High Expectations with Unlimited Opportunities for All
Offering targeted, additional academic support ensures expectations remain high for all learners and increases opportunities for learners to meet those expectations.
High-dosage tutoring is a pedagogical approach that provides students with individualized support to accelerate learning. Through this approach, students receive targeted tutoring in small group settings. In these groups, students practice and master content knowledge and skills, build academic confidence, work collaboratively with their peers, and develop lasting relationships with their tutors.
Tutoring delivered in high doses is one of the most effective evidence-based interventions for math and reading. There are many ways to implement a high-dosage tutoring model, and while aspects like group size, cadence, and duration are not the same across all models, many share the following best practices:
Offering targeted, additional academic support ensures expectations remain high for all learners and increases opportunities for learners to meet those expectations.
Small group instruction and tailored tutoring materials that are closely aligned to a core curriculum ensure every student receives support that fits their needs.
Small group instruction and frequency of sessions enable tutors and students to develop close, trusting relationships.
The high-dosage tutoring models on The Innovative Models Exchange all utilize tutoring best practices but also differ in key ways, like the content areas they focus on and how they develop curricula.
The GO Foundation’s high-dosage tutoring program places AmeriCorps members in historically under-resourced schools to implement innovative learning and mentoring strategies.
The GO Foundation offers a high-dosage tutoring program that flexibly complements math and ELA instruction in grades 3-12 and across different learning environments, particularly in systematically disadvantaged communities. Trained tutors and near-peer mentors—called Fellows—provide high-dosage tutoring (HDT) that (1) connects the same tutors with the same students over time, (2) occurs during the school day, and (3) limits tutoring group size to no more than four students. Tutoring sessions deliver personalized, rigorous content to entire cohorts in a school, not to only a select few. Students focus on content mastery and acceleration, are mentored around learning mindsets and positive self-identity, and form part of an academic community.
The GO Fellowship was founded on the premise that tutoring is a powerful educational equity opportunity that should be made widely available, not simply to the wealthy or well-connected. The model has a dual mission of equitable access and outcomes for all students and of inspiring a diverse pipeline of effective classroom teachers and lifelong advocates for educational justice. The GO Foundation has developed a series of best practices informed by academic research, including the research-based Design Principles for Effective Tutoring developed by the Annenberg Institute, as well as their experience implementing high-dosage tutoring in schools for over a decade. The GO Foundation’s high-dosage tutoring model has reached over 10,000 students at schools in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware and is growing. The GO Foundation offers implementation and management services through a direct partnership and standalone advisory services for schools or districts seeking to launch a high-dosage tutoring program.
Saga’s high-dosage tutoring model strives for increased persistence and achievement in math by leveraging adult-learner relationships and in-a-school-day, personalized tutoring sessions.
Saga’s mission is to help states and districts to strengthen student confidence and achievement in math—a leading cause of high school dropout. Saga Direct’s model for high-dosage tutoring prioritizes the academic and socioemotional needs of students in under-resourced schools by ensuring all students feel a sense of belonging and achievement. This model personalizes math intervention or acceleration through rigorous tutoring sessions scheduled during the school day. Highly trained tutors, called Fellows, act as mentors and work closely with teachers and families to support student growth within and beyond the classroom.
Saga Direct’s high-dosage tutoring model is provided to 6,000+ students, built within the school day. Saga’s Widespread Impact division also provides comprehensive services to schools and districts: a standards-aligned math curriculum, a specialized platform for remote tutoring, as well as support for implementation, fidelity, training of supervisors and tutors, onsite inspections, and program management. With Saga, students can receive up to 150 hours of personalized instruction as part of their school day—and that tutoring time yields up to up to two-and-a-half years of academic gain in just one academic year.
Ignite! Reading provides a one-on-one virtual high-dosage tutoring program grounded in the science of reading that teaches every student the foundational skills they need to become an independent, confident reader.
Ignite! Reading’s mission is to ensure that every student learns to read on time. Informed by the science of reading, Ignite delivers a one-on-one virtual tutoring program focused on teaching students foundational reading skills. Ignite tutors complete a 120+ hour certification program to become master reading instructors and pair with students all over the country to help them crack the code to become lifelong readers.
The model is designed to minimize the burden placed on teachers so that it can be easily and sustainably implemented during the school day and begin having an impact immediately. Curriculum-embedded diagnostic tools help determine where students fall on the continuum of learning to read before targeted one-on-one instruction begins. The ultimate goal of the Ignite! Reading model is to help students successfully build the foundational literacy skills necessary for them to become independent readers. Ignite! Reading Program Overview
The Once model teaches school support staff to implement high-dosage, one-on-one tutoring based in the science of reading, so that kindergarteners learn how to read fluently and independently.
Once has developed a high-dosage, one-on-one reading-tutoring program for kindergarten students that is rooted in the science of reading and does not require certified teachers to implement. Existing school support staff are trained to deliver scripted reading lessons that explicitly and systematically introduce letter-sound correspondences and give students the opportunity to apply those when reading authentic, decodable texts. Students also practice deliberate writing activities related to the sounds they are learning each session. Each lesson is video recorded, so that the school staff member can receive feedback from a Once coach to continuously improve their tutoring instruction.
Once offers various supports to schools interested in implementing their model, from free resources to a deeper partnership.
The following resources can help deepen your understanding of high-dosage tutoring and support the design and implementation of a high-quality model, whether it’s one from The Innovative Models Exchange or one your community designs.
The Student Support Accelerator is a free, comprehensive online toolkit of resources designed for district leaders to research, learn about, and implement highly rigorous and scalable tutoring programs.
This primer provides a brief overview of relevant research and implementation suggestions. It also includes school examples to explore.
Saga Education offers a free and open-to-all virtual training program. Educators—tutors and teachers alike—get to participate in self-paced professional development around research-backed tutoring practices.
This report synthesizes research into a few best practices and considerations, and offers starting questions and answers to kick-start a targeted, intensive tutoring program.