Reading In A Time of Covid

How The Reading Gap Became A Grand Canyon in Lockdown.

Some reflections on how poor readers have faired with distance learning.

 

In his excellent book, ‘Closing The Reading Gap’, Alex Quigley explores the impact that weak reading skills have on learning – not just in English, but in every subject. It is very, very good and if you have not already done so, I strongly suggest that you take a look at it. For some students, the “gap” that I knew was there became a gaping chasm under lockdown. I was on one side; the kids were on the other and I was desperately trying to reach them with a piece of rope that I began to realise was a tad short.

 

Not that I hadn’t realised that distance learning would be difficult with my lower school classes: my timetable is made up of small groups (8-12 pupils) with a range of barriers to their learning. Some have speech and communication difficulties, some are diagnosed ASD; there are students with Tourettes syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia, visual dyspraxia, EAL, and mild to moderate learning difficulties. All have weak literacy skills which are a barrier to learning.

 

On the face of it, the work set for our students was appropriate, purposeful, and as well considered as it could be given that we had to produce it in no time flat. I volunteered to write a scheme of work for Year 7 based on a novel by Neil Gaiman which the publishers had made available online as an audio book as well as a pdf.

 

My first concern was that the core material should be accessible to all. In my Y7 group I had two or three boys who I knew were capable of reading the book, some who would enjoy listening while following the text, and some who would just listen. I produced a chapter by chapter glossary to support the acquisition of tier 2 vocabulary and tasks which were accessible on a range of levels.) Every writing task had a planning sheet just like we would have in class.

 

It quickly became clear however that the all my efforts to lift the barriers to learning were for nought because a significant proportion of my classes were not accustomed to following written instructions. Having spent hours thinking through every aspect of the work as clearly as I could, making sure that instructions were clear and tasks as familiar as I could make them, I received my first email. It read:

 

“Mrs I don’t get it”

 

Followed by another

 

“What have I got to do?”

 

I made a lot of phone calls that first week. A short verbal explanation was all it took, and they were happy to complete the tasks I directed them to, although to a much lower standard than they would have achieved in class.

 

It is hardly surprising: the cognitive load involved in reading and understanding instructions was bad enough but without the ability to ask the many questions they would ask in the course of a lesson it became – for some students – overwhelming.

 

When students ask questions about tasks in class they are seeking reinforcement, clarification, or reassurance – often a mix of all three. If, like me and at least one pupil I teach, you have an auditory processing problem then you may well have heard every word but not understood one of them. Now, in order to ask me a question they had to email me – and that posed another barrier. They did not know how to email a teacher.

 

Follow up emails revealed that most of my students in Year 7 and 8 were overwhelmed.

With no time to prepare for Lockdown staff had put together a frankly amazing array of resources to keep students engaged and learning under extremely difficult circumstances, but because we had no common platform or agreed whole school “what work to set in a pandemic” policy document to follow we all did the best we could.

 

One parent described her feelings when going through her Year 8 son’s tasks. They all came in on Monday morning one after another – tink, tink, tink into the in-box. Each one had to be read through to see what website, platform or other resources were involved, what the content was and what form the submission should take. It felt like a tsunami of expectations and she was drowning in it.

 

Another said that his son liked the English work set (Century Learning) because it was in “bitesize chunks” and his son could manage it. In fact, he had managed it so well that he had abandoned all other learning in favour of it. It was reassuring and safe and he got instant feedback which he liked.

 

I phoned a third parent who cried with relief when I reduced the work for her child for English to a single, simple manageable task.

At the heart of many of these difficulties, lay reading.

 

In “Closing The Reading Gap” Quigley talks about the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. The children I was supporting were still very much doing the former. In my classroom, instructions and information come usually in three forms: writing on the board, verbally from me to them and then in some diagrammatic form.

 

Many students were overwhelmed by the sheer number of words on the VLE page I had created. Even though I chunked the text as much as I could and maintained a consistent layout, my students were phased. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I adopted a technological solution and produced a series of Loom videos where I scrolled through the activities, talking as I went in a similar way to the classroom.

 

I got some good feedback on these from a couple of my more independent students. They liked being able to pause and replay. I have no doubt they found some delight in making me sound like Mini Mouse at double speed!

 

My joy at having solved the problem, was somewhat dampened when I discovered that 80% of my students had not watched the helpful video. Why? They had not read the instruction:

 

CLICK HERE for a video explaining the tasks.

 

A lot more phone calls followed, and students now know to look for the Loom!

 

Another really useful tool has been Teams and I have been able to use audio only “lessons” where the student shares their screen so we can work through something challenging together.

 

The first student to benefit from this quickly demonstrated to me why his scores were low on the online learning platform we were using. Rather than reading the questions, he was reading the answers and then assuming what the question was asking. This led to a lot of frustration. In his head he had given a correct answer. And indeed he had – it was the right answer to a different question!

 

The next was happy to go slow, but it quickly became apparent that his decoding skills were not up to the job. He misread “Did” where the question said “do” and ignored punctuation. I am not unfamiliar with the weaknesses in his literacy, but what I had not completely processed was the difference between misreading an word or three in a narrative where his understanding of the genre conventions and patterns of language mean that his substitution makes sense, and misreading a key word in a question.

 

So where am I going next?

 

As distance seems set to continue until September for these children, I will continue with the Looms; meet them once a week on Teams and continue to do as much one-to-one support as I can.

 

The Grand Canyon is still there, but my understanding of the shape and size of it is better, and I think the rope bridge I am building will hold!