High-Dosage Tutoring

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading hosted more than a dozen Learning Tuesdays webinars exploring the potential of high-impact tutoring as an effective strategy for accelerating equitable learning recovery.^[1] High-impact tutoring is defined as tutoring that happens a minimum of three times per week for a developmentally appropriate amount of time, with three or fewer students in each session, led by a trained and well-supported tutor who is using a high-quality curriculum. Throughout these sessions, we’ve identified four key components that are consistently a part of successful tutoring programs:

Prioritizing positive relationships between the tutor and student is vital for success! Students learn best when they are in a supportive and trusting environment.^[2] As children are dealing with trauma and mental health challenges in the wake of the pandemic, these relationships can accelerate both social-emotional and academic recovery.^[3] Programs that facilitate positive, long-term relationships between students and tutors as well as parents and tutors have better outcomes academically and prove to offer beneficial experiences for everyone.^[4]

A growing number of states, districts and community partners are investing recent infusions of federal funding to launch and expand tutoring programs. This is a great step in the right direction but as supplemental pandemic-related funding ends, an ongoing challenge for tutoring programs will be sustainability and scalability.^[5] Webinar presenters have stressed the need to identify successful programs and commit long-term funding to sustain them and eventually scale them to benefit more students. GLR webinars have explored steps that both states and local districts can take now to ensure effective tutoring programs continue beyond ESSER “funding cliffs.”Several districts have found ways to build this funding into their budgets or tap into revenue streams that will be available over the long-term for their districts. In our most recent sessions on high-dosage tutoring,^[6],[7] experts further unpacked elements of school system tutoring partnerships that lead to successful implementation and significant results on student achievement. Panelists shared data clearly demonstrating improvements in student achievement and explained how important this information is for generating buy-in from decision-makers to invest in the program for years to come. With secure funding and proven results, programs are better positioned to expand and scale their offerings.

The NAEP scores released in the fall of 2022 illuminated the impact of pandemic-precipitated learning loss especially for students who were already performing below their peers in reading and mathematics.^[15] Those results underscore the urgent and widespread need for effective intervention strategies. Tutoring alone will not address all learning loss recovery, but it has been proven highly effective when done well.^[16] It’s critical that we turn to things that we know work to meet students’ urgent needs. High-dosage tutoring has delivered results for students across grade-levels, ability levels, and socio-economic backgrounds, and it should be considered a major asset in equitable learning loss recovery efforts.
Now that we know what works and how to implement it effectively, the focus must shift to scaling and sustaining programs so that all students who need this critical intervention have access to it going forward. This presents a new set of challenges and opportunities that the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading will continue to explore in upcoming Learning Tuesdays webinars. Stay tuned!