Launched in 2021, OnYourMark provides high-impact virtual tutoring for 20 minutes a day, four days a week, to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The organization recruits, trains, and manages tutors from across the country, matching them with schools seeking to increase students’ reading ability. Throughout the school year, tutors meet with students using a video conferencing platform during regularly scheduled small-group instruction or independent learning. Grounded in the science of reading with a focus on foundational literacy skills, OnYourMark’s tutoring reaches more than 3,600 students at 57 partner schools across the country.
To understand the potential impact of OnYourMark’s virtual tutoring, Overdeck Family Foundation funded a randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted by a team of researchers from Stanford University and led by Susanna Loeb. The study examined over 2,000 students across 12 schools; about half of the students were randomly assigned to receive tutoring from OnYourMark, while the other half were randomly assigned to receive instruction as usual. Study findings revealed that one-on-one virtual OnYourMark tutoring had a positive impact equivalent to about a month of learning on students’ early literacy skills, as measured with an assessment called the DIBELS. Impacts were largest on kindergarteners’ knowledge of letter sounds and first graders’ decoding skills. Perhaps less expected were smaller and null impacts of OnYourMark’s two-on-one tutoring. OnYourMark is now engaged in a second RCT that aims to address implementation challenges for the two-on-one model and better understand the impact of a more scalable and cost-effective approach for delivering tutoring to students in kindergarten through second grade.
Bolstered by both existing and ongoing evidence-building, OnYourMark continues to innovate on ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of high-quality tutoring. In 2023, the organization launched a pilot with fellow grantee Magpie Literacy, building on previous Overdeck Family Foundation-funded research into the effectiveness of blended tutoring models. Review of pre-post proficiency gains from the pilot suggests potential additive benefits of blending two days of OnYourMark tutoring with three days of personalized, independent instruction from the Magpie Literacy platform.
In addition to funding OnYourMark’s RCT, which sets up the organization to meet “Tier 1” evidence standards, as established by ESSA, Overdeck Family Foundation has provided general operating support and associated capacity building. This has enabled OnYourMark to iterate on model delivery, enhance cost-effectiveness, improve data systems to handle increased reach, and invest in its sales and growth teams, resulting in more students receiving high-impact virtual tutoring and, potentially, reading on grade level.
