Tutor en Casa

Students in the Dominican Republic (DR) consistently have the lowest educational outcomes in the Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC). As the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools across the country to close, educators and parents became increasingly concerned about children’s academic success. Due to logistical and technological challenges to facilitate functional distanced learning in the DR, students are struggling to keep up with schooling, and parents are at a loss for how to help their children remain focused and motivated. Tutor en Casa is a six-week program that capitalizes on low-technology platforms to train parents to become tutors at home to bolster their children’s learning. By putting videos on YouTube with continual support from expert teachers via WhatsApp, Tutor en Casa is easily replicable and scalable. Tutor en Casa caters to a wide spectrum of parents’ learning styles and literacy levels to empower them to be confident in their new skills.

According to UNESCO’s Regional Comparative and Explanatory studies, Dominican students have the lowest average reading test score for both third and sixth grade out of 19 countries in LAC, and, between 2015 and 2018, their average scores in reading and math on the international PISA exam decreased. Furthermore, the World Bank reports that, in the DR, 48.6% of income is concentrated in the richest 20% of the population while the income share held by the lowest 20% is only 6%. In a population of 10,847,904 people, one-fourth lives in poverty.

When school became virtual, students’ academic advancement was greatly at risk. According to UNICEF’s 2020 global estimates, remote learning interventions (digital or broadcast) do not reach a minimum of 463 million, or 31%, of students in pre-primary through upper secondary school. Three out of four of these unreached students live in rural areas, and lower-income countries are disproportionately affected. As the students the DREAM Project serves are from mainly rural and sub-urban areas and are in mid- to low-socioeconomic classes, DREAM sought out a low-technology solution that equips parents to best support their children’s at-home learning to buffer against negative academic outcomes further complicated by virtual/distanced learning.

DREAM noted that an immediate challenge as a result of mandatory distanced learning was parents’ lack of ability and confidence to manage and navigate at-home schooling, resulting in children losing focus and motivation and falling behind on their lessons. Tutor en Casa aims to empower primary-school parents to be at-home tutors, actively helping their children with classes to be prepared for the upcoming school year. Tutor en Casa is a six-week program in which parents receive a total of 18 YouTube videos sent via a link on WhatsApp that allow them to develop skills in reading, writing and basic math. Through interviews and surveys with families, DREAM discovered that WhatsApp and YouTube are the two most effective and manageable tools for communication with the parents and for the parents to access content. On Mondays, parents receive videos about reading and comprehension; on Wednesdays, videos about writing and phonics; and, on Friday, videos about math. To facilitate activity completion, parents receive a backpack with school supplies at no cost to them delivered every Friday by the DREAM Project van. Parents receive support and monitoring via WhatsApp by program facilitators and submit videos and photos of themselves completing activities with their children.

DREAM runs programs primarily on the North Coast of the DR, employing innovative approaches to literacy, early childhood education, youth leadership, music instruction and community support to promote critical thinking and independence to enrich lives and strengthen sustainable communities. DREAM has been working in communities in the DR since 2002 and currently works in 15 communities, reaching over 8,000 students.

Tutor en Casa, DREAM’s solution, serves students in DREAM’s literacy and early childhood education programs through DREAM’s Montessori preschools, public school partnerships and connections with other community organizations. Through these different avenues, DREAM reaches over 4,000 students, the majority of whom are considered to be living in mid- to low-socioeconomic classes, with many living below the poverty line. DREAM’s talented, creative, highly qualified literacy team oversees Tutor en Casa and consists of a Director of Programs, Literacy Programs Coordinator, psychologist, community librarian and Literacy Programs teachers. At the moment, Tutor en Casa has served over 500 students with more families actively being enrolled.

DREAM operates evidence-based programs that employ high-quality educational practices rooted in best-practice research. Each program at DREAM has a logic model that is reviewed and revised twice a year, which guides the organization’s ability to consistently improve activities and strategies. DREAM strives to continuously improve its programs with a steadfast commitment to always producing the best results. DREAM’s approach effectively addresses local needs by working with local governments, partner institutions and communities to implement high-quality educational programming. Tutor en Casa was developed directly from feedback received from school administrators, community leaders and parents about students’ regressing academic levels and families’ lack of knowledge of how to create a productive at-home learning environment. By surveying the families in our partner communities, it was apparent that a low-technology solution was the sustainable approach to respond to the problem, and parents have been incredibly receptive to the solution, as evidenced by testimony we received:

• Marielys del Carmen Ramírez (mother): “I am very grateful to be sharing with my child the beautiful learning experience that the program gives us in the midst of the pandemic. It is a very educational program and provides us with a series of productive activities for the educational development of our children.”
• Heidy Guerrero Bautista (mother): “We are very grateful to be part of Tutor en Casa, because, in the midst of everything we are experiencing with COVID-19, you gave us your support for the knowledge of our children. The activities were fun, efficient, productive and very motivating.”
• Swanly Frías (mother): “We have been working for three weeks in the Tutor en Casa program, and we are surprised with our daughter’s development. Since we started, our daughter has become more talkative, and she has shown a desire to learn to read and write. The program has been a blessing to us, as our daughter has not had the opportunity to attend school due to the pandemic.”

Tutor en Casa offers a flexible training curriculum that responds to immediate and future educational needs of low- and middle-income families in LAC. While currently only in the DR, the solution is easily transferable to other countries where there is not a robust infrastructure to facilitate distanced learning and in which parents do not have the skills nor confidence to be at-home educators in a time when their children need it the most. Tutor en Casa offers teaching and learning methodologies, tools and resources that develop parents’ and students’ skills and facilitates access to quality education in low connectivity environments.

Tutor en Casa is in the growth stage, as it has been piloted for the past year in approximately 10 communities across the North Coast, in San Pedro and in Santo Domingo in the DR. All of the instructional tools have been created and refined: 18 videos that span over a six-week period in reading, writing and math to support parents’ teaching at home spanning approximately 30 hours of instruction. Over 500 families have already graduated from Tutor en Casa, and DREAM is ready to grow its model to efficiently and sustainably reach more communities in the country while maintaining the quality and rigor of the solution.

Through Tutor en Casa, YouTube – coupled with WhatsApp – is used as a learning management system through which parents receive educational material and information, implement learning activities, receive professional support and are evaluated on their progress. While seemingly straightforward, this solution was developed directly in response to the level of technological literacy, ability and accessibility of the families we serve. In an increasingly virtual world, families with low connectivity and few resources are inequitably left behind, and parents are expected to take on an unfamiliar role of distanced learning educator that they are not accustomed to. In addition to parenting and working, parents have become increasingly responsible for their children’s focus and motivation when it comes to schooling. Parents, especially those who live in low connectivity environments and are not familiar with advanced technologies and platforms, need additional support to be able to ensure their children are staying in touch with their teachers, to provide them with assistance with school assignments and to keep them engaged for periods of time that are appropriate for their age and level of development. These are skills traditionally taught to educators, but the time management abilities and patience required to complete these tasks are not always familiar to parents. Tutor en Casa provides a solution that teaches hard and soft skills through technologies that are familiar to parents and user friendly.

• So far, we have served 500 families.
• In one year, we aim to serve 700 more for a total of 1,200 families.
• In five years, we hope to have served a total of 4,000 families by identifying participants through other DREAM programs, community and NGO partners and other referrals.

The short-term anticipated outcomes include:

• Parents’ skills in reading, writing and basic math increase
• Parents’ become more confident in supporting their children’s academic tasks

The long-term anticipated outcomes include:

• Parents feel connected to the academic life of their children and develop greater skills to strengthen their behavior, learning and communication
• Students improve their academic abilities and show evidence of motivation, positive attitudes and social-emotional skills when learning
• Students advance their skills in literacy and other subjects for purposes of meeting grade level requirements, improving academic motivation, developing critical thinking and promoting community responsibility
• There exists a culture of learning in the home

We aim to achieve these outcomes via the following activities:

• Distribute 18 YouTube videos over the course of six weeks
  • Mondays: reading and reading comprehension
  • Wednesdays: writing and phonological awareness
  • Fridays: basic mathematics
• Provide personalized support and follow-up via WhatsApp
• Deliver school supplies once a week

Right now, the DREAM Project implements Tutor en Casa with the hope to replicate the program throughout the DR and serve families in similar situations in other countries through key international partnerships.

To measure the immediate outcomes, parents send in photos and videos of themselves completing the activities, through which we are able to track if their skills have increased. Based on spoken and written testimonies of their experience, we are able to gauge the change in their confidence level. We conduct quantitative measures of evaluation through PRE- and POST-tests and comparisons of children’s academic performance, specifically reading level, against national standards.

Full-time staff at the DREAM Project are:

• Directors (3)
• Coordinators (12)
• Admin & Support Staff (23)
• Program Staff (50)

DREAM also receives the support of Yearlong Fellows (4) who volunteer a year of their time to DREAM’s program teams and make integral contributions to program implementation and sustainability.

DREAM's team of more than 90 people works diligently to bring the organization's various programs to life, from early childhood education to youth workforce development. The majority of DREAM staff come from and continue to live in the same communities from which program participants come, which helps staff not only address their needs but also provide empathetic support with a comprehensive understanding of their situation. Additionally, various staff members were program participants across DREAM's programs, from which they bring grounded perspectives about the participant experience and meaningful suggestions to improve operations.

DREAM ensures successful results through careful analysis, a commitment to learning and continuous improvement. Our innovative approach effectively addresses local needs and can be successfully implemented and replicated throughout high-poverty global communities, leaving behind the necessary tools for future generations to continue their development. DREAM operates evidence-based programs that employ high-quality educational practices rooted in best-practice research. Each program at DREAM has a logic model that is reviewed and revised twice a year, which guides the organization’s ability to consistently improve activities and strategies. We strive to continuously improve our programs with a steadfast commitment to always producing the best results. We track every achievement and investment in our programs and provide detailed reports on all our activities.

DREAM strives to reflect the diversity of the communities in which it operates programs and seeks to identify leaders amongst its program participants to become future DREAM team members. Over DREAM’s almost 20 years of work on the North Coast of the DR, it has dramatically shifted toward investing in local leadership, putting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at the forefront of its programs and organizational policies. To date, DREAM’s leadership team of Directors and Coordinators (15 people) is 80% Hispanic/Latino and 66.7% women. Additionally, 50% were previous DREAM program participants or have children who have been DREAM program participants. DREAM’s Executive Board of Directors (15 people) is 50% Hispanic/Latino and 66.7% women.

DREAM aims to increase the rigor and frequency of its professional development courses for its current Coordinators to not only make them highly skilled and successful professionals but also to equip them with the knowledge and abilities to become Directors at the organization. Furthermore, DREAM aims to make its search for future employees and organizational leaders more equitable and intentional by looking to its program graduates and organizing Meet & Greet events in Santo Domingo and other hubs within the DR to create a network of highly skilled local professionals. Another component of our strategy is to seek out local and international funding opportunities from individuals, organizations, institutions and governments that place value on DEI within their own work and make it a priority in the programs and projects they fund.

Tutor en Casa began as a response to the challenges of distanced and at-home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, in such a short amount of time, we have seen the positive impact the solution has had on the lives of hundreds of families in the DR. Even when students return to school, their learning does not stop when they leave the classroom. Parents will continue to benefit from the training videos and expert support provided by Tutor en Casa. Tutor en Casa has the ability to serve every family of a primary school child, not only improving parents’ hard skills in reading, writing and math but, moreover, increasing their confidence in their own abilities to be a source of academic and motivational support for their children. Tutor en Casa brings a culture of learning into the home.

In addition to the financial support, we seek mentorship, networking connections and the guidance of experts to understand how others working in contexts similar to the communities in which we work have been able to be innovative to keep families engaged not only during the program but also afterward to ensure the benefits are not lost. We want to be able to scale this solution and find out about new technologies that we could implement into the program to accelerate its impact and reach. The TPrize Challenge will facilitate access to industry leaders and context experts across LAC who can make meaningful recommendations that will improve how we serve our communities.

While we have collected preliminary data from our program participants, we would benefit from comprehensive, long-term evaluations that follow the families not only immediately after they complete the program but also six months, a year and further to be able to confirm if the solution creates lasting, or only immediate, benefits. We also want to be able to conduct community diagnostic evaluations to be able to track every family and compare non-participants to participants in various measurement intervals after the participants have completed the program. We want to be able to prove that our program does make a meaningful impact that is different from the norm without the intervention.

We also wish to increase our reach, which can be challenging for our team, as Tutor en Casa is not the only program in which they work. Our Literacy Programs team that spearheads the implementation of Tutor en Casa also runs a variety of other programs, and we seek support in how to best expand our impact without decreasing quality and without overworking our team.

DREAM has relationships with government institutions, school districts and public schools, community leaders and other local and international NGOs in the DR through which we are able to offer programs, including Tutor en Casa. Since Tutor en Casa can be easily scaled to other similar communities, we are seeking new partners who are interested in implementing the solution in their organization and communities. While we have a robust network within the DR, we do not have connections with similar organizations in other Spanish-speaking countries and would be interested in growing partnerships abroad in order to implement Tutor en Casa in communities similar to ours who would benefit from the program.