The Promise of Tutoring

In this Learning Tuesdays webinar, Mike English of Turn the Page KC moderated a conversation with leaders from two evidence-based tutoring programs and two local leaders who are engaging tutors to support struggling readers in their community. With schools across the country closing their doors for months to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the number of children needing this type of one-on-one literacy support will likely increase significantly when schools reopen.

Lindsay Dolce of Reading and Math Foundation explained how Reading Corps is tapping into the resource of AmeriCorps members to support children’s third-grade reading proficiency. While focusing on this literacy program in her presentation, she shared that they also offer Math Corps to support eighth-grade math proficiency. Since its creation in Minnesota in 2003, Reading Corps has been scaled broadly throughout that state and is now reaching 11 additional states, leveraging more than 2,000 AmeriCorps members to support struggling readers in under-resourced schools. Reading Corps blends science and service, collecting data through weekly progress monitoring and providing AmeriCorps members with robust and ongoing training and coaching. Dolce shared how multiple evaluations have found Reading Corps to be effective in boosting literacy skills, including projected annual cost savings of approximately $9 million to states through reductions in referrals to special education.

Tonya Wiley-Robinson of AARP Foundation described how its Experience Corps program supports and engages adults age 50 and over to boost the fluency, accuracy and comprehension skills of struggling readers. This program focuses on schools and communities where a significant portion of K–3 students are below grade level in reading. With as many as four tutoring sessions each week, this unique intergenerational tutoring model enables tutors to build strong mentoring relationships with the children they are serving. Each volunteer tutor receives more than 20 hours of training, enabling them to lead research-based structured tutoring sessions that reflect the science of learning to read. Wiley-Robinson shared how this evidence-based program has been found to support improved academic and social-emotional outcomes for students and physical and emotional benefits for the tutors as well. As of 2019, 22 Experience Corps programs were operating 320 service sites in 14 states, engaging more than 2,200 volunteers in supporting more than 24,000 students.

The local leaders on the webinar, including Nicole Burner of City of Tempe, Arizona, Melissa Litwin of the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation in Paterson, New Jersey, and moderator Mike English, shared how they are using tutoring programs to support struggling readers in their community and offered advice to communities on selecting and implementing tutoring programs. In their comments, these local leaders referenced both of the featured tutoring programs as well as Book Buddies and Making the Grade. Litwin also shared how full-service community schools were providing tutoring in Paterson while local parent programs were also building the capacity of parents to support their children’s literacy skills.