Cross ability tutoring--having more advanced students work with slower learners--seems to provide the repetitions required to teach the severely retarded a skill. At the Eastern Shore Vocational and Rehabilitation Center (Virginia), students who read at grade 2.0 or better are paired with others, some of whom are working on writing their names or addresses and telephone numbers. Whenever possible, tutees select their helpers, usually choosing co-workers in vocational work. Tutors are selected because of their patience, ability to master the material taught, desire to help, legible handwriting, and positive attitudes. Each attends a workshop on how to teach given by the adult basic education (ABE) instructor. Each day the students pair off for tutorials which last from 5 to 30 minutes. The work is shown to the ABE instructor during the tutor's regular class. The tutorials increase the self-esteem of the tutees and the tutors. Peer tutoring between cross-ability students challenges the ABE teacher by providing a new instructional approach that must be learned and continually refined. Drawbacks include inadvertent reinforcement of errors that tutors do not recognize and personalities that do not mesh. (YLB)