I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. If you are not able to get paper books to students, there are several solid resources for digital texts: Some public libraries also have a way to access e-books, if you have a library card and device to read them with. Click here to see a detailed post with more specific tips about teaching a reading lesson with digital task cards (or other short passages). All day long, students are asked to share their thinking about a text (interactive read aloud, shared reading, etc.) One way I have been able to include all students is with hand gestures. Learn how … For the longer passage, you would use the same strategies as Days 1-2 (teacher modeling and digital alternatives to “Turn and Talk” to engage your students in the reading and in learning the skill). Finally, remember to start with relationship building – and keep that central to all of your work with these little ones. Use foam phonics dice to create words with your first graders or pull out letter magnets to use when you’re teaching sounds. Determine an appropriate length of time for your students, based on. How do you make these strategies collaborative? In this post, I want to share some of the principles and practices for teaching whole-class novels that I’ve developed and that help me translate my belief into action. A Vermilion Parish teacher has taken on the monumental task of teaching 4-year-olds virtually, and she says it's working for them. Teaching guided reading remotely starts with finding leveled digital books to share with parents. The basis of teaching remains the same - content, pedagogy, and assessment. It’s a noble goal and I pursued it with all my heart, but I soon encountered a big, classroom-sized obstacle. I teach reading from a skill-based approach using a variety of mentor texts, read-alouds, and engaging passages written specifically to target the skill. Therefore, my initial focus will be replicating other pieces of literacy instruction in a virtual format. Teaching reading virtually can make that even more challenging. And I felt a huge amount of guilt, because my kids weren’t learning like they would in the classroom. Start by partnering with your school to determine a plan (I personally prefer paper books for beginning readers and will work hard to get those to my students if at all possible.). It’s much easier to teach a live lesson than to record it and upload it. Build Community In A Virtual Setting . So, I experimented with some different ideas for the last six weeks of school, before hanging up my distance teaching hat for a while. This is a great chance to bring in off-tech assignments, so not everything is virtual and the students are getting that paper-to-pencil practice. Deliver Assessments Virtually. Although she teaches 5th grade, her suggestions can be used or adapted for younger learners. Teaching Braille Reading Fluency.....Virtually. Create a schedule and send a link to the live … While simply reading texts and going over words in print can work, getting kids more physically involved in reading will get them more excited to learn. Free Accountability Recording Sheets for Google Forms, Free Digital Graphic Organizers for Grades 3-5. Here is a list of a few teacher favorites! Aug 20 To Teach Close Reading: Characterization [S1 E22] Amanda Cardenas. I soon realized that I needed to change what I was doing. You can do this via screen share in a live video meeting with your students or through a screencast recording that is uploaded for your students to watch at their own pace. Distance learning may be upon us once again. We’re glad you’re here! Jul 3, 2020 - Distance Learning and teaching guided reading virtually doesn't have to be difficult. If you are recording your lesson and having the students do this at their own pace, you can have stopping points where you have students stop and think about the story and connect it back to the reading skill that you’re teaching. I’m anticipating at least part of the  year will return to distance learning, and therefore I’m planning ahead, in the hopes that I can be more prepared than I was in March. This can support students in their independent reading. Benefits of Teaching Reading in a Virtual Environment . I believe in teaching the READER, not the READING. For Day 3, I would move to instruction with a longer passage to provide rigor and build stamina. However, a turn and talk is a challenging with distance learning reading instruction. Sadly, I don’t have the answers for guided reading during distance learning. This could look like them just retelling the main points of the lesson, or you could even be more specific and give them students questions like, “How do characters, setting, and plot work together for a story?”. This app is also a fun way for students to recommend books to one another (after you model what a book recommendation looks like.) You can schedule Zoom calls or Google Meets with small conference groups. How do you teach kids to read when you are miles and miles away from them? Welcome to the Virtual Teaching Resource Hub of the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI). Virtual teaching can feel like it’s pulling you in a million directions. On one you will share your screen to teach … I have found in teaching, it’s always best to start from what you know. View Bundle. Reading skills for grades 4th through 6th are developed while reading curriculum-required poems, plays, and prose. This post shares one way to structure your weekly digital reading instruction. Not only are students … After a few weeks, I emailed parents and addressed one of those issues: solving words for their child. I do not explicitly teach reading through novels. You’re not the only one navigating online learning, so don’t go it alone—join a group! To grab free digital reading exit slips that are perfect for Day 1 reading instruction, click here. There were days of frustration and tears. Independent reading in distance learning is pretty self-explanatory. Some options for reading stations could be digital task cards, interactive drag-and-drop activities, or just your regular passage practice where you assign them a short passage with questions to respond to. After students turn in an assignment, quickly assess and assign grades. Christina Nosek has also written about how to build and maintain student relationships during this unusual time. This can be done live or you can have a reteaching lesson prepared ahead of time with materials that you know are better suited for their needs (lower level text, scaffolds included, or an audio recording of you modeling and going through the activity with them). 3. Teaching a remote guided reading lesson can be fun! On this post, I break down one way to convert reading instruction into a virtual … This site has tools for reading instruction and intervention with children in the elementary grades. You might also encourage students to bring something to share (show). I’m sorry I don’t have all the answers to this complex situation. Luckily, authors and celebrities are offering a lifeline by hosting virtual storytime on Instagram. However, I am going to speak from my situation – and offer a few adaptations. However, the grade level content i too high. Through the Instagram Live platform, people are reading books that are an entertaining distraction to isolation. I do not need to walk down the hall, or travel to another building to work with a student like I would have to in a brick and … If the skill is a skill that your students are just not ready to be assessed on, I recommend continuing on with your practice. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students. 1 Comment | Filed Under: Digital Resources, Read Alouds, Reading, Reading Centers. How wrong I was…. In order to provide modeling and feedback for students, you may want to be intentional about incorporating some of your phonemic awareness, phonics and word study skills into other literacy contexts, such as shared reading or shared writing. Teachers. Teaching Guided Reading - Virtually! We have developed this site to assist teachers as they explore new ways to teach foundational reading skills using technology. You can use a picture book or a short passage written specifically for the practice of that skill. Use 2 screens (or split screen). Once we had read all of those, we used digital texts from a variety of sources, or books the child had at home. If this is something you want to consider, you might check out this post from Cindy Downend from Lesley University. Teaching reading in 4th and 5th grade can be so rewarding but also challenging. Read more about: Braille. This “classroom” is similar to a traditional classroom of schools and colleges. One way to do this virtually is to introduce the skill with digital posters that serve as anchor charts. Whether you are virtually teaching, or teaching ESL in distance learning, it is important to differentiate for ELLs just as you would in the classroom setting. They were able to use these at home during distance learning. One mistake I made last spring was not communicating with parents about their role in distance learning. As a former special education teacher and administrator, I realize this is no small task! Are you teaching reading virtually and not sure where to even start? Charity Muli is currently our Class One educador. Students could predict events or talk about the book after listening to the first half of the story. With a video, you might try to be even more enthusiastic (and maybe sillier) than normal to keep kids engaged. Consider supplementing your independent reading expectations with some listening to reading options (using apps or YouTube videos), especially with beginning readers. Welcome to the Virtual Teaching Resource Hub of the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI). We’re glad you’re here! Your email address will not be published. If you want the resources show on this post to help you implement these strategies and instructional practices, I have a HUGE (and free) reading resource for reviewing Story Elements that works perfectly for this purpose. The concept of how to teach children to read remotely was not even on my radar a couple of weeks ago. The biggest challenge is getting books in kids’ hands, especially if they have a limited number of books at home. But, with the right strategies and resources, it can be done and done well. You will likely want to make this briefer than it is in your classroom, because it seems hard to pay attention for long chunks of time through a video screen. I spoke with my fellow teachers from the Jay and Rose Phillips Early Childhood Center at the Boulder Jewish Community Center about how to continue to teach the very young, virtually… It is important to select an activity that allows the students to show you what they know about the skill, but in a way that makes them still feel confident and is low-risk for failure. This alternative assignment can be assigned to students separately to complete. These ideas are suggestions and you may/will need to adapt them to make them work for you, but hopefully this will give you a starting point to begin to wrap your head around how to teach reading virtually. This video from Dr. Denise Robinson of Tech Vision shows how braille can be taught virtually. 2. Kindergarten teacher continues to teach virtually while getting chemotherapy for 2nd cancer battle Kelly Klein, a 30-year teaching veteran, is battling ovarian cancer. The student can easily follow along with you and read aloud over the Zoom call. After each lesson, I added a short task on Seesaw that corresponded to the lesson. Parent questionnaires and questions of the day can continue. It’s super easy! I want to share more about schedules, accessing websites and materials, and how to support their child, among other things. Through EPIC you can assign books and monitor student reading time and progress. I assumed the school closure would be short-term, so I only needed a short-term solution. At this point, the students have received instruction on the skill and they practiced it with a read-aloud or a short passage, so most students should be ready to take it a little bit further with a longer passage (or by bringing several elements of the same skill together). Other teaching aids like charts, graphs, or flash cards are also used. Teaching first graders to read is a rewarding task that's very important to their education. Do you need to incorporate both types of learning for your remote reading instruction? You can continue to do many of these things virtually, using class meeting video conferences a few times a week. Choose stories your students would enjoy or introduce a new series that kids might enjoy reading. We’re all willing to help you. Additional Units You May Need to Order: Review the specific units included in the Units of Study Virtual Teaching Resources for each grade level and series and be sure to order any needed freestanding print units that you … You can experiment and make changes as needed, just as you would … You might reach out to your school or district literacy coordinator and see what resources they have access to or are working on getting access to for teachers. You can use the mouse cursor as a guide instead of your finger, pen, or ruler, etc. The sudden school closures lead to a range of emotions for our students, their families, and our teachers. During this time, you can also meet with your small groups again. Each week when we learn our new sight word list, we come up with a motion for each word. Rather than reading about Rome, VR headsets let students be transported to Rome. Best of luck for your school year! As we contemplate this turn of events, many K-2 teachers are left wondering, “How do I teach reading during distance learning?” Find several practical ideas in this post. Students love being given choices, so this will help with accountability and student buy-in. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Saved by Simply Skilled Teaching. That helped significantly (although I still had students with limited engagement, but that’s a different story…) I realize not all schools have this option. You can use the same picture and word cards that you use in school to save time, or create digital versions to use. ... Reading comprehension improves when we take time to connect the new knowledge to existing knowledge. Teaching reading (and writing) to beginning readers is my passion. To allow participation, you might provide students with individual white boards. I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. 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