We Can’t Tutor Our Way Out of the Literacy Crisis

Rethinking impact, scale, and what high-dosage tutoring taught us

Over the last few years, high-dosage tutoring has become a go-to strategy for accelerating student learning. And for good reason—it works. At The Indy Learning Team, we’ve provided more than 3,000 hours of high-dosage tutoring because we’ve seen the impact firsthand.

When done well, it helps students catch up on foundational skills, rebuilds their confidence, and provides the kind of personalized attention that makes a lasting difference. Students are assessed individually. Lessons are tailored to meet their needs. Progress is tracked in real-time.

But here’s the catch: high-dosage tutoring isn’t a scalable fix for the literacy gap we’re facing.

In most schools, high-dosage tutoring can realistically serve about 10–12% of students. That leaves the vast majority of learners without the kind of targeted support we know is effective. And as budgets tighten and staff capacity stretches, this approach becomes harder and harder to sustain.

It’s like putting a bucket under a leaky faucet—helpful in the short term, but not a real solution to the root issue.

So at TILT, we started asking:What if we could bring the same level of personalization and precision into the school day itself?What if we could use the existing curriculum, the existing staff, and the existing instructional time—and still get the outcomes of high-dosage tutoring?

That’s where Adira Reads comes in.

Adira Reads is a literacy support system built to do the heavy lifting for schools. It provides the structure for a school-specific MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports)—tracking student skill gaps, updating groupings monthly, and delivering instructional recommendations aligned with the curriculum teachers are already using.

It’s not another program to implement. It’s a thinking partner.

It makes real-time student data usable. It takes the guesswork out of regrouping. It supports teachers, not burdens them. And most importantly, it makes scalable customization possible.

We’ll always be advocates for 1:1 tutoring where it’s needed. But the truth is, for the cost of tutoring 20 students 1:1, Adira Reads can support 1,200. That’s not just better efficiency—that’s a different kind of literacy strategy.

As we prepare for a new school year, many of us are trying to balance ambition with reality. We want big gains. We have limited resources. The challenge isn’t just about knowing what works—it’s about making it work at scale.

Let’s right-size our investments. Let’s build systems that match the scope of the challenge.And let’s make sure no student is left waiting for the right support to finally catch up.