How One Rochester School Program Created Secondary Reading Success

“If we want to give them the attitude, we have to give them the aptitude.”

- Brandon White

In the spring of 2025, we introduced the Tight10, a teacher-friendly resource to enable middle and high school students’ use of fluency routines to access grade-level texts. Today, we bring an update on how teachers are currently using the Tight10 with students. Brandon White, founder of Freedom A & T charter school and reading specialist for the Freedom Schools Summer Literacy Program, has integrated the Tight10 into his summer programming. Below, Brandon shares his insights into implementing the Tight10. 

Please share a bit about your work with Freedom Schools and Freedom A & T. 

At Freedom Scholars Learning Center, I am the reading specialist for two CDF Freedom School-based programs they operate: the afterschool program (“Seed Sowers and Story Tellers”) and the summer program (Freedom School Summer Literacy Program). For both programs, I manage and provide instruction through a sub-program called Word R.I.C.H. (Reading Instruction through Cultural Heritage). Through Word R.I.C.H. I guide and facilitate literacy intervention and Tier 1 support through culturally responsive approaches.

Can you explain why you selected the Tight10 to use with the Summer Literacy program - why did you feel like it would be a helpful tool?

I selected the Tight10 to use with the Summer Literacy program because of the proven effectiveness of its practices as illustrated by the research. I also chose it because it only requires ten minutes to do, and as a result, the time reserved for curriculum instruction doesn’t get overloaded. This was important because our classroom instructors are not certified teachers, and it made it easier for them to execute. Relatedly, the practice itself is very flexible and adaptable to different curricular contexts. In our case, we generated a grade-level passage that builds knowledge for the topic of the text in the curriculum.

Tell us a little bit about how you integrated this tool into the summer school program.

The culturally responsive curriculum focused on about one book a week. Each day of the week, teachers and their scholars would read a generated grade-level, Tier-2-Rich passage that builds student knowledge for the topic of the curriculum text. The procedure each day would go as follows: 

STEP ONE: MODEL READ- Servant Leader (Teacher) or JSL (Teacher Assistant) reads the text out loud (whole passage).

STEP TWO: CHORAL READ - everyone reads aloud the whole passage at the same time.

STEP THREE: ECHO READ - Servant Leader orJSL read sentences or a paragraph, and scholars repeat. Repeat for the whole passage.

STEP FOUR: PARTNER READ - One partner reads out loud for 10 seconds while the other follows along, then they switch. Repeat for the whole passage.

STEP FIVE - Partners write down one main idea from the passage.

STEP SIX - Scholars share their one big idea with the whole class. The Servant Leader/JSL writes it down on the board.

Did you make adjustments to the Tight10 routine for use in the Freedom School Summer Literacy Program? Can you describe why you made these and what they were? 

Instead of one excerpted passage from a central curricular text over the course of three days, we chose to provide a topic-aligned, Tier-2 word rich short excerpt daily to do multiple repeated and varied fluency exercises. We made these changes because while we were focusing on fluency development, we also had a secondary focus on building comprehension through establishing background knowledge. We also intensified the process because many scholars enrolled in the program scored well below grade level during the universal literacy screening process done in the beginning of the program. 

What was it like to implement the Tight10? Share a little about how you trained teachers, how did teachers feel about using the routine, how did students respond. 

Teachers demonstrated some hesitancy at first, especially when it came to the idea of choral reading. As predicted, the first choral reads were hard to navigate, but became smoother over time. The scholars appreciated the quickness of the procedure and were excited to identify main ideas from the texts. Some of the scholars who struggled the most with fluency would be hesitant to participate and attempted to remain quiet during the procedures, but were often redirected by Servant Leaders and JSLs.

What was the impact of implementing the Tight10 - can you describe the impacts on teacher practice and student outcome? 

Students. in general, became more comfortable with the idea of reading out loud. They also developed more curiosity and the ability to comprehend the central text in the curriculum. For our Freedom School summer 2025 programming,  amongst students who were pre- and post- assessed after six weeks of programming (including those who engaged in routine interventions for three weeks), the average of students’ DIBELS score increased by 80 points and fluency rate increased by 15%. 

Amongst the scholars surveyed who routinely attend afterschool programming (two to three scholars from each classroom), 100% of scholars surveyed agreed that Freedom School made them a better reader and thinker, and 94% of scholars surveyed have a more positive attitude about reading books because of Freedom School this Summer.

Teachers, who aren’t full-time teachers during the school year, began to see the connections between fluency, repeated reading, background knowledge, and comprehension. While there were still instances where Tight10 competed with other curricular obligations that produced some distress with some teachers, it was something they were not willing to forsake because of its value. 

You used this for a summer program. Is there a plan for integrating it into the regular school year?

During the regular school year, we are implementing Tight10 again. However, we will use the same topic-aligned, Tier-2 word-rich short excerpt over the course of three days.

What advice would you give to others who are interested in using the Tight10? 

The procedure is worth it. The curriculum-compatible nature of it and the low time investment can produce such a high return on literacy improvement. I would suggest to be sure to monitor students who are not following along as the teacher, or other students, are reading out loud. Provide immediate feedback about mispronounced words as well. I would also encourage students and teachers to notice a difference in implementation and growth over time, and that an awkward start is a natural start. It shouldn’t be a reason to discontinue. 

If you were to choose 3-5 words to describe the Tight10, what would they be?

curriculum-compatible    -      high-return    -      accessible

We are so grateful to Brandon for sharing his experience with the Tight10. Brandon’s experience reminds us that when students are given the skills, the engagement and improved outcomes follow. As he says, “If we want to give them the attitude, we have to give them the aptitude.” The Tight10 creates exactly that kind of momentum. Brandon’s implementation of Tight10 demonstrates that this simple, consistent routine can strengthen teacher practice, build student knowledge, and quickly improve students’ reading outcomes. Brandon’s story affirms what we believe deeply at TeachAbility and Education 4500  - when teachers have tools that are research-aligned yet easy to implement, students grow. And when students grow, they begin to see themselves as readers.

If you are interested in starting a Tight10 routine at your own school, read these blog posts, check out these resources to support your work , or get in touch with Ali and Kate at  info@education4500.com.