Dear Academic Approach Families & Colleagues:

As we approach the August SAT next weekend, we know many of you have received notice about closed test sites; so far 46% of test centers have closed for Saturday’s SAT. We’ll continue to provide updates on SAT and ACT testing this fall.

This week, we’re diving deeper into the research and best practices that will be driving our instruction with students as students head back into classrooms (virtual or otherwise) this fall.

Both our own research and feedback from families along with broad investigations (this link connects to an instrumental study on education and economic disparities) have found a significant impact of academic tutoring in both one-on-one and small group settings. For older students (14 and older), academic tutoring is one of the only demonstrably effective methods of improving student reading performance.

We take this research seriously as we consider our responsibility to support students, schools, and families in the new academic landscape they are encountering this fall. We’ve taken our instructional best practices and adapted to support the work students are receiving at school through our Study Teams programming, offering personalized learning to remediate gaps and incorporate rigorous, engaging work in a small-group setting. We’ll share more this week on the academic and social benefits of this work.

Be well,
Matthew Pietrafetta, Ph.D., Founder & CEO