This fall, as Kristin Farley鈥檚 preservice teachers started tutoring at a local school district, the first few weeks were consumed by logistics, especially scheduling: which tutors would be showing up to which classrooms to take which students when.
鈥淚t was a lot of putting out those small fires,鈥� said Farley, an assistant professor of early childhood education at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
Soon, the district and the university settled into a schedule that worked. But it wasn鈥檛 until this semester that they implemented the change that made the biggest difference.
Tutors started creating plans for the week ahead: an outline of what they would cover with students, targeted to each child鈥檚 specific needs and shared in advance with their classroom teacher. 鈥淚t鈥檚 already so much smoother,鈥� Farley said.
It鈥檚 also best practice. Experts say that purposefully aligning tutoring to curriculum content鈥攍ike Wittenberg professors are now trying to do鈥攈elps kids get the support they need to be successful in class.
The goal is to give kids another 鈥渁t bat鈥� with the content they didn鈥檛 understand, said Shalinee Sharma, the CEO and co-founder of Zearn, a nonprofit math learning platform that has contracted with Tennessee to support that state鈥檚 tutoring program.
The approach is a key component of programs that studies have found move the needle on student progress. Even so, accomplishing this kind of alignment is complex and time consuming. And it can fall low on the priority list for districts that are struggling with more basic challenges, like hiring staff or retooling the master schedule to support tutoring.
Not all tutoring is alike
Tutoring has become one of the most common strategies schools are using to support students鈥� academic recovery from pandemic-related disruptions. States have invested more than $700 million of state ESSER funds to expand programming, according to by the Council of Chief State School Officers. Districts are investing many of their own ESSER funds into the practice as well.
But not all tutoring programs are alike. The high-impact variety鈥攊n which students see a tutor one on one or in small groups at least three times a week鈥攇enerally have some mechanism to match up tutoring to classroom instruction, said Susanna Loeb, a professor of education at Stanford University and the founder and executive director of the National Student Support Accelerator.
Only one in 10 students actually get this kind of tutoring, though, according to recent federal data.
And much of schools鈥� energy right now is focused on program logistics鈥攅ven though most district leaders understand that aligning tutoring to classroom instruction should be their ultimate goal, Loeb said. In fact, one study looking at a dozen districts found that those districts aimed to provide up to 60 hours of tutoring per year, but only supplied 12 to 14.
鈥淛ust getting the programs started takes a lot of effort,鈥� she added.
鈥楩ront-loading鈥� concepts through tutoring
Still, some districts have made instructional coherence a priority from the start.
In Lenoir City Schools in Tennessee, tutors follow a content schedule that dovetails with the curriculum in English/language arts and math.
Instructional coaches, one in math and one in reading, coordinate with teachers and tutors throughout the semester. 鈥淪ince we are a small district, we know the scope and sequence of what鈥檚 happening in the classroom,鈥� said Cherie Long, the K-12 math and science instructional coach. Lenoir only has three campuses鈥攁n elementary, middle, and high school.
The district is one of 87 in TN All Corps, a state tutoring model and funding program that offers school systems matching grants of up to $700 per seat offered for tutoring. Part of the Tennessee approach is a method that鈥檚 come to be known as acceleration.
I do think that as districts have success in tutoring, and see student learning ... then they鈥檒l start to think more about how they embed it, and link it more deeply to the rest of the work they鈥檙e doing in schools.
The goal is for all students to be learning grade-level content. If children have gaps in their knowledge from previous grades, those are addressed in the context of grade-level work鈥攔ather than going back to reteach entire past units. (Read more about acceleration here.) It鈥檚 an alternative to remedial classes, which can trap students who are already behind on a lower track, while their peers continue to move forward to higher level material.
In Lenoir, this means 鈥渇ront-loading,鈥� Long said. For example, 3rd graders are about to start a geometry unit. That means that tutors will soon begin reviewing with students what they have already learned about two-dimensional shapes, and previewing new concepts. That will ideally set kids up for success in the whole-class geometry lessons, Long said.
Long walks tutors through new content and helps them plan. 鈥淏ecause we鈥檙e included in those decisions and included in those data meetings, we鈥檙e able to see what the kids still need,鈥� said Stacey Cantu, a math tutor in the district.
Long doesn鈥檛 have to develop the tutoring materials herself鈥攖hose come through Zearn, the math platform with which the state has contracted.
The district doesn鈥檛 use an outside provider for reading, though, so the instructional coach in that subject has created resources herself鈥斺�渁 really large lift,鈥� said Shawn Walker, the district鈥檚 student success coordinator. Still, he鈥檚 hopeful that this work put in on the front end will yield dividends in the long run, when future years鈥� tutors can use the plans the reading coach has created.
Building communication and support for tutors
In Lenoir, tutoring content is coordinated at the district level. Tutors use common resources and have similar goals with their lessons鈥攅.g., prepare students for the 3rd grade geometry unit鈥攅ven as they tailor specific support to individual student needs. Not all districts have been able to create these common supports.
But there are other methods programs use to align tutoring to instruction. The preservice students at Wittenberg, in Ohio, use their college instructors as a resource, said Farley.
The college students have some background from their coursework in how to teach concepts that their tutees are struggling with. But often, Farley said, 鈥渇or better or worse, our tutors are learning this content as they go.鈥�
The tutors get information about student needs from the kids鈥� classroom teachers, and then design activities with help from their instructors.
Creating a support system like this can be trickier in programs where tutors don鈥檛 have an education background.
Benjamin Morris, a cybersecurity consultant in California, is a math tutor at a charter school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The organization he volunteers for, EnCorps, recruits STEM professionals as volunteers.
Morris has information about what their tutee is learning in math class, and the district provides them with materials to use. But Morris says he still wants more guidance on how to put those resources into practice.
Sometimes the student he鈥檚 working with is struggling to grasp an idea, and he鈥檚 not exactly sure how to break it down step by step. The biggest challenge, they said, is 鈥渘eeding to simplify constantly and make sure that it鈥檚 at a level that鈥檚 accessible for the students.鈥�
The platform that houses tutoring materials for this Los Angeles school, a nonprofit called ASSISTments, has heard this kind of feedback from tutors. In response, the platform is planning on adding a new feature next year, said Britt Neuhaus, the group鈥檚 vice president of program and partnerships.
The addition will be able to recommend specific practice problems based on students鈥� abilities and areas of need, she said.
Such refinement is likely to continue in districts across the country as school systems move past the initial growing pains of launching tutoring programs, said Loeb.
鈥淚 do think that as districts have success in tutoring, and see student learning鈥攁nd I do believe that鈥檚 starting to happen鈥攖hen they鈥檒l start to think more about how they embed it, and link it more deeply to the rest of the work they鈥檙e doing in schools,鈥� she said.
