Article Critique

FEATURE

hen the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread school closures across the globe, teaching remotely became the new normal for educators such as Rebecca Shin, a special education teacher who supports students with reading, writing, and math instruction at Valley Oaks Elementary School in Houston, TX. 

Shin, like countless others, was plunged into the world of distance learning with young children and little warning or time to prepare.

Now, five months after the first round of school closures, Shin yet again finds herself facing challenges, including finding ways to get and maintain the attention of students through a computer screen.

w

The impac t of COVID -19 on early

literacy instruc tion

By Tina Nazerian

THE PANDEMIC

PIVOT

Making the transition Timothy Rasinski, a professor of literacy education at Kent State University in Ohio, says one of the biggest challenges in remote schooling for young learners is the limited opportunities for teachers to interact with students on a personal basis. 

“Especially for beginning readers, they really need to have that focused attention of a teacher directing them to examine words, letters, and sounds,” Rasinski says.

Before the pandemic, Shin’s students had different amounts of weekly in-class support based on their unique needs, and some were pulled out for sessions as well.

To continue in-class support virtually, Shin would privately message individual students during classes. But her main method of remote literacy instruction was through Zoom sessions with groups of three to five students.

38 literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2020 | LITERACY TODAY

She would read books out loud—or have student volunteers do so—while using a program that put the text on screen and highlighted words as someone was reading. 

“Then we’d go over the context— whether it was learning to read a word or doing comprehension questions,” Shin says.

Shin’s approach of having someone read out loud while putting the text on screen is one Rasinski recommends. Teachers, he notes, can block out some time to read to kids over video. He suggests that teachers connect a document camera to Zoom or other video conferencing platforms, or use the “share screen” feature, to make distance literacy learning easier and more effective.

“I think it’s more powerful to put a book undernea th the document camera so the children can actually see the words while you’re reading to them,” Rasinski says. 

Rasinski also brings up the social aspect of literacy learning. In a classroom, lots of learning happens alongside other children. To help mimic that, he suggests choral reading, where kids read out loud with other kids or with the teacher. 

“That’s been found to be a great way of developing sight vocabulary and reading fluency,” Rasinski says.

For phonics and decoding instruction, Heidi Anne Mesmer, a literacy researcher at Virginia Tech, recommends teachers have students write on dry-erase boards (or use magnetic letters if possible) and hold them right up to the camera. Dry-erase boards are easy for young children to use, Mesmer says, noting that they don’t require the manipulations and fine motor skills devices like touchpads do.

When it comes to writing instruction, Rasinski points to the power of journaling. He says teachers

and students can have dialogue journals, becoming pen pals and writing back and forth to each other about various issues. Within their journal entries, teachers could include content they want to convey, such as information about various forms of writing.

“This could easily be done in a remote learning environment via email or other messaging systems,” Rasinski says.

Mesmer says Google Docs is another option for writing instruction, allowing real-time collaboration and feedback. 

Coordinating with caregivers  During the pandemic, Patty DeWitt, who taught first grade at Kernersville Elementary School in North Carolina, made sure parents, families, and caregivers knew they could call and text her. Even so, she did have one student

LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2020 | literacyworldwide.org 39

who, despite repeated contact, never made it online. 

“I would talk to that mom, and she would say, ‘We’re trying,’ but that’s a whole different home situation,” says DeWitt, who has since retired because of the pandemic but hopes to eventually return to teaching.

Valentina Gonzalez, an educational consultant who previously served as a professional development specialist for English learners at a Texas school district, points out that not every child is in a situation where their caregiver can give them the necessary attention for at-home learning.

“We have to be sensitive to that and we have to be flexible with it—by knowing what our families are going through and how we can support them,” Gonzalez says.

She says instructors should consider making lessons short and simple for younger students.

“Taking a less-is-more approach will help learners go deeper into instruction rather than educators just trying to get through it all but not really making an impact on student growth,” Gonzalez explains. That approach, she adds, is essential for young learners who don’t have relatives at home who can help them with schoolwork.

Teachers can also consider setting aside blocks of personalized instruction time where they focus on letter–sound relationships or play literacy games. She notes that games like charades and Pictionary can be adapted easily to virtual settings. Teachers can even ask students to go on scavenger hunts at home and find items that start with certain letters or sounds.

“Many of these ideas allow students to share a little glimpse into their home lives and cultures too,” Gonzalez says.

Schools should also play a role in keeping caregivers in the loop about literacy instruction, Rasinski says. He recommends the development of schoolwide reading curricula that are then clearly communicated to families.

“There’s no reason why the schools could not make it a more uniform experience,” Rasinski says. “When we get over this, it’ll be nice to know that all children had the same coverage of skills in reading.” 

Some students, Gonzalez notes, may be English learners and live in a household where English isn’t spoken. She recommends that teachers reach out

to caregivers in their primary language whenever possible and also make sure the students have access to books in their primary language.

“Early literacy is not just about English literacy,” Gonzalez says. “It’s about literacy in any language, because we could always transfer that literacy.” 

Addressing trauma  Students learning remotely during a pandemic can encounter difficult situations at home or on the news.

Caryn Henning, managing director of content development and program design at the Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI), which has been working with districts, schools, and educators to navigate remote learning during the pandemic, advises educators to place trauma-informed practices and instruction at the forefront.

“Culture and care are the foundation of all literacy learning,” she says, explaining that children need safe and predictable classrooms and spaces to try out new skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, as well as caring communities that encourage cooperation, independence, and “joyful learning.”

Henning says that children operating under stress and trauma can exhibit difficult behavior, including impulsivity, defiance, withdrawal, aggressiveness, and perfectionism. Teachers should look out for these types of behaviors and understand that they are “indicators of stress and trauma, and not choice.”

Then, teachers need to build strategies for supporting children. Henning says that to proactively address trauma, teachers can keep watch for triggers, which can include sensory overload, unpredictability, confrontation, vulnerability, and frustration.

“In our current climate, we can operate from the idea that all children are experiencing stress and approach our interactions with care and concern,” Henning explains. “We can work to avoid these triggers by not accusing children of not doing their work or forcing them to explain why their participation may not be what we hope.”

Kenyatta Patterson, a CLI literacy coach and former classroom teacher, supported educators at a Philadelphia, PA, elementary school throughout the

spring. She saw teachers allow students to speak up about their emotions.  

“I think just giving the children that outlet to talk to someone outside of their home and express how they felt really helped,” Patterson says. 

Increasing accessibility Talking about online learning is difficult, Mesmer points out, without acknowledging that many students do not have consistent or even minimal internet access.

Typical alternatives, such as accessing public Wi-Fi from libraries and coffee shops, may not be available during the pandemic, Mesmer says. 

Ensuring students have access to books is important, as is changing reading materials at least once a week. In lieu of connecting online, teachers, she suggests, should touch base with their students over the phone about what they are reading to check for comprehension.

For writing instruction without internet access, Henning also points to phone calls as a stand-in. She says that putting together thoughts and ideas is an important step in writing, and teachers and students can have those discussions over the phone. If possible, caregivers can use their smartphones to take photos of students’ writing and then text or email them to teachers, Henning says, so the teacher can discuss individual words and sentence structure.  

Another idea? Henning recommends that teachers write their students letters and include preaddressed and stamped envelopes so they can write back.

Getting creative Mesmer points out that virtual learning has made some things possible that wouldn’t have necessarily worked in an in-person setting, such as using dry-erase boards. In a virtual setting, a teacher can see the dry-erase boards of all 20 students at once instead of having to make the rounds in the classroom.

Similarly, wearing masks in the classroom complicates phonics instruction, because showing kids how to make certain sounds in a classroom where faces are covered is not possible. But on camera, masks aren’t a requirement, and teachers can not only demonstrate sounds but also have the

40 literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2020 | LITERACY TODAY

© 2018

ISBN 978-0-87207-379-1

Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION

FREE SHIPPING! literacy worldwide.org/standardsbook 800.336.7323 (U.S. and Canada) | 302.731.1600 (all other countries)

Members

SAVE 20%

Developed by literacy experts across the United States, Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 (Standards 2017) sets forth the criteria for developing and evaluating preparation programs for literacy professionals.

These updated standards focus on the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective educational practice in a specific role and highlight contemporary research and evidence-based practices in curriculum, instruction, assessment, and leadership.

Standards 2017 addresses the following roles: Reading/literacy specialists Literacy coaches

Literacy coordinators/supervisors Classroom teachers (Pre-K–12)

Principals, teacher educators, and literacy partners

lesson available for repeated viewing through archived footage.

Mesmer says that by thinking critically about how different tools match instructional approaches, educators will be able to do “clever things” with these tools—and advance literacy education. 

“The trick is to find that sweet spot of innovation, imagination, tools, and instructional purposes,” she says.

Moving for ward When teachers switched to remote instruction in the spring, they already had established relationships with their students and the parents, families, and caregivers of their students—likely having met face to face on different occasions, such as “Meet the Teacher” nights.

Some schools and classrooms, Mesmer says, are looping—the teachers are following their students into the next grade. But many teachers will get a new batch of students and will have to build those relationships from the ground up.

In Shin’s case, the majority of her students this school year are ones she’s taught in the past. Before the school year

began, Shin and her colleagues either called or video chatted with caregivers to get to know them better. During the fall, Shin wants to prioritize phone conversations as opposed to sending emails back and forth.

“It’s not comfortable always having phone conversations nowadays because we’re so used to text and email, but I think that’s something we’re going to have to be more proactive about,” Shin says.

Mesmer encourages teachers who are teaching fully online to create times when parents, families, and caregivers can connect with them.

And, of course, the difficulty of keeping the attention of young children over video still looms. Shin thinks that’ll be the biggest challenge of virtual schooling this fall.

“A 30-minute Zoom for them is still long, but now with this virtual schooling in the fall, they’re expected to be on basically seven hours a day,” she says.

But, given the current circumstances, Shin thinks remote instruction is the best approach. Kids are resilient, she says, and will succeed if teachers “encourage them, love them, and build relationships with them.”

Mesmer says that no one knows exactly how distance learning will impact the literacy of young students in the long term. What she does know, however, is that she prefers to focus her attention on what can be done.

“As Teddy Roosevelt suggested, ‘Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.’”

Tina Nazerian ([email protected]) is a writer in Houston, TX.

LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2020 | literacyworldwide.org 41

Copyright of Literacy Today (2411-7862) is the property of International Literacy Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.