Journalist Julian Roberts-Grmela begins his story on Once by noting that “high-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective tools to help students recover from lost learning, including in subjects like reading, where many are far behind.”
Then he asks, “what if schools didn’t wait until students fell behind? What if all kindergartners got a reading tutor from the start?”
His deeply reported story dives into the vision for the Once Early-Reading Program — teaching every kindergarten student to decode fluently so that they can read independently.
Rebecca Kette, an intervention specialist at Orchard STEM School in Cleveland and Once tutor and coordinator, notes that it is a “constant struggle for classroom teachers [to provide] individualized attention for children.”
Patrick Proctor, chair of Boston College’s education department, agrees: “A whole-group phonics program is not designed to meet every student where they are at, but rather is focused at on-average expectations of where students should be.”
We believe one-on-one reading tutoring for every kindergarten student is the surest path to helping children meet and exceed grade-level reading benchmarks. We’re grateful to Julian Roberts-Grmela for exploring those beliefs.