Many young children in the US are behind in learning how to read, especially after 2+ years of online or hybrid learning during the Covid pandemic. A New York Times article cites to studies showing that “a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic.”
The general disruption of learning caused by various school districts’ on-again and off-again teaching during the pandemic is one cause for this situation. Another primary cause for reduced learning of reading skills, however, is a lack of phonics and phonemics awareness teachers. And the teachers that have the necessary background to teach reading basics are often going to higher-paying jobs like tutoring.
As the pandemic continues into its third year, we can assume that many young students will still be learning online. So, what are some strategies to increase the effectiveness of teaching reading online?
One first grade teacher reflected on which strategies work best for her in person and created analogous systems for her online classroom. In person, the teacher would split the students into small reading groups, and work with students one-on-one as needed to work on specific skills. For online classes, this teacher recommends using two devices (one showing the book being read, and one for personal interaction with the students) to simulate the interactivity of reading together. She also splits her students into smaller reading groups based on reading level. Whiles these small groups are working together online, the teacher makes sure that she works one-on-one with each student each week.
Another in person strategy was sending students home with physical copies of the book they were working on, to encourage additional practice at home. This can still be done with online learning, perhaps providing digital access to books as an alternative to sending home physical books. The teacher also added a more structured approach to reading practice during class and regular comprehension checks. She created opportunities for each student to read out loud daily (she actually kept a checklist to make sure she had heard from each student that day). In addition to reading out loud, the teacher also asked questions to test comprehension. Questions like: What does that word mean? What is the author trying to tell us? What is happening in the story so far?
Education Week cautions against relying blindly on the effectiveness of existing online reading programs. While it may be easy for the teacher to have students complete online reading modules, the online programs will not necessarily identify learning challenges. “Good teachers will also try to identify misunderstandings in real-time. Is the problem that a child doesn’t understand that the letters “s-l-e-d” form the word “sled?” Or is the problem that the child doesn’t understand the concept of a sled?” A University of Michigan professor has developed a series of videos to help teachers provide this student-centric approach to remote instruction of foundational reading skills.
Shifting from teaching reading in person to teaching it online (or in a hybrid format) obviously takes a lot of time and mental energy. Resources are available here, here, and here.
