Volunteer Tutoring for Struggling Readers of English at the Early Level in Bangladesh: An Action Research * Jurana Aziz * Research, Dhaka University. Assistant Professor, Department of Language Education, Institute of Education and Abstract This paper reports on an action research on intervention through volunteer tutors for struggling readers of English at the early level in Bangladesh. The proposition of the action research is that volunteer tutor support to assist the struggling learners who are slow in reading compared to other students in a class can help overcome their challenge. A sample of students is taken from one of the better-known English medium schools in Dhaka for a trial with volunteer tutors. The trial shows that if volunteer tutoring could be implemented at an early level, the reading level of students, who struggle to read and comprehend in a second language other than their mother tongue, can be motivated and helped to overcome their problems. Key words: Struggling reader, interventions, early level, second language 1. Introduction English medium schools in Bangladesh use English as the medium for communication and instruction for all subjects, even though it is not the mother tongue and rarely used at home. As it is the students’ second language (L2), they try to master it through regular instruction in school, with the help of their teachers. But there are always struggling readers in every class who are not able to follow the instruction and fall behind in the class. They are always slow in understanding the lessons and are not able to express themselves or explain their difficulties. They are often introverts and shy and are not willing to share their thoughts to the class teacher. In this article, I have reported the current practices in one of the well-known English medium schools of Bangladesh (Sir John Wilson School), where the teachers always use English in their lessons. It was found, as expected, that there were struggling readers who failed to keep up with their lessons, because they did not acquire the necessary language proficiency. This was manifested in their being slow in reading, or their reading skill was very low compared to the average student in the class. Trying to understand the problem and designing a remedy for the slow readers, I proposed an action research project with a sample of students who would be assisted by a volunteer tutor in reading, in addition to regular classroom instruction. A control group, who did not receive the intervention, was observed for comparison. In designing the trial, I was inspired by the Bangladesh Education Journal Volume 16, Number 1, June 2017