Once helps students learn to read fluently by combining the research-based Science of Reading, the structured design of our literacy sequence, and the power of individual attention and pacing.
Once augments the instructional-materials program that a district has adopted for English Language Arts so that students are on-grade level readers in the primary grades, do not need further remediation for literacy acquisition, and are fluent, independent readers by grade 3.
Students will learn to read with this instructional support, and they will only need it Once.
When you’re teaching kids to read, every detail matters.
Third-grade reading proficiency has not budged for 50 years. To change that, we need to get creative. Quickly.
Feedback is our lifeblood. It’s the way students learn, and it’s the way we learn how best to teach them.
Helping students learn how to read is what gets us up in the morning. There is no greater joy.
The idea for Once was born in the early pandemic when schools closed and the founders taught their kindergarten-age children to read at home with 15 minutes of instruction each day. Within a year their children were reading fluently, eager for weekly trips to the library after which they would squirrel away in corners of the house for days reading their newfound treasures.
Former teachers, they knew from experience how many years schools typically spend teaching phonics to elementary students with mixed success. Like teachers across the country, they had struggled to differentiate instruction to the students in their classes who still had basic phonics gaps.
What if, they wondered, every child had the opportunity to learn how to read in kindergarten or 1st grade one-on-one, side-by-side with a trusted adult?
Coaching
Partnerships
Program
CEO
Curriculum
Operations
