Virtual tutoring can help students, if it follows high-dosage criteria
High-dosage tutoring programs have expanded significantly, with nearly 40 percent of schools now using individual and small-group tutoring with trained teachers or tutors four or five days a week. This approach has been shown to boost student learning, but it can also be expensive. A new study by the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University suggests virtual tutoring could be a less-costly option, if it remains as intensive and rigorous as in-person tutoring.
Researchers tracked the reading growth of about 2,000 K-2 students in a dozen Texas charter schools, half of whom participated in intensive remote tutoring for part of the school day, in small-group video chats. Students who received supplemental lessons in phonics and decoding for 20 minutes a day, four times a week, via the remote tutoring performed significantly better on two early-reading tests by the end of the year.