Read to Succeed Buffalo (RTSB) is partnering with Primary Hall Preparatory Charter School and the Cullen Foundation to pilot an Intensive Tutoring Corps program. Intensive Tutoring Corps is a high-impact tutoring model designed to provide data-driven, individualized reading skills, and practice for students testing well-below grade-level on literacy assessments.

Intensive Tutoring Corps is built from RTSB’s successful Experience Corps Volunteer Tutor/Mentor program that works 1:1 with students in Pre-K-3rd Grade. Demand for a more intensive tutoring program, appropriate for higher need students, has been increasing from our school partners in response to pandemic learning losses.

Experience Corps Buffalo is an intergenerational, evidence-based program of the AARP Foundation that recruits, trains and professionally coaches, mature volunteers over age 50 to tutor/mentor students who are testing just below grade-level.

Intensive Tutoring Corps will use more experienced volunteers to target students testing well below in their reading skills in 2nd Grade. Tutoring will be provided utilizing mCLASS Activity Materials that are generated directly from the targeted students’ school-based assessments. 

The Cullen Foundation agreed to support the development of the Intensive Tutoring Corps in response to the large numbers of students in early grades who, post pandemic, are testing well below grade-level specific to foundational literacy skills – particularly decoding skills.

RTSB has recruited, trained, and is currently supporting five volunteer tutors working in person three times per week with two students per 30-minute session at Primary Hall during the school day. Tutors will receive a small stipend for their commitment.

“Our Intensive Tutoring Corps programming is designated for the most vulnerable students who require specific academic intervention to make certain they develop the emergent literacy skills science shows they must possess to get to grade-level proficiency,” said RTSB Executive Director Anne Ryan. “Primary Hall Preparatory Charter School and the Cullen Foundation have remained committed partners in this work, ensuring that every resource is brought to help their students close the learning gap.”