MBAE hosted legislators, reading experts, researchers, and school and district leaders at a crowded early-literacy high-dosage tutoring (HDT) briefing at the State House on March 27.

Organized in partnership with Senator Sal DiDomenico and Representative Alice Peisch, the briefing highlighted how HDT is helping to address Massachusetts’ early literacy crisis and Governor Healey’s $25 million FY26 supplemental budget proposal to sustain and grow HDT to 10,000 students across the state.

HDT is an evidence-based, one-on-one tutoring model in which students receive 15 minutes of virtual instruction daily during school hours from the same highly trained tutor throughout the year. The program specifically serves first-graders who have not yet mastered essential Kindergarten reading skills—critical gaps that, if left unaddressed, significantly increase the risk of students falling further behind.

The briefing included presentations from Ignite Reading, an HDT provider, on the core components of a successful early-literacy HDT model and Johns Hopkins University, who shared the findings from their recent evaluation of the Ignite Reading HDT program in Massachusetts. Results show that participating first-graders gained an average of 5.4 additional months of learning over the course of the school year, with gains consistent across student sub-groups.

Superintendents Almi Abeyta (Chelsea), Tracy Curley (Fall River), and Marisa Mendonsa (Waltham) shared compelling firsthand accounts of HDT’s impact in their districts, underscoring the urgent need for sustained funding. With philanthropic support from the One8 Foundation ending next school year, they stressed that Governor Healey’s proposed HDT budget allocation is essential to keeping the program alive and ensuring their students continue to receive the early-literacy support they need.

Superintendent Mendonsa underscored the critical need to close literacy gaps before third grade —not only because reading proficiency at this stage is a major educational benchmark, but also because students who struggle with reading are likely to fall behind across all subjects as they progress into the state’s secondary schools, which are not equipped to teach basic reading. Together, Curley, Abeyta, and Mendonsa emphasized that HDT provides a level of individualized, one-on-one instruction that schools simply cannot replicate and expressed their deep concern if the program cannot continue.

We are thankful to Education Committee Co-Chairs Rep. Ken Gordon and Sen. Jason Lewis for attending and offering remarks at the briefing.

You can access the briefing presentations and other HDT resources below:

● 3/27 HDT briefing slide deck
● MBAE report: High-Dosage Tutoring: A High-Impact Literacy Strategy
● Johns Hopkins University report: An Evaluation of Ignite Reading Virtual Literacy Tutoring in Massachusetts
● MBAE Fact sheet: Addressing our Early Literacy Crisis: A High Dosage Tutoring Initiative for Massachusetts First Graders
● MBAE HDT State Funding Fact Sheet