I'm pleased to share our second full-year research report from the 2023-24 school year. This study looks at beginning-of-year to end-of-year results from three schools that used i-Ready as their benchmark assessment.

The study shows that kindergarteners using Once at these three schools (168 students) achieved a median percentile rank at the end of this school year that was 29 points higher than it was at the beginning of the year.

At the beginning of the year, the students' median rank nationally was at the 38th percentile (i.e., they scored worse than 62% of the nation’s kindergarteners), but, by the end of the year, their median rank was at the 67th percentile (i.e., better than all but 33% of the nation’s kindergarteners).  If these students had made a year’s worth of growth (which is sadly not the norm for so many American students), their percentile rank would have remained at the 38th percentile.  Instead, these students accelerated well past their national peer group. I’m blown away by the size of this effect!

One important piece of context is that the three schools all delivered Once to all of their kindergarten students. Since Once is a one-to-one tutoring intervention, many folks assume that it is a remedial Tier-2 or Tier-3 intervention. Some schools use Once that way. But Once was actually designed to be delivered as a Tier-1 intervention to give all K students a foundation in reading that will change their academic trajectory for the rest of their education. We want them to enter 1st grade reading books they choose from the library, reading off the board and reading worksheets. Without Once, many students do not enter 1st grade with those skills, and, sadly, many will never acquire those skills no matter how many years of schooling they receive. We want to change that trajectory—in kindergarten.

Of course, we at Once won’t be satisfied until we see stellar, controlled, longitudinal results with a larger number of students.  But we’re so encouraged by a single-year effect of this magnitude, and we hope that you’ll join us in congratulating the districts, the schools, the instructors, their Once coaches, and—most of all—the students!  Great work, everyone!

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