School Administrator

During the two years that COVID-19 has upended school for millions of families, education leaders have increasingly touted one tool as a means of compensating for lost learning: personalized tutors. As a growing number of state and federal authorities pledge to make high-quality tutoring available to struggling students, a new study demonstrates positive, if modest, results from an experimental pilot that launched last spring. 

Research shows that tutoring, particularly high dosage tutoring where students receive multiple 30- to 60-minute sessions per week, is effective in helping students who have fallen behind, according to a report from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

When considering how schools can best support middle and high schoolers struggling with either the foundational skills of reading or reading comprehension, experts point to a research-backed strategy that can help close academic gaps: high-impact tutoring.

The term refers to an intensive form of tutoring that is offered through a school, is informed by data on individual students’ needs, aligns to classroom work, and can be effective in getting students to grade level faster. Yet few districts have been able to implement that kind of programming prior to the pandemic because of such challenges as cost and staff shortages. New federal relief funds are helping more districts explore the possibility.

Consider Saga Education, the high-dosage math tutoring program we founded and lead. About 30 percent of our tutoring fellows – recent college graduates and seasoned professionals alike – have used their work with us as springboards to jobs in the classroom. Most arrive with no training or experience in education, only an aptitude for algebra and an eagerness to support students. After being embedded in a school for a year or more, many discover a passion for teaching they never knew they had.

Studies are few and mixed about the effectiveness of online versus in-person tutoring, but “many districts are struggling to recruit a sufficient number of tutors locally – especially those districts in rural areas or those that are focusing on higher-level or more technical courses such as calculus. While in-person tutoring may be preferred, for some locations and courses virtual is the best option,” Susanna Loeb, director of the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and education professor, tells SmartBrief.