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Category: Project

Description: Reading Partners offers one-on-one tutoring to thousands of students in grades K-4 across the country. Reading Partners offers tutoring via in-person instruction at school-based reading centers (RPT) and online through the Reading Partners Connects (RPCx) program. Both in-person and online instruction are delivered by trained volunteer tutors and utilize Reading Partners’ evidence-based curriculum. Prior rigorous research has shown that Reading Partners’ traditional in-person program is an effective literacy intervention (Jacob et al, 2016; Reichardt et al., 2017). This study will test the effectiveness of both the Reading Partners’ traditional and online programs. We will conduct a three-arm, within-school randomized control trial, in which individual students are randomly assigned within schools to one of three groups: 1) Reading Partners traditional (RPT) in-person tutoring program, 2) Reading Partners Connects (RPCx) online tutoring program, or 3) a business-as-usual control group. The design will allow for: 1) a replication test of RPT effectiveness, 2) a test of the effectiveness of the RPCx tutoring model and 3) longer-term follow-up on the effects of RP tutoring, which has not been possible in the past. The study will take place across two cohorts and both cohorts will be assessed on literacy skills at the end of the intervention year and again at the end of the following year to assess the longer-run impacts of the program.