This section outlines the essential components of developing a high-impact tutoring program and focuses on aligning to district strategy, setting data-driven goals, and selecting a tutoring approach. These are foundational elements for designing a high-impact tutoring program before moving to program development and implementation stages.
The content is organized into three components:
- 2.1 Aligning to District Strategy: This section has content regarding focus area, district strategy, and early leadership engagement to help you determine how high-impact tutoring fits with your district’s needs.
- 2.2 Setting Data-Driven Goals: This section provides assistance with insight into the local context and the creation of clear, measurable academic goals to develop a framework that demonstrates progress and success to stakeholders.
- 2.3 Selecting a Tutoring Approach: This section gives you tips and tools related to expert guidance and the tutoring approach selection to think through and identify the tutoring model that best aligns with your district’s needs.
Research Insights
Research provides the following guidance to create effective tutoring programs:
2.1 Aligning to District Strategy
Focus Area
- Intensive tutoring can be effective across grade levels and subject matter—even for high school students who have fallen far behind.
- At the elementary level, substantial research has examined the effectiveness of high-impact tutoring in supporting students' reading and math development. Reading-focused tutoring interventions for kindergarten and first graders provide more than four months of additional learning in elementary literacy on average.
- At the middle and high school levels, there is more evidence of advancing math proficiency compared to reading outcomes.
- Student Prioritization: Three main models for prioritizing students for tutoring are needs-driven, curriculum-driven, and universal. Decisions about which students to target should vary depending on the needs of the students, schools, and communities.
District Strategy
- Tutoring is most effective when it is integrated into a broader strategy addressing district priorities, positioned as core to each school’s instructional model rather than as a disconnected and optional add-on. Tutoring program design influences students’ access to and experience in tutoring sessions, particularly in regards to student selection processes, schedule and setting, and curricular materials.
Early Leadership Engagement
- Tutoring implementation is most successful when there is support from knowledgeable district staff partnered with school leaders and investment in paid administrative staff who consistently work to coordinate time, space, and people.
- Relationships between school districts, higher education institutions, nonprofit, and for-profit tutoring providers are key to the program launch.
2.2 Setting Data-Driven Goals
- Successful programs integrate data use and ongoing informal assessments to track progress, refine practices, and allocate resources. They are also able to provide information to tutors about student understanding and where to focus instruction to support each student’s learning.
2.3 Selecting a Tutoring Approach
- Tutoring implementation can occur through building your own program, hiring an outside provider, or a combination of the two. Different barriers can occur for each, such as staffing, training, access to data, and scheduling. Districts and schools can approach these barriers in various ways to identify solutions that work in their contexts.
- Not all tutoring programs are effective, so educational leaders should turn to research for direction on evidence-based ways to design and implement their programs for maximum effectiveness.
AI Trends in High-Impact Tutoring
- Early research demonstrates that AI-driven support can enhance human tutoring, particularly benefiting less-experienced tutors and improving student math outcomes. As a cost-effective, scalable approach, AI-assisted education has the potential to reinforce human-led efforts to elevate tutoring quality and accessibility.
Read the Full Research
Fryer, R. G., Jr. (2016). Information and incentives in education (Handbook of the Economics of Education). Retrieved from https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/handbook_fryer_03.25.2016.pdf
Fuchs, L. S., Seethaler, P. M., Powell, S. R., Fuchs, D., Hamlett, C. L., & Fletcher, J. M. (2008). Effects of preventative tutoring on the mathematical problem solving of third-grade students with math and reading difficulties. Exceptional Children, 74(2), 155–173. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290807400202
National Student Support Accelerator. (n.d.). Tutor CoPilot one-pager. Student Support Accelerator. Retrieved from https://studentsupportaccelerator.org/sites/default/files/Tutor_CoPilot_OnePager_0.pdf
Robinson, Carly D., Biraj Bisht, and Susanna Loeb. (2022). The inequity of opt-in educational resources and an intervention to increase equitable access. (EdWorkingPaper: 22 -654). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/ja2n-ys82
Robinson, C. D., Kraft, M. A., Loeb, S., & Schueler, B. (2024). Design principles for accelerating student learning with high-impact tutoring (EdResearch for Action Brief No. 30). Annenberg Institute at Brown University. https://studentsupportaccelerator.org/sites/default/files/EdResearch%20Accelerating%20Student%20Learning%20With%20High-Impact%20Tutoring.pdf
University of Chicago Education Lab. (2023). Not too late: [Subtitle if applicable]. https://educationlab.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/10/UChicago-Education-Lab-Not-Too-Late-Paper_03.23.pdf
White, S., Groom-Thomas, L., & Loeb, S. (2022). Learnings from existing research on tutoring implementation: Implications for district leaders & policymakers. National Student Support Accelerator. https://studentsupportaccelerator.org/sites/default/files/Tutoring%20Implementation%20Synthesis%20Brief.pdf
White, S., Groom-Thomas, L., & Loeb, S. (2023). A systematic review of research on tutoring implementation: Considerations when undertaking complex instructional supports for students (EdWorkingPaper No. 22-652). Annenberg Institute at Brown University. https://doi.org/10.26300/wztf-wj14
Tutoring Quality Standards
High-quality tutoring programs align with key standards that support effective implementation and student success. Learn more about the research and application of the tutoring quality standards relevant to this section: