OnYourMark Education Reveals Groundbreaking RCT Findings in Collaboration with NSSA and Uplift Education
Industry: Education
OnYourMark Education boosts early literacy through virtual reading tutoring.
Dallas, TX (PRUnderground) November 7th, 2023
In a significant study involving 1,000 K-2 students in Texas, OnYourMark Education, in partnership with The National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) and Uplift Education, presents compelling evidence of the positive impact of virtual high-impact reading tutoring on early literacy. During the 2022-2023 school year, students engaged in one-on-one virtual reading tutoring sessions, resulting in substantial academic gains. Kindergartners made significant progress, gaining 24 extra days in letter sounds, while first graders improved by 51 additional days in decoding.
OnYourMark is a virtual early literacy tutoring program connecting tutors nationwide with K-2 students in their classrooms, providing foundational skills support to complement their school’s Tier 1 instruction. NSSA conducted a rigorous Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) Evaluation study of OnYourMark tutoring in partnership with Uplift Education, the largest network of public charter schools in North Texas. Key results include:
* Students receiving OnYourMark tutoring exhibited notable improvements in end-of-year early literacy assessments.
* Students with lower initial reading scores benefited significantly from tutoring.
* Younger students, particularly first graders and kindergartners, gained the most from the program.
Susanna Loeb, Founder and Executive Director of The National Student Support Accelerator, emphasizes the importance of personalized instruction, stating, “The results of this study are exciting because they show that one-on-one virtual tutoring can meaningfully benefit young readers.”
Despite stagnant reading rates over the past 30 years, OnYourMark offers a scalable and supportive solution to the reading crisis. The program can assist schools in addressing critical staffing shortages, especially in the context of remote learning.
Yasmin Bhatia, Uplift Education CEO, highlights the program’s significance: “Partnering with OnYourMark to provide virtual early literacy tutoring has been a critical part of ensuring our students access resources like private tutoring. We view it as such a high priority that we made it part of the school day to ensure our students receive one-on-one support and instruction in communities where those resources aren’t readily available.”
NSSA Research Brief Summary:
This study marks the first randomized controlled trial of a virtual early literacy tutoring program. OnYourMark Education provided tutoring grounded in the science of reading, focusing on foundational literacy skills such as phonics, phonological awareness, and reading fluency. During the 2022-2023 school year, OnYourMark partnered with 12 schools in a sizeable charter-management organization in the southern United States, offering virtual tutoring sessions four times per week for 20 minutes each from September through May. Results indicate that students assigned to OnYourMark tutoring scored approximately 0.08 standard deviations higher on end-of-year early literacy tests than students in the control group, with lower-performing students (0.18 SD) and first graders (0.19 SD) assigned to one-on-one tutoring benefiting the most.
Mindy Sjoblom, Founder and CEO of OnYourMark reflects on the study’s significance: “The results of this study are incredibly affirming that we can think outside the box regarding how we’ve traditionally taught students to read. OnYourMark tutors can help. We have much to learn from this study and our school partners and are eager to grow our impact accordingly.”
OnYourMark is expanding its high-impact tutoring services to K-2 students across the country. The program aims to add 800 students this school year and grow to serve an additional 20,000 students in the next three years.
To learn more, visit https://onyourmarkeducation.org.
About OnYourMark Education
OnYourMark Education is an individualized, high-impact virtual tutoring service that ensures all students have access to high-quality foundational skills instruction and become thriving readers.
