The Effects of In-School Virtual Tutoring on Student Reading Development: Evidence from a Short-Cycle Randomized Controlled Trial

Over the past several years, empirical studies have reported positive impacts of one-to-one and small-group tutoring on student academic development. This literature, however, also points to major implementation challenges, including staffing costs and low student participation rates. This paper describes a 12-week cluster randomized controlled trial that examined the efficacy of a virtual literacy-focused tutoring intervention that sought to address limitations in prior models and implementations by providing live tutoring services during the school day. Intent-to-Treat models indicate that first through fourth-grade students assigned to the program outperformed their control-group peers by roughly 0.05 SDs. However, only 20% of students received the recommended tutoring dosage. Given the variability in usage rates, we also leveraged Treatment-on-the-Treated approaches. These models suggest that students who completed 10 or more tutoring sessions experienced a reading advantage of 0.08 SDs, while those who completed 20 or more sessions—the recommended dosage—experienced a 0.26 SD developmental advantage. Further research should explore how implementation conditions, school characteristics, and student needs influence uptake rates and program effectiveness.