The Real Teachers of Reading Futures

There was a moment, in the run-up to our summer pilot, that Liz Kline and I started thrashing on what to call our teachers.

Call them tutors? Lots of folks are doing “high dosage” tutoring, “high impact” tutoring. But so much of that tutoring work is responsive, rather than programmatic. Kid brings a problem, or shows up with homework, tutor helps out.

Call them interventionists? Feels closer — we are definitely doing intervention work — but also sort of over-technical, and it misses something fundamental about the relationships that our team has with the children we serve.

Then one day we realized we were trying too hard. They’re teachers! They’re teaching!

Sustained, caring relationships with children. Good group dynamics — kids cheering for one another, working a little harder on their word lists to level up, teaming up to beat fluency goals. Every child gives their best. Teaching.

Program first, with scaffolding and pacing to meet students where they are. Scope and sequence, starting points and ending points. A mix of mastery progressions and spiral reinforcement. Teaching.

And, by the way: ours are all actual, real, bona fide teachers. Some special ed, some general ed; some OG or Wilson trained, some with other intervention experience. They’ve all been in the classroom. And they’re all well-trained and well-supported in our multi-component, strategy-based programming.

For one reason or another, remote virtual work works well for them right now. And it’s our mission to make it possible for them to do their very best teaching, to make the biggest possible change in the world.

We ran a webinar last month, and recorded it. 25 minutes, you can watch it here. If you want to skip to our pilot results, start at 12 minutes. But if you only have 5 minutes, skip to 17 minutes and hear from Mrs. Day, her experience working with three young boys over the course of five weeks.

We are launching our first full-year implementation next week, with three elementary schools, to be followed by a few more two weeks later.

We’re lucky to continue to hire great teachers. Reading Futures is a great place to teach. (Tell your friends!)

We are “tier 3” support, one slice out of each child’s day. So we’ve spent a lot of time planning for connections, collaboration, accountability. The individual reading plan that shows each child’s path. The weekly updates to share insights, stories, and opportunities for reinforcement. The measurement and accountability to determine whether we’re making the difference we mean to make.

The students we serve are a narrow slice of the population, with a very specialized learning need. Like all kids, they are surrounded by love and community. Their districts or charters, their principals, their classroom teachers, and most of all their parents or guardians. We want to contribute, to be part of that community. Here to help. Here to teach.

Wish us luck!

-Dave