Fifteen Minutes a Day Just Solved a Reading Crisis. Then the Money Disappeared.

Six percent. That's how many first graders in thirteen Massachusetts school districts were reading at grade level when the year started.

By year's end, it was 48%.

The thing that changed? Fifteen minutes a day with a tutor on a screen.

The Study

Johns Hopkins tracked 1,596 first graders across Massachusetts who got virtual tutoring through Ignite Reading. Two years of data. The numbers are stark.

Students gained five extra months of learning. Kids needing intensive reading help dropped from 70% to 31%. And 85% who hit grade level kept it through second grade — no more tutoring needed.

Only 12% of kids who missed proficiency in first grade caught up later. The other 88% fell further behind.

The effect size (+0.23 standard deviations) matches in-person tutoring. That's what surprised the researchers.

Why Virtual Works

For years, researchers assumed in-person tutoring was the gold standard. Virtual was the budget option — what you did when you couldn't afford the real thing.

That assumption is crumbling.

Ignite Reading's model is simple: 15 minutes a day, one-on-one, over video, during school hours. Sessions focus on phonics using the Science of Reading — the evidence-based approach to teaching how letters map to sounds.

It's not just one study. Kansas City found similar results with Hoot Reading. Texas and Louisiana saw nearly three extra months of learning gains with Air Reading.

"Virtual models are getting stronger," said lead researcher Neitzel. "A few years ago, we had no evidence-proven models. Now we're getting them."

The secret isn't the screen. It's consistency. Roughly 90 minutes a week, same tutor, during school hours. Kids show up, the tutor knows what they're doing, and it works.

Ignite now operates in 24 states — 62 million minutes of instruction across 50,000 students.

The Timing Problem

Here's where it turns.

This research is landing just as America pulls the plug on tutoring funding.

ESSER — the $190 billion pandemic recovery package — expired in September 2024. Those dollars funded most of the tutoring programs that now have the strongest evidence behind them.

High-impact tutoring costs $1,200–$2,500 per student per year. The money that covered it is gone.

North Carolina's research-backed tutoring program is begging lawmakers for permanent funding after schools cut it. In February, the Trump administration cancelled $168 million in community school grants mid-year — wiping out tutoring, sports, and after-school clubs overnight.

The evidence for what works has never been stronger. The willingness to pay for it has never been weaker.

Why First Grade Matters More Than Third

Most US states test reading at third grade. Some hold kids back if they're not there yet.

The Johns Hopkins data says third grade is already too late.

"We're so caught up in 'reading by grade three' that we aren't honoring that kids need to learn in first grade," said Ignite founder Jessica Reid Sliwerski. Many students entering the program still didn't know letter names and sounds — kindergarten basics. Their tutors had two years of content to cover in one.

A child who can't decode words at seven drowns in everything by nine. Science worksheets, maths problems, history textbooks — all require reading. Researchers call it the Matthew Effect: readers improve. Non-readers fall further behind. The gap doesn't close. It widens.

The Global Picture

This isn't just an American problem.

Australia's Independent Schools Association warns AI learning tools are creating a "two-speed system" — rich schools racing ahead, under-resourced schools stuck. Only two Australian states have rolled out AI programs to public schools.

The UK's Education Endowment Foundation spent a decade proving the same thing Johns Hopkins found: consistent one-on-one tutoring works. Period.

UNESCO estimates 250 million children are in school but can't read. Virtual tutoring — a trained teacher connected to a struggling reader anywhere there's internet — could scale globally.

If someone pays for it.

What Happens Next

The data's in. Fifteen minutes a day over video can take a first grader from not knowing the alphabet to reading at grade level. And the gain lasts.

The question isn't whether it works. It's whether anyone will fund what the science proved — or let the programs that produced the evidence disappear along with the money.

Those Massachusetts kids showed what's possible. What happens next is on the adults.