{"id":3268,"date":"2022-08-01T13:24:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T18:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.graduateprogram.org\/concordia-chicago\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2022-08-01T13:25:32","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T18:25:32","slug":"how-instructional-strategies-for-reading-changed-due-to-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.graduateprogram.org\/concordia-chicago\/2022\/08\/01\/how-instructional-strategies-for-reading-changed-due-to-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"How Instructional Strategies for Reading Changed Due to COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"

How has Reading Instruction been impacted?<\/h2>\n

For educators everywhere, the COVID-19 global pandemic brought significant negative impacts to student and teacher attendance, student engagement and participation, physical and mental wellness, and thus the instructional strategies teachers would need to employ to promote academic growth.<\/p>\n

Attendance plummeted as students and teachers alike battled personal and family illness, quarantine, and a stunted ability to interact in social settings due to roughly 14 months of isolation. As remote and hybrid instruction required academic participation in settings that for many were usually deemed as play and relaxation zones, despite encouragement and incentives, student engagement waned. Despite pulling out all best practices, the teachers\u2019 need to modify and differentiate instructional strategies to meet the increasingly varied needs of students became much more critical.<\/p>\n

Although teachers of all content areas faced these challenges, this deficit was most apparent for teachers of reading and literacy. According to The New York Times<\/a>, it showed that, on average, students were roughly four months behind in reading by the end of the last school year.<\/p>\n

Unlike some disciplines where skills may not necessarily need to be built upon, reading is developmental meaning certain fundamental skills must be learned for students to master more sophisticated ones and employ strategies for successful reading and comprehension.<\/p>\n

Changes to Reading Instructional Strategies Since COVID<\/h2>\n

As a result, teachers were compelled to implement specific changes to instructional strategies for reading in response to pandemic-created issues to ensure student growth.<\/p>\n

Learning Loss<\/h3>\n

For an entire calendar year and roughly three school years, virtual, hybrid, or remote learning necessitated by positive COVID-19 virus cases or close contacts, significantly impacted what reading educators could teach, how, and to what extent. For perspective, a current ninth-grade student\u2019s last traditional year of school was as sixth graders.<\/p>\n

This contributed to a significant loss in learning. As a result, teachers saw a wider diversity in student knowledge of critical skills, maturity levels, and motivation for learning, which all required more creativity and intentionality in reading instruction.<\/p>\n

Although administering diagnostics to assess students\u2019 needs has always been a best practice, this instructional strategy has become a necessary one. Determining students\u2019 specific needs allows for appropriate grouping and enables teachers to focus on the fundamental skills students lack that would hinder the mastery of other skills. Diagnostics also allow for the continued use of guided reading groups that enable teachers to move students at their own developmental pace by explicitly teaching the critical skills they have not yet mastered.<\/p>\n

For many teachers, this also meant:<\/p>\n