Brain Hurricane uses small group tutoring sessions to deliver its instructional material. Gold and Horn (1982) found that students who participated in small group tutoring made significant gains in general and discrete reading skills. According to the U.S. Department of Education, supplemental “one-on-one instruction has been shown to be an effective avenue for increasing student achievement, especially for students at risk of academic failure” (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Further, the California Reading Task Force (1995) identified this type of tutoring as a powerful “early intervention for students at risk of failure in reading.” This research corroborated the success of Brain Hurricane’s program.
Small Group Model: Research supports that programs based on individualized instruction are effective and high-quality, and will also have a greater impact on students’ learning. Brain Hurricane’s approach to small group instruction is supported by the research of Tennessee’s Project Star (Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio). Analysis of academic achievement over the course of the project consistently and significantly demonstrated that students in small classes outperformed students in regular sized classes and students in regular sized classes with teaching assistants. As Finn and Achilles stated in the American Educational Research Journal, “This research leaves no doubt that small classes have an advantage over larger classes in reading …” Achilles and Finn (1990).
Small Group Reading Model: Brain Hurricane’s small group reading model is also research-based and based on best practices that use the strength of small group instruction to help students develop and improve their reading skills. Brain Hurricane’s reading program combines cooperative problem-solving with established reading techniques including: instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary techniques, sight-words (Dolch, Fry, etc.), writing techniques, and storytelling. As educational author Jim Burke says, “Allowing for different options across genres invites students to think about their reading in different ways, an essential trait of effective readers” (Burke, 2000).