Special to the Record
A virtual-tutor reading program has helped almost 300 Chelsea first graders in their quest to achieve and maintain reading proficiency.
The results of a recent study from Johns Hopkins University that the Chelsea schools took part in bear out the success of the program.
Ignite Reading, a Science of Reading-based early literacy intervention program that has provided more than 62 million minutes of personalized instruction to over 50,000 students nationwide, recently announced the completion of a second study by researchers at the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Education. That study showed 85 percent of first graders who reached proficiency maintained grade-level reading a year later without further intervention.
The findings of the two-year study, conducted across thirteen school districts in Massachusetts, confirmed the program’s ability to accelerate foundational reading skills during the crucial first grade window when students are best able to learn to read. According to the study, first graders reading at or above DIBELS benchmark increased from 6% at the beginning of the year to 48% at the end of the year with foundational reading skills tutoring.
“These findings show that intervening to ensure students are reading on grade level by the end of first grade is highly effective and has promising implications for district planning and policy initiatives focused on improving third-grade reading outcomes,” said Dr. Amanda Neitzel, lead researcher at Johns Hopkins’ University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education “Eighty-five percent of students who reached proficiency maintained it through second grade without further intervention. Taken together, these results demonstrate that accelerating early reading development in first grade through high-dosage, individualized tutoring can lead to both rapid and lasting improvements.”
This is the third year Chelsea has been a part of the Ignite Reading program, and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Almi Abeyta said the results in the classroom bear out what the studies have shown.
“We noticed at the beginning of the year our data for the kids was on grade level for many of them,” said Abeyta. “What we noticed after the first year of implementation is that we had more second graders starting the year reading on grade level.”
Not all first grade students take part in the virtual tutoring program. Abeyta said the district used its data to identify students who were not on grade level were put on the program.
“We had almost 300 first graders on the intervention,” said Abeyta.
The students take part in the program during their literacy block and are learning skills because they are taking part every day.
Initially, Abeyta said there was some hesitancy from staff about the program because it is virtual and the district was coming off of the Covid pandemic and virtual learning.
However, she said the fact that the students have the same tutors every day helps build up excitement and consistency from the students.
“Once the teachers started to see the students’ progress, they realized this is working and it is effective and it’s not like the other programs we have seen,” said Abeyta. “With this model, there is a curriculum that is backed by the science of reading, and the difference with this model is that you have a human as well, and they have that same tutor every single day. When you tell the kids they have Ignite Reading time, they get very excited because they have a relationship with that tutor.”
With Governor Maura Healey including money for high-dosage tutoring in the state budget, Abeyta said she hopes the district can continue with the Ignite Reading program.
The JHU CRRE analysis of 1,596 first-grade students in Year 2 produced virtually identical results to the initial study, effectively moving the program from a ‘promising pilot’ to a proven, evidence-based solution with sustained efficacy and sustained high-impact results that are repeatable year over year, according to a press release from Ignite Reading.