Quinsigamond Elementary School Partners with Ignite! Reading

Another school has chosen Ignite! Reading to build foundational reading skills for its young learners in K—5 as the program continues its national expansion.

Ignite! Reading’s mission is to ensure that every student is an independent reader by the start of 2nd grade, using a top-quality foundational skills intervention via virtual, 1:1 tutoring.

Currently, Ignite! Reading is serving 400 students across three states in both charter and traditional public school settings. Another 1,000 students will be added in its final pilot phase this fall before accelerating its full national scale with a goal of at least 50,000 students in the next several years.

The latest school to sign on is Quinsigamond Elementary School. The school’s partnership with Ignite! Reading will deliver Zoom-powered K–5 literacy tutoring during designated blocks in the school day. The program provides foundational skills reading instruction through high-dosage, 1:1, 15-minute daily virtual tutoring and has offset pandemic-related unfinished learning in its recent summer and fall pilot programs. 

“We are positively excited to have the opportunity to integrate Ignite! into our curriculum and our school. The marriage of individualized targeted instruction and a literacy program based on the Science of Reading is crucial in supporting the reading achievement of all students. In the short time that we have implemented the Ignite! Reading program, we have seen kids excited about connecting with their tutors, excited to show off what they are learning, and most importantly, excited to read. On behalf of all our students, we are looking forward to building this partnership and look forward to being a part of the Ignite family and success story,” said Yeu Kue, Principal of Quinsigamond Elementary School in Worcester. 

“We are excited to announce a national expansion of Ignite! Reading to help more kids become independent readers during this uniquely challenging time for teachers, students, and parents. With 15 minutes of daily one-to-one, high-dosage literacy tutoring, Ignite! is demonstrating how the pandemic’s challenges are enabling innovations that are transforming how literacy is taught. These kids are finally cracking the code of the English language,” said Jessica Reid Sliwerski, Founder of Ignite! Reading and CEO of Open Up Resources. “We look forward to partnering with schools from coast to coast to bring effective Zoom-powered literacy tutoring to thousands of new students.”

Ignite! Reading’s Fall 2021 programs showed extremely promising results:

• Students made three weeks of reading progress for every week of tutoring they received.
• 100% of IEP students passed their first progress monitoring assessment.
• 85% of English Learner students passed their first progress monitoring assessment.
• 93% of Latinx and 89% of Black students passed their first progress monitoring assessment.

Learn more about Ignite! Reading here.