Grade Levels	Group Size	Tutor Type	Qualifying Studies	Effect Size
1-5	1:1	Certified Teachers	1	+0.11  Reading Comprehension Effect

Curriculum

OpenLiteracy’s Reading Curriculum is grounded in the Science of Reading and strong research-aligned practices from start to finish. It is designed to meet all learners where they are and help them progress to be strong, lifelong readers. There are five main pathways a student may land in during their time with OpenLiteracy, as pictured above. Emerging readers may start with a focus on phonemic awareness, letters, and early blending in either the Roots or On Ramp lessons. Beginner readers will progress through phonics skills in the Foundations lessons. Intermediate readers will solidify their skills in Foundations Mastery lessons. Advanced readers will focus on developing their literacy skills by reading and discussing authentic nonfiction texts in Nonfiction Navigators lessons.

OpenLiteracy’s instructional materials, including the lessons, slides, and activities, are all internally developed in-house rather than licensed from an outside curriculum. Our core Beginning Reading sequence, Foundations, follows the same scope and sequence as UFLI for phonics instruction, so our scope and sequence are tightly aligned with the Science of Reading and literacy research.

For students with learning differences, our curriculum includes extensive design features and supplemental materials that make lessons more accessible for all learners, including embedded visual supports, scaffolded language routines, and differentiated practice activities tailored to students with disabilities and English Learners.

Assessments

Diagnostic: At intake, students take a curriculum-aligned phonics skill survey covering all 13 skill buckets in OpenLiteracy’s Foundations scope and sequence, which places them into a curriculum pathway; progress is then tracked skill-by-skill in real time on dashboards.

Formative Assessments: At the lesson level, students complete an exit ticket at the end of each tutoring session by reading words containing the target skill, and previously taught patterns. This immediate formative assessment gauges understanding and performance, informing the selection of the next appropriate lesson tailored to each student’s needs. Exit ticket data is tracked on individualized learning plans and shared via data dashboards accessible to all school team members.

At the end of each skills sequence, the phonics skills survey is administered to assess skill mastery. This data is also shared in data dashboards to inform school level MTSS, RTI, and COST team decisions

Summative Assessment: A final assessment is administered at the end of the tutoring cycle (typically the end of the school year) to determine student growth.  

Program Operation

Tutoring lessons: Lessons are planned by a learning specialist team, using data from an initial phonics skills survey, lesson exit tickets, and ongoing benchmark data. The team monitors  individual learning and make necessary adjustments to ensure each student receives personalized support.

Attendance data: Data are captured with minute-by-minute detail, including records of when students and tutors log in and log out of each session. This granular attendance tracking enables precise dosage analysis and supports identification of engagement barriers.

Professional Development, Progress Monitoring, and Follow-up

OpenLiteracy tutors are certified teachers who complete approximately 15 hours of synchronous and asynchronous learning modules. After completing training, all tutors must complete a certification teaching session where a learning specialist team observes the tutor teach a lesson to a student to ensure that instruction meets OpenLiteracy’s rigorous instructional standards. There are also tutor ambassadors (senior tutors with a track record of strong outcomes) who are available to meet with new tutors prior to the certification lesson. Each tutor is observed a minimum of twice annually, allowing for consistent feedback and support. These observations are conducted using a detailed coaching framework designed to highlight strengths and identify areas for growth.

Progress Monitoring and Follow Up: Schools receive a Friday summary report and have access to a live dashboard disaggregated by grade and student, accessible to tutors and classroom teachers that shares attendance, progress, and serves as a tool for coordinating Tier 1 and tutoring instruction. Quarterly data deep-dives bring OpenLiteracy school liaisons, Learning Specialists, and school staff together to analyze growth, identify barriers, and adjust rosters, and to show how intervention data can inform Tier 1 classroom instruction.

Family Communication: Families receive an initial report of student’s literacy development when tutoring starts and ongoing progress reports. They may also be granted access to their student’s learning plans so that they can have firsthand knowledge of everything that is happening in tutoring.

Cost

$2500 per seat per school year; $28 per session

Research on Program Outcomes

The impact of OpenLiteracy was examined in a randomized controlled trial conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education in the Oakland Unified School District, a large urban district in California, during the 2025–26 school year. The study randomly assigned 903 students in grades 1–5 who were reading below grade level — 58% Hispanic, 61% English learners, 17% Black, and 13% receiving special education services — either to be offered OpenLiteracy’s one-to-one virtual tutoring, delivered in 30-minute sessions three times per week across roughly 24 weeks, or to a control group that received the district’s Tier 2 small-group reading support, a demanding comparison condition. After one year, tutored students significantly outperformed the control group on iReady Reading Comprehension (effect size = +0.11), with positive but not statistically significant effects on most other reading measures (average effect size = +0.07.). Business as usual for the control group students included small group tutoring. Gains were largest for students who began the year two grade levels below — the study’s clearest beneficiary group — and effects were similar across grade levels and across racial, language, and gender groups. Students who received the most tutoring benefited the most: those attending at least 85% of scheduled sessions and those in the top third of tutoring hours showed the largest gains, consistent with a dose-response relationship.

---

Key Studies

• Wang, X., Neitzel, A. J., & Storey, N. (2026). A Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluation of the OpenLiteracy Tutoring Intervention within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports. Center for Research and Reform in Education, The Johns Hopkins University.