A practicum was conducted to improve reading comprehension in classroom performance with the basal reading series and on norm-referenced tests. Subjects included a fifth-grade class of 28 students who were paired with another fifth-grade class as peer teachers. New skills were taught and practiced with the target population early in the week. On Thursdays, the lesson to be peer-taught was reviewed. The students were grouped on Fridays for the peer tutoring sessions. The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (comprehension section) was administered as a post-test. The criterion for success was a 3-month gain on the test by 75% of the students following the 12-week implementation program. A tally of the scores of the 15 students who finished the program revealed that only 60% met the objective; however, they did it with a 4.7 month gain. Results indicated that peer tutoring can increase the rate of completion of tasks, and that the strategies implemented are effective in raising reading comprehension scores. (Seventeen references are attached. Appendixes include: a table showing increases and decreases in stanines from grades three to four; population data; information on using context clues in science, social studies, and reading; fifth-grade guide and worksheet for the study of morphemes; text maps for invertebrates, clouds, and the War of 1812; directions for compare/contrast text structure; 1990 stanine analysis; grade and completion rate analysis; and tables showing percentage of peer teaching tasks completed and scores on the Gates-MacGinitie pretest and posttest.) (MG)