After 50 years, there is consensus that districts should focus on evidence-based practices to teach reading (the “Science of Reading”). Many teachers, however, are under-prepared to teach according to the complex conclusions of that research. Those who are must elicit choral responses, getting each child to say the same thing at the same time, which requires near-perfect classroom management.
What if there were a better way? At Once we believe that any adult can teach any kindergarten student to read with the right training and software. In an age when AI is rapidly automating many entry-level jobs, your high school students are looking for career paths that give meaning and connection and make a positive contribution to their community. The Once Career and Technical Education (CTE) program provides just such a path and helps your district bolster your CTE to paraprofessional to teacher pipeline.
Children are cognitively ready to learn how to read in kindergarten. Once successful, they become autonomous learners who require less differentiation, less remediation, and fewer supports in all of their academic subjects for the rest of their education.
With Once software and training, high school CTE students can become highly effective reading tutors for your kindergarten students. Throughout the experience, your CTE students will develop expertise in teaching, professionalism and empathy. Watching your high school students teach your kindergarteners to read is truly a sight to be seen!
We empower high school CTE students to use Science of Reading-based methods to teach kindergarteners to read.
We train high school CTE students to become Once Instructors. We provide them with scripted instructional content that is aligned to 50 years of educational research, we video record their instruction, and we coach your CTE supervisors to help them help each CTE student improve their instructional practices and teach kindergarten students to read. Instruction happens one-on-one, at each student’s own pace.
During instruction, each CTE student sits side by side next to one kindergarten student in or near the kindergarten classroom. Both the CTE student and the kindergarten student look at a shared open laptop in front of them. Adaptive, interactive, scripted instruction is on the screen as well as all of the activities that the kindergarten student will complete. 100 hard copy decodables are available for purchase for each kindergarten student to complement instruction.
