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
What Makes This Model Innovative?
Customization
Rigorous Learning
Connection & Community
Goals
Ignite Reading solidifies foundational reading skills for K-8th graders. The ultimate goal is to ignite readers as they build the decoding skills necessary for reading comprehension.
Code Breakers
Students learn to effectively decode what they’re reading to become fluent, independent readers.
Experience
Ignite Reading teaches foundational literacy skills explicitly and systematically using a pedagogical approach called structured literacy. The model builds automaticity with the three strands of word recognition—phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition—enabling readers to recognize new and previously read words instantly and automatically.
The sequence of learning starts with Basic Alphabet Knowledge and ends with Multisyllabic Decoding. A baseline assessment determines where students start their learning on this continuum.
- Basic Alphabet Knowledge
- Using Letter Sounds
- Using Letter Patterns
- Blends & Digraphs
- R-Controlled Vowels
- Vowel-Consonant-e
- Vowel Teams
- Multisyllabic Decoding
Given that all students benefit from this approach to decoding, schools can opt to enroll entire classrooms or grades in the Ignite program or to identify students in need of services.
Ignite Reading’s 15-minute, daily, one-on-one, virtual tutoring with a highly-trained reading instructor is targeted to each child’s specific skill gaps in order to solidify phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition skills.
When students start in the Ignite program, they participate in a curriculum-embedded assessment, which allows the tutor to understand each student’s individual mastery and foundational skill gaps. Based on that understanding, each student gets placed into a specific set of lessons or a unit (referred to as a “protocol”) that will meet that student’s needs and ultimately close skill and knowledge gaps.
Each lesson includes:
- Modeling: Tutors explicitly teach specific decoding skills so that students can learn to independently decode. Example: In one component of the daily lesson, students are taught two high frequency words through the orthographic mapping process, supporting the way our brains store these words so that we can read them on sight. For other components, tutors are modeling segmenting and blending as a scaffold to students being able to independently segment and blend.
- Guided practice: Tutors and students work through content together, step-by-step, checking for understanding along the way. Example: Students work with their tutor on a daily decoding lesson of a controlled word list with a focus on specific elements of the English code and controlled decodable text that allows the student to practice decoding in context.
- Independent practice with feedback: Students try out the specific decoding skill they have been working on while the tutor provides real-time growth-oriented feedback. Example: Students read from a controlled decodable text that allows them to practice decoding in context, while the tutor listens to the student and gives feedback immediately upon completion.
As students advance to more rigorous protocols, they also engage in spelling, reading by analogy activities, and phonological vowel sound differentiation.
Ignite Reading regularly assesses students and monitors their progress to ensure students are receiving targeted lessons based on their individual needs. Students are pre-identified by teachers to participate in Ignite. On each student’s first day of the program, Ignite tutors administer DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) to identify each student’s specific word recognition gaps, including decoding, phonological awareness, and sight recognition.
After 14 lessons, students participate in curriculum-embedded assessments, which usually just feel like another lesson. Instead of modeling and guided practice, which are the first two sections of each lesson, students demonstrate their independent skills. Progress monitoring is a time for celebration and honoring all of the growth students have made.
Adults in multiple roles use these data to make informed decisions about students:
- Schools use their own data to identify which students should participate in tutoring.
- Ignite tutors adapt instruction to the needs of each child so that students learn the right skills at the right time.
- A literacy specialist, assigned by Ignite to each school, shares monthly data of student progress and skill gaps with teachers and administrators. Additionally, literacy specialists help facilitate district-level meetings to review achievement data, detailed information on students who may be dyslexic, and information on student confidence and behavior to ensure a supportive learning environment.
In schools where only select students receive tutoring support, teachers and administrators identify students who are behind grade-level reading to participate in tutoring. Students finish the tutoring program once they have demonstrated mastery in each of the skills on the continuum of learning to read.
Supporting Structures
Ignite Reading can be implemented into a school’s existing model but will require some minor shifts across school structures.
Ignite Reading’s curriculum and methodology are grounded in the science of reading and requires ongoing assessment of students to ensure they are mastering word recognition skills.
Ignite’s model implements a Tier 2 foundational literacy skills curriculum entitled How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, created by reading researchers Dr. Sharon Wolpole and Dr. Michael McKenna. This pedagogical approach is called structured literacy. This curriculum is a National Council of Teacher Quality exemplary resource that helps students master phonological awareness, decoding, and word recognition so they can advance from learning to read to reading to learn.
A key part of Ignite’s model is frequent assessment to ensure that students are getting support to fill their diagnosed decoding gaps. The first week of the program starts with a baseline assessment to identify students’ specific foundational skills gaps; this informs the appropriate starting point for their instruction. Every 14 lessons, tutors conduct progress monitoring assessments; DIBELS is administered at both the middle and end of year. Students graduate from the program once they have demonstrated mastery of all of the foundational skills on the continuum of learning to read.
The model is best implemented in school communities that value the science of reading and data-based decision-making.
In order to effectively implement Ignite Reading’s model in schools, there must be strong, committed leadership and teachers who value collaboration, improvement, and data-driven decision-making, as well as a desire to actively engage around challenges and lessons learned. Because Ignite Reading is grounded in the science of reading, school teams should be willing to embrace the evidence-based approach.
Schools must identify an on-site coordinator to implement the model with ease and fidelity.
Partner schools must be able to identify a single point of contact at the school who “owns” the Ignite Reading partnership and will coordinate the school-based components of programming, including identifying an ideal time and location for tutoring, support with data sharing, and the creation of systems to ensure programming runs with precision. Any adult at the school can be this point of contact — some schools have named assistant principals, whereas others have chosen a literacy coach or paraprofessional. In order for the partnership to succeed, the Ignite team must be able to communicate real-time student performance data and that data needs to be leveraged to inform Tier 3 programming at the school.
Some schools choose to enroll entire classes of students in Ignite, whereas other schools select individual students to participate based on previous assessment data. If a school opts to select specific students and the students need to leave their classroom in order to participate (rather than simply moving to the back of a classroom), an adult should be identified to escort students to and from tutoring, as well as to monitor and supervise students while they are working on their computers.
All tutoring is provided by trained and certified Ignite Reading tutors. Each tutor participates in a nine-week Science of Reading Teaching Certification class and practicum to gain the experience and skills necessary to implement the curriculum and support students. Tutors stay with their students until they demonstrate reading mastery and graduate from the program. The Tutors of Ignite
Additionally, Ignite assigns each school a professional literacy specialist who shares student data monthly. These are full-time Ignite Reading employees who have had previous careers as literacy specialists working within schools. Ignite Reading literacy specialists analyze student data and ensure students are progressing at the expected pace. These literacy specialists also meet with school administrators once per month to share student data, such as attendance and progress data. These data show where each student is on the continuum of reading skills and their proficiency levels, as well as any behavioral issues that may need to be addressed to help support student learning. Schools receive comprehensive program reports, including detailed information on students who are showing signs of dyslexia.
The model requires that daily tutoring schedules are created and upheld.
In order to make the program successful, school leaders must commit to clearly communicating the tutoring schedule of all participating students to their teachers and to holding teachers accountable for ensuring students are on time each day for their 15-minute sessions.
The number of participating students often depends on a school’s need and their available funding. Given that all students benefit from Ignite Reading’s structured literacy approach, some schools will have entire classrooms or grade levels participate. Often, schools identify students who are behind in grade level reading and assign them to Ignite.
While scheduling is dependent upon the school, each school will need to provide the logistical and scheduling support to ensure students are logged into their sessions at the appropriate time, whether that’s a full class signing in, a group of students within a classroom signing in, or students leaving to a designated room to meet with their virtual tutor.
Lastly, if students stay in the classroom to receive tutoring while other students are not in the tutoring program, Ignite recommends that schools use the portion of the literacy block where teachers are doing small group work and/or students are doing silent reading to minimize the noise in the room.
Quiet spaces must be identified for virtual tutoring sessions.
The location of tutoring is dependent upon who is enrolled in the tutoring program: either individually selected children or an entire classroom.
If only select students are enrolled in the Ignite! Reading model, they can either:
- Transition to a designated area for tutoring and return after the tutoring session ends.
- Stay in the classroom while receiving tutoring. This can be advantageous because it does not require extra staffing to monitor students during tutoring, there are no transition periods in/out of another room, and the teacher can visibly see the curricula and high-dosage tutoring in real-time.
In both scenarios, schools use a 15-minute portion of their day, usually during the literacy block, for students to meet with their virtual tutors. Thanks to the use of noise-minimizing headphones, students can stay in their classrooms even while each child interacts with their own tutor.
Ignite Reading requires that students have access to appropriate technology that allows them to smoothly engage in virtual tutoring.
Students must have access to a computer, stable internet, and noise-minimizing headphones with a microphone in order to access their virtual tutoring session. Schools should be able to provide these resources to each participating student, though students can share equipment (assuming their tutoring sessions take place at different times). Ignite also offers headphones for school partners to purchase.
Ignite Reading’s curriculum and methodology are grounded in the science of reading and requires ongoing assessment of students to ensure they are mastering word recognition skills.
Ignite’s model implements a Tier 2 foundational literacy skills curriculum entitled How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, created by reading researchers Dr. Sharon Wolpole and Dr. Michael McKenna. This pedagogical approach is called structured literacy. This curriculum is a National Council of Teacher Quality exemplary resource that helps students master phonological awareness, decoding, and word recognition so they can advance from learning to read to reading to learn.
A key part of Ignite’s model is frequent assessment to ensure that students are getting support to fill their diagnosed decoding gaps. The first week of the program starts with a baseline assessment to identify students’ specific foundational skills gaps; this informs the appropriate starting point for their instruction. Every 14 lessons, tutors conduct progress monitoring assessments; DIBELS is administered at both the middle and end of year. Students graduate from the program once they have demonstrated mastery of all of the foundational skills on the continuum of learning to read.
The model is best implemented in school communities that value the science of reading and data-based decision-making.
In order to effectively implement Ignite Reading’s model in schools, there must be strong, committed leadership and teachers who value collaboration, improvement, and data-driven decision-making, as well as a desire to actively engage around challenges and lessons learned. Because Ignite Reading is grounded in the science of reading, school teams should be willing to embrace the evidence-based approach.
Schools must identify an on-site coordinator to implement the model with ease and fidelity.
Partner schools must be able to identify a single point of contact at the school who “owns” the Ignite Reading partnership and will coordinate the school-based components of programming, including identifying an ideal time and location for tutoring, support with data sharing, and the creation of systems to ensure programming runs with precision. Any adult at the school can be this point of contact — some schools have named assistant principals, whereas others have chosen a literacy coach or paraprofessional. In order for the partnership to succeed, the Ignite team must be able to communicate real-time student performance data and that data needs to be leveraged to inform Tier 3 programming at the school.
Some schools choose to enroll entire classes of students in Ignite, whereas other schools select individual students to participate based on previous assessment data. If a school opts to select specific students and the students need to leave their classroom in order to participate (rather than simply moving to the back of a classroom), an adult should be identified to escort students to and from tutoring, as well as to monitor and supervise students while they are working on their computers.
All tutoring is provided by trained and certified Ignite Reading tutors. Each tutor participates in a nine-week Science of Reading Teaching Certification class and practicum to gain the experience and skills necessary to implement the curriculum and support students. Tutors stay with their students until they demonstrate reading mastery and graduate from the program. The Tutors of Ignite
Additionally, Ignite assigns each school a professional literacy specialist who shares student data monthly. These are full-time Ignite Reading employees who have had previous careers as literacy specialists working within schools. Ignite Reading literacy specialists analyze student data and ensure students are progressing at the expected pace. These literacy specialists also meet with school administrators once per month to share student data, such as attendance and progress data. These data show where each student is on the continuum of reading skills and their proficiency levels, as well as any behavioral issues that may need to be addressed to help support student learning. Schools receive comprehensive program reports, including detailed information on students who are showing signs of dyslexia.
The model requires that daily tutoring schedules are created and upheld.
In order to make the program successful, school leaders must commit to clearly communicating the tutoring schedule of all participating students to their teachers and to holding teachers accountable for ensuring students are on time each day for their 15-minute sessions.
The number of participating students often depends on a school’s need and their available funding. Given that all students benefit from Ignite Reading’s structured literacy approach, some schools will have entire classrooms or grade levels participate. Often, schools identify students who are behind in grade level reading and assign them to Ignite.
While scheduling is dependent upon the school, each school will need to provide the logistical and scheduling support to ensure students are logged into their sessions at the appropriate time, whether that’s a full class signing in, a group of students within a classroom signing in, or students leaving to a designated room to meet with their virtual tutor.
Lastly, if students stay in the classroom to receive tutoring while other students are not in the tutoring program, Ignite recommends that schools use the portion of the literacy block where teachers are doing small group work and/or students are doing silent reading to minimize the noise in the room.
Quiet spaces must be identified for virtual tutoring sessions.
The location of tutoring is dependent upon who is enrolled in the tutoring program: either individually selected children or an entire classroom.
If only select students are enrolled in the Ignite! Reading model, they can either:
- Transition to a designated area for tutoring and return after the tutoring session ends.
- Stay in the classroom while receiving tutoring. This can be advantageous because it does not require extra staffing to monitor students during tutoring, there are no transition periods in/out of another room, and the teacher can visibly see the curricula and high-dosage tutoring in real-time.
In both scenarios, schools use a 15-minute portion of their day, usually during the literacy block, for students to meet with their virtual tutors. Thanks to the use of noise-minimizing headphones, students can stay in their classrooms even while each child interacts with their own tutor.
Ignite Reading requires that students have access to appropriate technology that allows them to smoothly engage in virtual tutoring.
Students must have access to a computer, stable internet, and noise-minimizing headphones with a microphone in order to access their virtual tutoring session. Schools should be able to provide these resources to each participating student, though students can share equipment (assuming their tutoring sessions take place at different times). Ignite also offers headphones for school partners to purchase.
Supports Offered
Ignite Reading offers the following supports to help you implement their approach to teaching foundational literacy to K-8 students.
Ignite Reading Program
Cost Associated
Ignite Reading’s one-on-one virtual tutoring with a highly trained reading teacher is targeted to precisely the skills each child needs in order to build word recognition skills. The Ignite model offers:
- Tutors trained in a curriculum grounded in the science of reading
- Differentiated instruction based on up-front diagnostics and routine progress monitoring
- Ignite Reading literacy specialists who provide schools with actionable data for teachers on each student in monthly data meetings
- Support with the planning process for transforming the literacy ecosystem to accommodate 15-minute daily virtual tutoring.
Reach
Impact
Students participating in Ignite Reading make significant reading progress.
- During the 2022–2023 school year, students program wide made 2.4 weeks of reading progress per week of instruction with no achievement gaps across demographics. Multilingual learners, students with IEPs, students on the free and reduced-price lunch program, and students of different ethnicities all achieved the same outstanding results. Ignite Reading Results Literacy Coach Shares Student Reading Growth
- An American Institutes for Research (AIR) study of 353 K-3rd graders across six Massachusetts school districts showed that Ignite Reading students who scored at or above benchmark on the DIBELS composite increased from 11% to 45% in just 14 weeks of tutoring. Massachusetts Early Literacy Tutoring Study
Ignite Reading school partners are satisfied with programming.
- The combination of program effectiveness, ease of implementation, and Ignite’s ability to regularly share data with schools on student progress earned Ignite Reading a Net Promoter Score of 64 from educators and school leaders in the schools they worked with during the 2021-2022 school year pilots.
“Ignite is one of, if not the most, successful interventions we have implemented in our district! The student results and program design are indisputable; so intentional that it didn’t take long for our educators to place great value on this investment and partnership in supporting the work to guarantee every student is a reader.” – Claudia Salvestrin, Assistant Superintendent, Red Bluff Union Elementary School District
“The kids are only gone from their room for 20 minutes. What other intervention can you allocate that little time to and actually see this amount of growth? Teachers are seeing the success and now they are asking ‘Well how many more can we send?’” – Principal, AC Houghton Elementary School, Oregon