Supporting Literacy Instruction Remotely

By Stephanie Affinito, Ph.D., Clinical Teaching Faculty, Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning, University at Albany; saffinito@albany.edu

Supporting Literacy Instruction Remotely

Educators everywhere are shifting their instruction to online spaces to support their students’ learning remotely during these unprecedented times. While digital and virtual spaces cannot replace connected classroom communities, today’s tools and technologies can invite students into reading, writing, and learning experiences that mitigate the loss of class time due to the Covid-19 closures. We can connect students to digital read-alouds and texts for reading, support daily writing at home, and use world events as a springboard for learning.

Connect Students to Online Texts

Since students will likely have limited access to libraries and bookstores, online and digital tools can easily connect students to hundreds of texts with the touch of the keyboard or swipe of the screen. Here are a few websites to easily connect students with recorded read-alouds and digital texts:

Storyline Online: Storyline Online invites celebrated actors to read children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations to bring animated read alouds directly to your students’ homes.

Get Epic: Epic! is a digital library for readers under twelve years old with 35,000 of the best books, articles and learning videos. Teachers can create collections of books to share with students or students can browse based on their interests.

Unite for Literacy: Unite for Literacy provides digital access to an abundance of early digital books that celebrate languages and cultures and cultivate a lifelong love of reading. It will even narrate those books in multiple languages for an instant listening station at home.

Wonderopolis: Each day, this website poses an intriguing question—the Wonder of the Day®—and explores it in a variety of ways–perfect for piquing students’ curiosity. Paired with short video clips and activities to try at home, this is the perfect site to launch learning at home.

These sites are excellent starting points, but if you are looking for more resources, especially for older readers, take a look at this curated collection of digital texts online.

Support Writing at Home

There is much for students to ponder, question and grapple with as each day brings new information and challenges to tackle. Writing can help students process their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to these world events. Educators, authors, and illustrators are sharing resources designed to help students put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to capture their days of learning, spark new writing, and work through the emotions they may face. Here are a few worth checking out:

• Lunch Doodle: Mo Willems, celebrated children’s author, invites students into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Each day, Mo invites students to draw, doodle, and explore new ways of writing by visiting his virtual studio daily at 1pm EST.
• Courses for Young Writers: Angela Stockman, author of Make Writing, has graciously created online units of study inviting middle and high school writers to write personal narratives based on the daily events of their lives.
• Jarrett Lerner and Josh Funk, children’s authors, each provide resources and ideas to spark writing at home. From comic strips to character cards, they are sure to motivate young writers. Try searching for your favorite author and visit their website. You might be surprised at the resources you find for your young writers!
• A Writer’s Notebook: Ralph Fletcher has the perfect book to spark daily writing while learning from home, but you can still support daily writing without a copy through this hyperdoc instead. It walks students through Fletcher’s (1996) text and offers prompts for students to explore in their notebook. Students can snap a picture of their pages and insert them into the hyperdoc, sharing them with you to build a writing habit from home.

Use World Events as Springboards for Learning

Students are naturally curious, so why not use the actual events of their daily lives to prompt learning? While we may still have content to cover and standards to teach, students are experiencing complex changes in their lives that can drive learning.

Here are a few resources to help students learn about what is going on around the world and how to proceed with their new normal:

• Newsela offers a curated text set to help students understand coronavirus and the impact it has on the world.
• Kelly Gallagher is offering teachers his personal instructional materials to explore the coronavirus with high school students with Penny Kittle. Both are highly respected literacy professionals and authors.
• Scholastic offers multiple resources to teach students about the coronavirus, gathering articles and resources for this hard-to-teach topic chosen by the editors of Scholastic Classroom Magazines.
• The New York Times has curated a collection of resources for educators exploring the coronavirus with their students. You’ll find information, daily reading and writing prompts and more.

Many educators have been called to quickly shift their instruction online with little time and few resources to do so. As we come together to support learning from home, let’s remember what is most important during this challenging time. Let’s invite students to read and write their way through these world events and stay connected to a learning community to not only fuel their minds, but their hearts as well.

NYKids will continue to highlight research and provide practical recommendations to help New York’s children thrive during this national emergency. We also welcome comments and suggestions of topics you would like to read more about at nykids@albany.edu.