample, to establish whether the positive effects of the TTT Paired Reading programme detected in this study continue to be present when using a gold-standard experimental design.