Students of all ages, from high-schoolers in Advanced Placement classes to preschoolers getting the hang of the ABCs, were shifted to remote learning when schools were closed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
A new study by the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington shows that children can develop key reading skills in a virtual classroom. The effectiveness of the approach, as well as the potential to reach larger numbers of students remotely, is demonstrated by the Reading Camp program.
Children are ready to read at a young age. Children were not able to get in-person reading instruction because of the Pandemic. We have shown that an online Reading Camp designed to promote learning socially works well. An online camp can be used all over the world by children, and that is truly exciting, according to the faculty author of the book.
The study, published online March 31 in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, details a two-week reading program for 83 5-year-olds.
Learning to read involves a number of steps, from recognizing sounds in a language to decoding words and their meanings.
The study found that the participants demonstrated learning of specific reading skills when compared to a control group of children who did not receive the instruction.
I-LABS researchers, including study co-author, offered a two-week reading summer camp to teach early literacy skills to pre-kindergarteners and measure brain activity before and after instruction. The in-person Reading Camp was adapted into an online version in the spring of 2020.
Researchers sent a kit of materials to parents, which included headphones, books, toys, and other fun items, for use in the lessons. Children used colored plastic eggs from the kit to vote for the correct answer in their virtual classroom.
Children were grouped into six-person classrooms with two instructors who were trained in the specific skills lessons. Three hours a day were spent with several breaks and short lessons broken up by activities. The classrooms were often broken into smaller, three-student rooms, each with a teacher to focus on the lessons.
Yael Weiss-Zruya, a research scientist at I-, said that this shows that we can teach kids online if we use the correct methodology and keep them engaged.
Children in both the Reading Camp and control groups took several standardized and non-standardized tests to assess their knowledge of letters, sounds and words. The results showed that the Reading Camp participants improved their reading skills more than the children in the control group.
I had doubts about whether 5-year-olds could learn to read online without a live tutor. I was amazed when I saw these 5-year-olds laughing and encouraging each other to listen and hold up the right color egg. Their social connections to each other were obvious. They called each other by name and were very eager to see each other on the screen.
Adding brain scans prior to and after reading camps will be used to evaluate how learning to read affects brain development.
More information: Yael Weiss et al, Can an Online Reading Camp Teach 5-Year-Old Children to Read?, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.793213 Journal information: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Citation: Even in a virtual classroom, preschoolers can gain reading skills (2022, April 11) retrieved 11 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-virtual-classroom-preschoolers-gain-skills.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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