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.
BookNook accelerates students’ reading and comprehension with standards-aligned, high-dosage, remote tutoring for students in grades K–8.
BookNook is an online collaborative learning model that offers reading intervention through reading lessons that include synchronous instruction, interactive activities, group discussion, and collaboration opportunities. Grounded in the science of reading, BookNook tutoring is versatile in being able to fit a school’s needs. It can be used for reading intervention and, while it usually takes place during the school day, tutoring services are also available before or after school. Tutoring can occur either one-on-one or in small groups, and tutors can be either in-person using school staff or virtual using BookNook tutors.
BookNook’s reading curriculum comprises lessons that support the development of skills in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. With more than 850 lessons—with some lessons available with Spanish supports—BookNook offers synchronous, impactful, scalable, and engaging tutoring designed to enhance K–-8 reading achievement. These tutoring sessions occur 2–3 times a week for 30 minutes each. BookNook Overview
BookNook is currently used in more than 2,700 schools across 40 different states. On average, students who received 20+ sessions of tutoring outperformed their peers by more than a quarter standard deviation in just 10 weeks.
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.
High-impact tutoring by Saga Education strives for increased persistence and achievement in math by leveraging adult-learner relationships and in-a-school-day, personalized tutoring sessions.
Saga Education’s mission is to leverage the proven power of high-impact tutoring (HIT) to transform public education and improve outcomes for underserved students. The Saga Direct program for high-impact 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 high-impact tutoring is provided to 6,000+ students and is built directly into the school day. To further Saga’s vision of helping accelerate educational equity so that every student can imagine and achieve their potential, Saga 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 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 a confident, fluent reader.
Ignite Reading’s mission is to deliver one-to-one tutoring that teaches every student the foundational reading skills they need to become a confident, fluent reader. 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 empower teachers by providing students who need extra support with targeted, differentiated reading instruction that closes their decoding gaps. Tutoring is implemented during the school day and begins 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 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.
Success for All Tutoring is a research-proven literacy tutoring program offered through an easy-to-use web-based platform so that students can accelerate their reading skills.
Success for All Tutoring is a research-proven literacy tutoring model designed specifically for below-level students in grades 1-8. The program offers two levels: “Tutoring with the Lightning Squad” for grades 1-3 and “Tutoring with ThemeReads” for grades 4-8, catering to the specific needs of different age groups.
Students work cooperatively in pairs, guided and monitored by their tutors, as they advance through activities to develop reading skills. Each 30-minute session allows tutors to effectively support up to six students, maximizing instructional time. With user-friendly software and comprehensive guides, tutors have the necessary tools to facilitate engaging sessions. Individualized reports track and display student progress at the student, class, and school levels, allowing for informed decision-making. At-home activities complement in-class learning and promote collaboration between students and parents.
Success for All provides extensive training and support for school-based tutors, ensuring they are well prepared to deliver effective instruction. The programs currently operate at 301 sites and serve 7,762 students.
The Tutoring powered by Reading Partners model helps students become proud, confident readers through personalized one-on-one tutoring sessions grounded in the science of reading.
Reading Partners works with communities, schools, and volunteers to provide high-dosage, one-on-one literacy tutoring for students. Fueled by the belief that reading is a civil right, the Tutoring powered by Reading Partners model provides an easy-to-use, evidence-based, and customizable curriculum, as well as extensive training, for community volunteers to deliver tutoring to students reading approximately 0.5 to 2.5 years below grade level. Reading Partners helps partner organizations, such as schools, after-school programs, community centers, and other youth-serving organizations, build a community-centered literacy ecosystem.
Reading Partners’ curriculum consists of over 150 lessons aligned to the science of reading. During tutoring sessions, students choose a book to have read aloud to them, as well as learn and practice foundational literacy skills (e.g., decoding, fluency, alphabet), phonics and word analysis, and higher-level comprehension skills.
Since 1999, Reading Partners has been directly implementing its model in 12 metro areas across the United States. To help more students develop their reading skills, Reading Partners has expanded its programming to provide nationwide literacy tutoring via its online platform. During the 2022–2023 school year, 7,400 community tutors delivered literacy tutoring to over 6,000 students, and 82% of all Reading Partners students finished the year meeting or exceeding their primary end-of-year literacy growth goals. Tutoring powered by Reading Partners Overview
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.