By Nathan Storey, Johns Hopkins University
Recent NAEP (National Center for Education Statistics) results illustrating disappointing reading proficiency levels in United States schools, and particularly amongst diverse and economically-challenged school districts, push practitioners and researchers to continue efforts to identify effective models for supporting struggling students. A recent evaluation of the Tutoring with the Lightning Squad (Lightning Squad) reading tutoring program highlights the strong impact of small-group tutoring by non-certified tutors.
Lightning Squad is a tutoring model developed by Success for All Foundation, employing college graduates without teacher certification, who are trained to work with small groups of students to create partnerships, facilitate engagement, and monitor and celebrate progress. Students engage in a structured cooperative learning program, working in pairs for 30 minutes each school day. The game-like software requires students to alternate roles as reader and peer coach to facilitate each other’s reading growth.
Lightning Squad was evaluated during the 2021-2022 school year with 23 elementary schools from a diverse southern California school district randomized into either small group or one-to-one tutoring interventions. In each school, 40 students were identified due to low performance. In the small group condition (12 schools), all students were assigned to be tutored in small groups. In the one-to-one condition (11 schools), the 10 students scoring lowest prior to assignment were assigned to be tutored. The remaining 30 students in the one-to-one schools served as a control group.
After implementation between October 2021 and April 2022, Lightning Squad showed a substantial and significant impact on the Woodcock Word Attack measure (ES = +0.18) for all Grade 2 and 3 students, but no significant impact was found on other measures of word and letter identification, passage comprehension. When narrowing the focus to examine students who received what was thought to be an adequate amount of tutoring (approximately 60 sessions), third graders demonstrated substantial effects (ES = +0.27) on the NWEA MAP test, as well as meaningful (but not statistically significant) increases on the Woodcock Passage Comprehension (ES = +0.17) and Word Attack (ES = +0.17) measures. It is important to note the likely impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on implementation of this study, as frequent prolonged student absences, tutor absences, and school schedule changes infringed on the opportunities for students to consistently and sufficiently receive tutoring support throughout the 2021-2022 school year. Other researchers have found typical effects sizes reduced by half or more in studies conducted during this period.
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