Teaching Remotely without Being Distant: Implications for Primary Age Students' Learning of Foundational Reading Skills

Abstract

Abstract During the 2020–2021 school year, the COVID‐19 pandemic forced millions of students and teachers into hybrid or fully remote modalities. Compiling the experiences of teachers who taught foundational reading skills to their primary‐age students in a hybrid model (a mix of both remote learners at home, joining via video conferencing, as well as in‐person learners in the classroom), the authors demonstrate the challenges and successes that innovative elementary teachers saw with students' reading. Through observations, interviews, and lesson reviews, key ideas emerged that could make remote instruction more effective in the future. First, teachers who build classroom culture in hybrid spaces must do so with the same amount of intention as they would in physical spaces. Second, the purposeful design of synchronous and asynchronous instructions has the potential to affect student learning in a positive manner. And, finally, the instructional strategies teachers use to introduce and reinforce foundational reading skills led to success.