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Displaying 31 - 60 of 149
01/18/2024. Article
Small, regular interactions with a reading tutor — about 5 to 7 minutes — are making a big impact on young students’ reading skills, new Stanford University research shows.
First graders in Florida’s Broward County schools who participated in the program, called Chapter One, saw more substantial gains in reading fluency than those who didn’t receive the support, according to the study. They were also 9 percentage points less likely to be considered at risk on a district literacy test.
01/08/2024. Article
The first randomized controlled trial of a virtual tutoring program for reading was conducted during the 2022-23 school year at a large charter school network in Texas. Kindergarten, first and second graders received 20 minutes of video tutoring four times a week, from September through May, with an early reading tutoring organization called OnYourMark. Despite the logistical challenges of setting up little children on computers with headphones, the tutored children ended the year with higher DIBELS scores, a measure of reading proficiency for young children, than students who didn’t receive the tutoring. One-to-one video tutoring sometimes produced double the reading gains as video tutoring in pairs, demonstrating a difference between online and in-person tutoring, where larger groups of two and three students can be very effective too. That study was published in October 2023.
01/04/2024. Article
Susanna Loeb is named to the 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, recognizing the 200 university-based scholars who had the biggest influence on educational practice and policy last year.
For the full list and to learn more about the rankings, visit The 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings.
12/22/2023. Article
High-dosage tutoring programs have expanded significantly, with nearly 40 percent of schools now using individual and small-group tutoring with trained teachers or tutors four or five days a week. This approach has been shown to boost student learning, but it can also be expensive. A new study by the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University suggests virtual tutoring could be a less-costly option, if it remains as intensive and rigorous as in-person tutoring.
12/18/2023. Article
"We're pretty clear on the big picture about what makes tutoring work, and it is focused on intensive, relationship-based, individualized instruction," said Kathy Bendheim, managing director of the National Student Support Accelerator. After-school tutoring has spotty attendance records, she said, and on-call, web-based tutoring may not be tailored to the student or used very frequently, either.
12/13/2023. Article
Thankfully, states and districts aren’t sitting on their hands in the face of learning loss. Supported by billions of dollars of federal funds, many have invested heavily in tutoring programs that promise to help struggling children overcome the challenges imposed by past school closures and virtual instruction. The question is whether those efforts work for enough students to justify their cost — and according to data generated by the National Student Support Accelerator, a Stanford initiative devoted to studying the effects of tutoring, there is reason for hope.
12/07/2023. Article
Transformative change in education often begins with a powerful story. Increasingly, high-impact tutoring is that story, where students find both significant academic success and personal confidence in their abilities. Rhyne Richards—a 6th-grade student in Washington, DC.—met several times each week with a tutor, Ms. Burns, to overcome math challenges. Rhyne’s journey speaks volumes. “I get distracted a lot [in class],” Rhyne admitted. “But when I’m with Ms. Burns, I learn a lot; a lot more than I knew last year.” It’s a testament to the remarkable impact of intensive, one-on-one tutoring. “I’m proud of myself,” Rhyne continued. “Before, I didn’t really know math like I do now. But now I can do it myself. I want to be the smartest person in the world.” Rhyne’s regained confidence in math and optimism for the future epitomize the profound evidence for and influence of intensive, relationship-based, individualized instruction—it is a narrative we must tirelessly work to replicate and scale.
12/06/2023. Article
Those results are not unique to Oakland. Another recent study on a virtual early literacy tutoring model called OnYourMark found minimal impact in second grade. The lack of growth could be due to a mismatch between tutoring and testing, said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford University professor who leads a nationwide tutoring research center and conducted the OnYourMark research.
12/05/2023. Article
Stanford’s National Student Support Accelerator suggests various tutor trainings along with online pre-service trainings such as Saga Coach. The training level of tutors also impacts tutor payment with some models proposing payments of $20 per hour for non-professionals and payments of up to $50 per hour for teachers and professional tutors.
11/29/2023. Article
What makes tutoring high-impact? According to the National Student Support Accelerator, it involves substantial time each week, sustained and strong relationships between students and tutors, close monitoring of student knowledge and skills alignment to school curriculum, and oversight to ensure quality interactions.
11/23/2023. Article
“A lot of districts really want to provide additional support for their students. They want to do it in an equitable way and they want to do it in a sustainable way. One of the things that we’ve seen is that starting big and not being able to do [tutoring implementation] smoothly sometimes backfires,” said Nancy Waymack, director of research partnerships and policy for the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University, which studies K-12 tutoring trends. “Starting by focusing on a smaller group of students, and really making sure that they have the full support of a consistent tutor, on a very frequent basis, in a data-driven way that’s really aligned with the curriculum is a way that’s going to work really well.”
11/16/2023. Article
In a significant study involving 1,000 K-2 students in Texas, OnYourMark Education, in partnership with The National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) and Uplift Education, presents compelling evidence of the positive impact of virtual high-impact reading tutoring on early literacy. During the 2022-2023 school year, students engaged in one-on-one virtual reading tutoring sessions, resulting in substantial academic gains.
11/02/2023. Article
Schools across America continue struggling to help their students catch up following unprecedented learning losses resulting from pandemic school closures beginning in March 2020. It is vital—both to address current needs and to stash away for future use—to determine which methods work to boost student achievement. To that end, a group of researchers, led by Stanford University’s Susanna Loeb, recently examined a high-dosage tutoring effort called OnYourMark, a fully virtual model designed to solidify foundational literacy skills for students in kindergarten through second grade.
10/31/2023. Article
Intensive, high-dose tutoring can boost early reading skills, even in a virtual format, according to a new experimental study.
Researchers from the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University tracked the reading progress of about 2,000 K-2 students in a dozen Texas charter schools. Half of the students were randomly assigned to attend class normally, while half received intensive remote tutoring for part of the school day, in small groups, through the nonprofit group OnYourMark, which serves K-2 students in seven states.
10/23/2023. Article
“So, high impact tutoring is tutoring that happens with a qualified tutor and that means someone who is trained and is receiving coaching. It also happens frequently. So at least three to 5 times a week, in a small group or one-on-one. It is very personalized,” says Director of Partnerships and Policy for the National Student Support Accelerator Nancy Waymack.
10/23/2023. Article
In a hopeful sign for early literacy gains, K-2 students who received individual virtual tutoring during the 2022-23 school year showed higher reading test scores than their peers by the end of the year, according to a study released Wednesday by a tutoring research program at Stanford University.
The study, which analyzed 2,085 students across 12 Texas charter schools, found students using 1:1 or 2:1 virtual tutoring services performed 1.57 percentile points higher.
While the study found positive signs that the online tutoring model boosted reading comprehension for younger students, researchers acknowledged the outcomes from virtual tutoring are “more modest” than from similar in-person tutoring programs.
10/18/2023. Article
While the virtual program was still less effective than in-person tutoring, the model could be a breakthrough for schools in rural areas and those that have struggled to recruit tutors, Loeb said. Districts’ pandemic recovery efforts have sometimes fallen short because they can’t find trained educators or volunteers to do the job. And research by Loeb and others has found that only a fraction of students who need extra help take advantage of on-demand virtual tutoring programs.
09/30/2023. Article
In the aftermath of COVID-19, learning losses are among the most devastating, persistent consequences of the pandemic. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were disproportionately impacted, creating both a learning and inequality crisis. Studies from the California School Boards Association and University of Chicago hail high-impact tutoring as a key solution for both issues.
In Guilford County Schools, implementation of high-impact tutoring has produced impressive results. All student groups improved their test proficiency scores this year.
09/27/2023. Article
Districts across the nation use Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to target appropriate supports for each student. High-impact tutoring is the most effective research-backed academic support – consistently demonstrating from six months to over two years of learning gains for students across grade levels and content areas in a single year of tutoring.
Districts that have chosen to integrate high-impact tutoring with MTSS are finding that embedding this highly effective support into the fabric of their schools improves student outcomes, reduces implementation challenges, improves instructional coherence, and streamlines operations.
09/27/2023. Article
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm, high-dose tutoring is the most effective—though often the most expensive.
The National Student Support Accelerator, a Stanford University center that studies effective tutoring, finds that effective high-dose tutoring programs require:
Tutoring integrated into the school day to increase tutor-teacher coordination and avoid transportation or time problems for students.
Targeting students based on academic need rather than requiring parents to opt into services.
Budgeting services for at least three to five days a week for extended periods of time.
Differentiated tutoring based on particular student needs and skills.
Data-gathering and progress-monitoring, particularly when schools work with outside tutoring providers.
09/27/2023. Article
With research showing that far fewer students took advantage of online tutoring than districts expected, the outcomes-based model is one way to ensure districts use public funds wisely. “In education, we can pay for things a long time before we realize no children are participating in it,” Miller said.
09/14/2023. Article
“Research shows that relationship-based, intensive tutoring leads to positive academic growth and student success,” said Susanna Loeb, PhD, Professor at Stanford and Director of the National Student Support Accelerator. “As schools across the country navigate the ongoing challenges that COVID learning loss continues to present three years after its onset, providing educators with streamlined access to tools that support student growth can be greatly beneficial and the reason that we collaborate regularly with Pearl and are part of the Pearl ecosystem of support. Through our frequent conversations with education leaders, we know the benefit of making it easier for schools and students to access the tutoring support they need and for school systems to have the data they need to measure and drive achievement and continuously improve their programs.”
08/31/2023. Article
The authors partnered with school districts, tutoring providers, and quarterback organizations that support implementation of high-impact tutoring across districts in the United States to learn from their efforts in implementing tutoring. This cross-district implementation study shares a snapshot of lessons learned about common barriers to implementing highly-effective programs and the ways that districts have overcome these barriers with success. Interviewees included administrators, teachers, tutors, and other program staff from nine school districts and one charter management organization, seven tutoring providers, and six quarterback organizations that support implementation across districts. One finding is that funding and belief in the potential of tutoring are two key facilitators for the implementation of high-impact tutoring. Moreover, some of the challenges identified are related to tutor recruitment and training, data use, the scheduling of tutoring during the school day, student attendance and school-level buy-in.
08/21/2023. Article
“Michigan, by having their policy come out now, is certainly behind several states but ahead of probably at least half of the states, I’m sure,” said Kathy Bendheim, managing director at the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA), a group out of Stanford University that shares tutoring research and helps create evidence-based programs.
She said Michigan’s program incorporates “high-quality standards” in its policy but must ensure tutoring programs are actually implemented as designed.
“The urgency of the situation makes you want to do it for all kids immediately,” she said. “But what we have learned is that starting small — smaller — getting it right and building those real champions makes the expansion so much easier.”
08/15/2023. Article
As the main focus of Future Forward Ohio, high-dosage tutoring, which is characterized by an average of at least 90 minutes of tutoring per week, promises lasting academic improvements. Studies have shown that students consistently benefit from it, as evidenced by Stanford University's National Student Support Accelerator, which underscores its effectiveness, particularly for those lagging academically.
"Cignition's program aligns with what the research tells us are the most promising practices in high-impact tutoring, with consistent, effective tutors who develop strong relationships with students and provide engaging, personalized instruction," said Susanna Loeb, professor and director of the education policy initiative at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. "Moreover, recent studies provide good evidence that Cignition's program has been successful for the students that they reach, meaningfully improving their learning and performance on key assessments."
07/22/2023. Article
As dean of Bowling Green State University’s College of Education in Ohio, Dawn Shinew has watched aspiring teachers struggle to make ends meet.
Often, they can’t afford to work as unpaid student-teachers in schools while paying tuition and the usual costs of living. It’s doubly discouraging, Shinew said, because few will earn a high salary after they graduate and enter the teaching profession.
“We do have students, who, I think, would be interested, really talented, the kinds of people we want to be in classrooms, [for whom] it isn’t a matter of commitment, it’s a practical reality,” Shinew said.
06/29/2023. Article
To assist schools in delivering a multi-tiered system of support for all students, Tutor.com and its affiliate company, education services giant The Princeton Review®, are launching High-Dosage Tutoring, which will provide small group tutoring in algebra to accelerate student learning. Developed by education experts and based on the Brown University Annenberg Institute's research-based design principles, High-Dosage Tutoring provides a way for students to make rapid, significant learning gains in algebra, and for teachers to track their progress through Tutor.com's award-winning LEO™ platform. "Every student deserves the opportunity to succeed," said White. "With the relational, frequent, curriculum-based High-Dosage Tutoring model, algebra students who had previously struggled will gain the support they need to overcome interrupted learning and pursue ambitious academic and postsecondary goals."
06/23/2023. Article
The Tutor901 program provides high-impact tutoring, one of the most effective interventions for increasing the academic achievement of students who are behind grade level proficiency. Following proven practices recommended by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, tutoring is aligned to all ten dimensions the institute identifies as principles for effective tutoring design.