When it comes to improving young people’s literacy and reading for pleasure, there can be a sense that the goal is to get them away from screens and into the library with good, old-fashioned paper-based books. But this overlooks the myriad benefits that edtech can bring to the process.
“Tech is the ally of the teacher,” says reading development consultant Ian Turner. “In that library session, where you have a class with a range of 10 years between abilities within the same age group, it’s very, very difficult to differentiate for that.”
In fact, he continues, the image of a class of young people all silently reading and concentrating on books can mask a huge variety of reading issues that may not be picked up with traditional methods.
“It’s very difficult to diagnose or recognise what the issue is when it’s silent reading. It’s invisible because you don’t know what is happening in relation to the words on the page and the person who’s reading that text.”
But, he says, smart technology that tracks and reports on students’ progress with a text can revolutionise the process, offering a wealth of “actionable data to inform what happens in other parts of the classroom” around comprehension and challenges that may prevent young people from enjoying reading.
Listen to the full conversation via the Tes podcast:
E-readers and online libraries also played a critical role in young people’s literacy during lockdown, explains Rachel Revell, associate principal at Oasis Academy Wintringham and senior national curriculum lead at Oasis Community Learning.
“We really had to think on our feet. We’ve worked hard over a number of years to establish a physical library that was really well stocked,” she recalls. “We’re incredibly lucky; we have a great librarian who is so passionate about children’s literature. Then, when lockdown happened, suddenly we didn’t have that resource.
“We found ourselves having to look at alternatives and that’s how we got into the notion of using online books and having e-libraries. It was really clear to us that if we hadn’t had that electronic resource, then our children would have stopped reading because they need something that’s going to guide them.”
Turner agrees. “We’ve found that in schools that didn’t have something in place in terms of an online reading programme, the pupils have returned with wider fluency gaps or comprehension gaps than before,” he says. “Whereas the schools that had something in place haven’t had such a noticeable catch-up requirement. Good reading edtech provided teachers with the ability to monitor what was happening with that pupil’s reading from their own home, or from the classroom, because it was instantaneously there for them to have a look at.”
For schools that are considering making the move towards using edtech for improving reading, it’s important to ask the right questions, Turner explains.
“First, it’s understanding what your reading culture is in the school,” he says, “whether it’s a kind of a token slogan of ‘We love to read’, or whether there is a genuine want, a desire, a love of reading with every single child. And if there’s not, what is the thing that’s holding them back?
“It’s understanding what the problem is and the scale of the problem, and then considering what that solution is. Do you have people who read too quickly and then struggle to demonstrate the understanding of what they’ve read? Or do you have children who have got very good understanding but [in terms of] the physical act of reading, it’s awkward and laboured? Rather than looking for the programme that has the solution, it’s better to know what the solution is and find the programme.”
In this podcast, sponsored by Reading Solutions, Turner and Revell go on to explore how edtech can overcome common barriers around reading for pleasure, how it can personalise the learning process and why a blended approach works best for young people.
This podcast is sponsored by Reading Solutions UK, the home of Reading Plus. Aimed at KS2 and above, Reading Plus is an evidence-based adaptive online reading programme that supports students by developing fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and metacognition - the skills they need to read well and confidently. Learn more by visiting www.readingsolutionsuk.co.uk.
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