“Push in” and “pull out” are the two reading intervention models that get the most attention, and each has real limitations. A third option — the “in-class” model, where students stay with their own teacher for small-group work — adds another variation without solving the underlying constraint. But the research points to something the location debate tends to miss. What drives outcomes in small-group reading intervention isn’t where instruction happens. It’s whether students are grouped by the skills they actually need, and whether the materials they’re working with are high-quality.
A model once called “walk-to-read,” now more often described as “walk-to-intervention,” is built around exactly those two variables. Here are four reasons we think this reboot deserves a green light.
LXD Research presented multi-year findings on the Walk to Read model at the 2025 International Dyslexia Association conference, alongside Laura Stewart and the research team from 95 Percent Group. Read our reflections from the conference →
What Walk-to-Intervention Actually Is
In a walk-to-intervention block, students from multiple classrooms at the same grade level are combined into homogeneous skill groups and taught by a mix of reading specialists, classroom teachers, and paraprofessionals. Every adult on the grade-level team leads a group. Students “walk to” the group matched to their current skill needs, and those groupings shift as their needs change.
Each of the other models carries its own trade-off. Push-in keeps the intervention group bounded by a single classroom’s roster. Pull-out is more flexible — it can draw students from multiple classrooms and even across grades — but the transitions eat into instruction time, and students can feel singled out. In-class intervention can look like the teacher leading a small group, or “pulling up a chair” to work one-on-one or with a pair while the rest of the class runs independent practice or station rotations — but either way, only one adult is in the room, which limits how much targeted time any individual student gets. Walk-to-intervention is different: every adult at the grade level leads a group at the same time, which means groups can be sized and matched to skill with more precision than any model running on a single adult.
| Model | How It’s Organized | Key Constraint |
|---|---|---|
| Push-In | Reading specialist joins the classroom to support a small group during the literacy block. | The intervention group is limited to students in that single classroom. |
| Pull-Out | Specialist pulls a small group out for targeted instruction — can draw from multiple classrooms or grades. | Transitions eat instruction time; students can feel singled out. |
| In-Class | Classroom teacher leads a small group or “pulls up a chair” with an individual, while the rest of the class does independent practice or stations. | Only one adult in the room, which limits time with any one student. |
| Walk-to-Intervention Reboot | Students across a grade level regroup by skill; every teacher and specialist leads a group. | Requires coordinated scheduling and diagnostic data across classrooms. |
A meta-analysis of small-group reading interventions found that programs produced a 20% higher effect size when they targeted a specific skill rather than reading broadly (Hall & Burns, 2018). That finding is hard to act on inside a single classroom — there may not be enough students with the same skill gap in one room to form a genuine group. Across a grade level, the arithmetic works.
Why Grouping Matters More Than Location
The most consequential choice in small-group intervention is diagnostic, not logistical. Before any location question, there’s a prior question: do you actually know what specific skill each student needs to practice? If the answer is no, the model you choose matters less than the data you don’t have.
“Diagnostic assessment is the gateway to being able to group by skill deficit, which is probably the most essential requirement for robust results.”
Once skill-specific diagnostic data is in hand, the rest of the model follows. Homogeneous groups let the teacher deliver explicit instruction aimed at exactly that skill. When a student makes an error, the feedback is clear, immediate, and relevant to every other student in the group — one of the small-group instructional practices recommended in the IES Practice Guide on literacy instruction for English learners (Gersten et al., 2007).
Walk-to-intervention isn’t what makes targeted instruction possible. But it’s what makes targeted instruction feasible at scale across a grade level — which is why it’s worth a second look.
Targeted Instruction
Because every student in a walk-to-intervention group shares the same skill gap, a teacher can spend the whole block on that skill rather than cycling through three different needs. The Hall & Burns (2018) finding shows up directly here: the programs that targeted a specific skill produced meaningfully larger effects than those that covered reading broadly.
Higher effect size for small-group reading programs that targeted a specific skill compared to broader reading instruction (Hall & Burns, 2018).
Once you’ve used diagnostic assessment to determine exactly what skills and subskills each student needs (Hall, 2018), you know what explicit instruction to deliver. And when a student in a focused skill group makes an error, the feedback is meaningful for every student in the room — because they’re all working on the same thing.
Flexible and Dynamic
Every group has a dedicated adult, and curriculum materials can be distributed to match the specific skill being targeted. Teachers share tools and instructional strategies; paraprofessionals are in the room leading groups, not in the hallway. This kind of team-based structure also builds what researchers call collective teacher efficacy — the shared belief among educators that together they can move student outcomes. Donohoo, Hattie, and Eells (2018) identify it as one of the strongest predictors of student achievement in the research literature. Depending on the grade level, teams can also plan independent or child-led activities for skill practice between check-ins and group lessons.
“Too frequently the teachers’ paradigm is that they send students out of their class for intervention. Somebody else teaches ‘those kids.'” — Susan Hall (2018). Walk-to-intervention inverts that paradigm. Every teacher is a small-group instructor during the block, and every student is in a small group.
When the whole grade is in skill groups at once, regrouping is operationally cheap. Teams can move students into different groups every few weeks as skills improve — a flexibility that matters especially in the wake of pandemic-related learning gaps, where many students need to move quickly onto grade-level work with scaffolded support. An added benefit: struggling readers are less likely to feel singled out, because every student in the grade is attending a small group at the same time.
How to Launch Walk-to-Intervention at Your School
Once you’ve made the case to your team and administration, a few logistics matter more than others. Protect at least 30 minutes of daily intervention time in homogeneous groups — the threshold most research-based programs assume. Include paraprofessionals, aides, and reading specialists in any professional development on new intervention materials, both to build their capacity and to secure buy-in. Meet regularly as a grade-level team to analyze diagnostic data and regroup students. Skill groups that stay static for a whole year are a sign the model isn’t actually flexing to student progress.
The larger shift, though, is cultural. Walk-to-intervention asks every teacher at a grade level to own every student’s progress, not just their own roster’s. That’s a meaningful change from the model Susan Hall describes, where “somebody else teaches those kids.” When it works, it works because the whole team has decided that targeted instruction — not classroom boundaries — is the organizing principle.
Want to Know if Your Intervention Works?
LXD Research partners with curriculum publishers and edtech companies to measure the impact of literacy interventions and generate evidence that meets ESSA and state-level standards.
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Set Up a Meeting- Donohoo, J., Hattie, J., & Eells, R. (2018). The power of collective efficacy. Educational Leadership, 75(6), 40–44.
- Gersten, R., Baker, S. K., Shanahan, T., Linan-Thompson, S., Collins, P., & Scarcella, R. (2007). Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades. IES Practice Guide. NCEE 2007-4011. What Works Clearinghouse.
- Hall, S. L. (2018). 10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention: Getting Results with MTSS in Elementary Schools. ASCD.
- Hall, M. S., & Burns, M. K. (2018). Meta-analysis of targeted small-group reading interventions. Journal of School Psychology, 66, 54–66.