Tutoring with the Lightning Squad is a highly motivating, peer-supported, web-based, interactive multimedia tutoring model. Developed by Sirius Thinking, Ltd., and the Success for All Foundation in collaboration with Sesame Workshop, the program is designed to enable struggling readers in Grades 1-3 to achieve grade-level literacy proficiency by developing skills in fluency, phonics, word blending, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension through a series of game-like
cooperative activities. The tutoring software enables a paraprofessional to serve up to six struggling readers at a time for 30 minutes each day, either during school hours or after school.

Features include students working cooperatively in pairs on laptops or tablets, alternating roles as “coach” and “player”; exciting new video and game content featuring characters from Sesame Workshop’s popular literacy education television program, The Electric Company; sophisticated assessments to analyze students’ progress and errors and prescribe next steps; and “celebrations” as children make progress. Students earn points throughout the activities and cash them in for games and videos in “The Prize Spot” after they’ve mastered a story level. In addition, families are given access to an engaging series of online video programs called “Home Links” that reinforce the material presented to students during their tutoring sessions. Parents are encouraged to watch these “shows” with their children so they can support their progress at home.

Tutoring with the Lightning Squad was launched just in time for the 2017-2018 academic year.  In a brief randomized pilot study conducted in eight elementary schools shortly before the product was released, tutored students’ rate of growth was twice that of untutored students.

Tutoring with the Lightning Squad was funded by a 2015 Small Business Innovation Research award from the U.S. Department of Education. In 2022, the Department’s Institute of Education Sciences featured it on its website as one of its “Success Stories.”