COVID-19: Identifying Effective Remote Literacy Teaching Methods for Primary-aged Children, 2020-2021

A total of 212 8-12-year old English-educated children took part. 106 children received online one-to-one teaching in two 4-week cycles of live delivery (synchronous) vs. offline task-discussion delivery (asynchronous) over the course of the summer term. Within each cycle, each child received 2 hours of tuition per week in either synchronous or asynchronous delivery (53 children initially follow synchronous, 53 initially follow asynchronous; rotated for the second cycle). Synchronous delivery entails live interaction between the pupil and the teacher; asynchronous entails offline work by the pupil which is then discussed by pupil and teacher. Lesson content followed the structure and content of seminal intervention research studies targeting word-level literacy skills. Parity of the content and structure was ensured across Cycle 1 and 2 methods. Each lesson comprised several short-activities, tailored in part to each child’s individual needs, based on pre-test assessments. Teaching was conducted by teachers from the Miles Dyslexia Centre. All participating teachers received programme delivery training online by the investigators and project partners. We tracked literacy and language skills throughout the project using a battery of standardised measures, which were administered T1 (prior to the programme), T2 (midway through the programme) and T3 (at the end of the programme). We also collected key demographic data on all children.

COVID-19 has restructured daily life, and made normal education delivery currently impossible. It is imperative that this generation of children do not suffer long-term effects on their education, with likely personal, societal, and economic impact. Our aim is to quickly identify effective online delivery of literacy education to primary- age children. Literacy is key to educational success, yet many established teaching methods have not been designed for, nor applied remotely. In our study, children with a range of literacy abilities received remote literacy instruction. Each child received live feedback/discussion from the teacher ('synchronous') and independent work on tasks ('asynchronous'), rotated across two four-week teaching cycles. We measure the degree to which these methods improve literacy outcomes for all children, across the full spectrum of ability, compared with children not currently receiving structured formal instruction. Our study will elucidate the impacts of school closure on primary-age literacy. It may also be used to support widespread use of online teaching resources as a cost-effective supplement to classroom teaching, and will estimate the educational cost of school absences. To obtain a free account please register with the UKDA.