Kids First Education delivers high-dosage, research-based tutoring designed to accelerate student achievement, close learning gaps, and align seamlessly with school instruction. Serving districts across the Southeast, our program is built around small-group (1:4) or one-on-one sessions, conducted at least three times per week for 30–60 minutes, and embedded within the school day. This ensures instruction supports core classroom learning rather than functioning as an isolated add-on.
Key Features and Instructional Approach
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EmpowerK12 provided the research to prove evidence of success including data on specific schools as case studies to help others learn and garner additional support. Importantly, their data and analysis was used in the Stanford study on attendance. The D.C. Policy Center highlighted early stages of implementation with a system-level landscape of high-impact tutoring and a publication sharing early community learning and experiences. When PAVE realized that many parents weren’t aware of HIT offerings, they helped providers and schools think critically about how to communicate with families to ensure they understand what’s available, how to access it, and have the tools and knowledge to help their children extend learning beyond the classroom and tutoring sessions.
As education researchers, we hear directly from district leaders about the realities they and their teams face every day. Leading a school district means weighing competing priorities and managing resources, while finding space for new ideas that promise to strengthen teaching and learning.
Each of these efforts has value and reflects a commitment to improvement. Yet amid the churn of initiatives, it’s worth remembering the strategies that have been proven to work time and again.
Tutoring is one of those strategies. Far from a passing trend that fades after a year, high-impact tutoring is a unicorn in the oft-changing tides of education reform: it is both a centuries-old, pedagogically sound and educator-approved way to teach children, and it’s an approach proven by hundreds of rigorous studies over decades.
Brainfuse has been awarded the Tutoring Program Design Badge by Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) in recognition of their alignment with evidence-based Tutoring Quality Standards. This three-year designation signals that Brainfuse’s tutoring program meets nationally recognized criteria for strong design in high-impact tutoring.
The Badge is awarded only after a rigorous review process led by education researchers and practitioners. Brainfuse received “Fully Aligned” ratings in key areas, including tutor qualifications, data use, curriculum quality, instructional dosage, equity alignment, and program cohesion.
Azura Literacy is a free, virtual, high-impact tutoring program for elementary students in which a caring, vetted, trained adult meets with a child through Zoom one-on-one twice a week to tutor them in reading. Students are given pre- and post-assessments to determine needs and measure growth, and tutors use digital children’s libraries and interactive activities to guide students in engaging, individualized reading practice. This helps them improve their reading skills, confidence, and motivation and make gains toward reading proficiently.
While various stakeholders are celebrating the settlement’s outcome, there is still work to be done to ensure students receive adequate academic support.
When done properly, high-impact tutoring is one of the most researched and effective learning interventions, according to Kathy Bendheim, the strategic advising director for the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s National Student Support Accelerator. And there is research indicating that it can help boost attendance.
“It will go a really long way to helping those students who fell behind during Covid,” Bendheim said. “But even before Covid, not all students were on grade level, far from it. And so, we believe that this type of tutoring should be incorporated into schools for the long run … for the students who need it.”
Study Smart Tutors implements a High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) program designed to accelerate student learning and enhance academic outcomes through supplemental instruction of specific standards-based skills and concepts across all grade levels. The program offers personalized, intensive tutoring in small groups or one-on-one settings.
Catapult Learning, a division of FullBloom that provides academic intervention programs for students and professional development solutions for teachers in K-12 schools, today announced it earned the Tutoring Program Design Badge from the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) at Stanford University. The designation, valid for three years, recognizes tutoring providers that demonstrate high-quality, research-aligned program design.
The recognition comes at a time when the need for high-impact tutoring (HIT) has never been greater. As schools nationwide work to close learning gaps that widened during the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate recovery, Catapult Learning stands out for its nearly 50-year legacy of delivering effective academic support to students who need it most.
ACLC Tutoring provides virtual tutorial services in math and other subject areas to students in grades K-12. The program uses research-based, data-driven instructional tools, primarily the IXL online platform, to deliver individualized and small group instruction. Services include Science of Reading methodology for literacy, systematic phonics instruction, and Orton-Gillingham-based approaches. The program emphasizes consistent tutor assignment, comprehensive assessment, and strong relationships with all stakeholders in a student's educational ecosystem.
1:1 intervention supports are provided to students at least twice a week with one hour sessions each time. Services can be provided in person or online. Materials are rooted in structured literacy and the Orton-Gillingham approach.
We offer summer camps that combine learning with one-on-one and small-group tutoring for all students in need, serving grades K–12 as well as SPED. In addition, we support high school and college education projects, such as book writing or SAT web design, by providing financial assistance and team support. Alongside these initiatives, we continue to run our own educational programs within the cities where we are located.
Your Teacher Tutors (YTT) provides high-impact, virtual and in-person tutoring services designed to accelerate student achievement through personalized, standards-aligned instruction. Our program matches students with certified educators who deliver 1:1 and small group tutoring in reading, math, and test preparation.
Upon deeper review, however, these findings leave room for optimism. First, researchers found that lower-cost virtual tutoring models — approximately $1,200/student — were just as impactful as in-person models at $2,000/student, suggesting that tutoring can be less expensive without sacrificing impact.
Second, these findings highlight what's possible when students receivetutoring that comes closer to the definition of "high-impact." For example, the effect of tutoring was largest — about 3.5 months of learning — in a New Mexico district where students received more than 2,000 minutes of tutoring per year. Across all districts in the study, this amount most closely aligned with the recommendations for implementing a high-impact model.
A new collaboration between Stanford’s SCALE and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, strives to better understand how students and teachers use the popular AI platform and how it impacts learning
Education is one of the fastest-growing use cases of AI products. Students log on for writing assistance, brainstorming, image creation, and more. Teachers tap into tools like attendance trackers, get curriculum support to design learning materials, and much more.
Yet despite the rapid growth – and potential – a substantial gap remains in knowledge about the efficacy of these tools to support learning.
A new research project from the Generative AI for Education Hub at SCALE, an initiative of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, aims to help fill that gap by studying how ChatGPT is used in K-12 education. In particular, the research will examine how secondary level teachers and students use ChatGPT.
In this study, we analyze the contracts between districts and vendors of instructional services and products to understand how relationships between these parties are structured. We compare three types of contracts: those developed with the support of SEF’s Outcomes-Based Contracting (OBC) Cohort program, those between the same districts and other vendors without SEF support, and those involving the same vendors but with other districts that did not receive SEF assistance. During the cohort experience, participating districts received guidance from SEF’s Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting. The total cost of hosting each district in the cohort was $30,000, of which districts contributed $15,000, with the remaining expenses covered by SEF through philanthropic funding. We use the emerging OBC framework as a baseline to understand the extent to which traditional district–vendor contracts already incorporate elements of the OBC approach and other information pertinent to vendor quality and alignment.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Hudson said, which is why the 43,500-student district has zeroed in on providing high-impact tutoring.
Joined by Stanford University’s Nancy Waymack, Soto and Hudson shared what Portland has learned from its efforts during a July 12 session at UNITED, the National Conference on School Leadership.
High-impact tutoring is a data-driven service that is embedded into the school day and uses consistent, well-supported tutors, said Waymack, director of research, partnerships and policy for Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator. The tutors use high-quality instructional materials and hold sessions at least three times a week in small groups of no more than four students, she said.
Chapter One provides a high-impact tutoring model that builds early literacy foundational skills using a systematic and explicit phonics model. It is directly aligned to the Science of Reading and Common Core reading standards as the curriculum and instruction focuses on phonics, phonemic awareness, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. Our research-based solution has been tested through 2 RCTs that have qualified our program for an ESSA Tier 1 rating.
UI's high-impact tutoring program follows an evidence-based model designed to boost K-12 students' academic achievement in core content areas. UI instructors work with assigned small groups of students to advance equitable learning recovery. The most significant impact in this model is found when UI instructors are embedded into the school schedule to deliver instruction to groups of three students (or less) for at least 30 minutes per session 3-5 times a week. The consistent relationship between students and instructors is critical to building trust and elevating learning.
At-Home Tutoring Services® (A-HTS®) delivers scalable, flexible, and high-impact tutoring for K-12 students through a hybrid model that combines human-centered instruction with technology-driven insights. Serving both private families and district partners, our approach is built around individualized support, curated tutor-student matching, multilingual access, and a steadfast commitment to student growth and equity.
PEAK Literacy helps students struggling with reading quickly catch up to their peers. We leverage technology, supportive feedback, and encouragement from a personal reading coach to empower kids to succeed. Most of our students see more than a year of reading growth in just the first three months!
This study provides compelling evidence that tutoring can do more than boost test scores; it can actually get students back in the classroom. On average, students were 1.2 percentage points less likely to be absent on days when they were scheduled to receive tutoring, suggesting that they are motivated to participate in tutoring. This impact was even greater for middle schoolers and students who’d missed more than 30% of school days the prior year. The study also found that the design matters: tutoring only improved attendance when it combined at least two evidence-based features like small groups, frequent sessions, and in-school delivery.
Tutor Doctor Northwest Carlsbad offers both in-person and virtual tutoring options to ensure accessibility for everyone. We specialize in academic tutoring, test preparation, and Executive Functioning Coaching. Our academic tutoring covers core subjects like reading, math, writing, and science, with personalized lessons tailored to each student's individual needs. Our expert test prep services focus on standardized exams such as the SAT, ACT,GRE and ASVAB. We incorporate proven test-taking strategies and create customized study plans to help students succeed.
Wise is a all-in-one platform that helps you host, manage, and scale your business effortlessly. Automate scheduling with 2-way sync, simplify invoicing, generate student reports for parents, and streamline tutor management. Your tutors will love its features too, like automated attendance, real-time learner engagement metrics, AI polls and quizzes, and gamified sessions—all designed to create an exceptional learning experience.
Learn It's tutoring programs are implemented within public, private, and charter schools for pre-K to grade 12 students both onsite and virtually. Our research-based academic program is individualized and differentiated for each student based on their academic proficiency and challenges, which we continually monitor and report on based on all key performance metrics. We also provide a variety of academic and enrichment programs, as well as parent engagement workshops and comprehensive professional development offerings for teachers and administrators.
LearnUp is a multidisciplinary structured literacy program that integrates the best practices of the leading reading programs on the market (Orton-Gillingham, Linda Mood-Bell, Slingerland, Alphabetic Phonics, Reading Recovery, Whole Language, oral language development etc.) and combines them with the latest brain research and National Reading Panel recommendations to create a superior, systematic program that accelerates reading acquisition. As a blended approach to Structured Literacy, LearnUp is not beholden to one approach or methodology. We use, and do, what works.
We recruit high school tutors to help us provide free online tutoring. Helping our students 1-3 times a week, with a 1:1 tutor ratio.
The Math-A-Matics Tutoring program is delivered through flexible service models to meet diverse student needs.
Modality Offerings:
• One-to-one & Small group tutoring with 2 to 5 students for collaborative learning; typically maintaining a 1:4 tutor-to-student ratio
• In-person tutoring with hands-on manipulatives and direct interaction
• Virtual synchronous tutoring through our secure online platform
• Hybrid options combining in-person and virtual approaches
Service Delivery:
• Push-in support during core instruction in regular classrooms
Individualized one-on-one tutoring in all corr subjects up to grade 8. Language arts and writing instruction/coaching for all ages.
Catapult Learning’s High-Dosage Tutoring (HDT) Program is a proven, student-centered intervention designed to accelerate academic growth and close achievement gaps in literacy and math. With nearly 50 years of experience in supplemental education and intervention services, Catapult now serves nearly 100,000 students annually through its HDT and intervention programs nationwide.