Reading Rescue (Reading Rescue), a research and evidence‐based programme for struggling readers (Ehri et al., 2007; Miles et al., 2018), was developed by an academic in response to the cost and lack of explicit letter, phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in Reading Recovery. Reading Rescue represents a pathway from research to practice. An academic advisor works closely with the nonacademic partner that trains school staff to deliver the programme in order to maintain alignment of the curriculum with research from the reading science field. In this study, the academic and nonacademic partner evaluated the effectiveness of small‐group delivery of Reading Rescue, which has previously only been evaluated in a one‐to‐one delivery mode. This study therefore provides an illustration of how academics and practitioners can work together to achieve practical outcomes. This study compared the performance of two cohorts (N = 146; 104) of randomly assigned first‐graders who received 50 sessions of Reading Rescue in a one‐to‐one or a small group setting compared with a control group. Results showed that intervention groups outperformed the control group (for most associations, p < .05) and performed similarly to each other (for most associations, p > .05), suggesting the small group protocol is as effective as one‐to‐one, enabling the programme to serve substantially more students. Discussion focuses on the importance of collaboration between academics and practitioners in expanding the reach of evidence‐based programmes. The collaboration in this study serves as a model for how academics, and practitioners can join forces and leverage their expertise to reach more students.