Remote Learning Resources
Bringing the Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy to life from a distance!
This page provides tools that are ready to use for teachers, administrators and coaches as they focus on research-supported instructional techniques in a remote setting.
Small Group Literacy Instruction at a Distance with Dr. Nell Duke
In this video, Dr. Nell K. Duke discusses how to provide small group literacy instruction for young children using a videoconferencing platform (Zoom). She walks through a phonics lesson focused on oi and then, more briefly, a lesson that builds knowledge about food chains and flow diagrams. The video concludes with reflections from four instructional coaches and a few final words from Dr. Duke.
Word Work at Distance with Dr. Nell Duke
In this video, Dr. Nell K. Duke discusses how to provide phonological awareness, phonics, interactive writing, and vocabulary instruction for young children at a distance. She focuses mainly on tools available free through Google. Dr. Duke includes slides, demonstrations without children, and two demonstrations with children (one of interactive writing and one of vocabulary instruction). The slides, which are not meant to stand alone but rather to be downloaded after viewing the presentation, are available for your use.
How to do a Shared Reading with Print References with Dr. Mesmer
From Dr. Heidi Anne Mesmer, Virginia Tech University. Shared Reading is a practice for demonstrating how literacy works with emergent learners. This is a time for teachers to use Big Books or virtual projectables to demonstrate common print concepts (e.g., directionality, concept of word) and get the “help” from pre readers as they apply their burgeoning alphabetic knowledge. In this video she demonstrates how to do a shared reading with print referencing for preschool children.
Remote Vocabulary Instruction with Dr. Wright
Young children love to learn and use new words; the key is to tap into their natural curiosity and excitement. Dr. Tanya Wright shows you how to create opportunities for children to think about and use words in meaningful contexts during read aloud, content-area learning, reading instruction, and writing instruction—all day long! Classroom videos of teachers and children learning about words bring the ideas to life, and a friendly "What We Know" feature highlights important research that informs the practice.
A Teacher’s Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day by Dr. Tanya Wright
Supporting Summer Learning, Pandemic or Not
The Michigan Department of Education, with the contributions from Michigan educators at every level, has created a guidance document for educators.
Supporting Summer Learning, Pandemic or Not provides a framework for local leaders and teachers to plan and implement summer learning programs and opportunities for all students and their families. It is designed to be a companion document to the Learning at a Distance Guidance document released by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) in April. The content reflects research-based best practices for summer learning aimed at mitigating potential learning loss. The document includes one major academic section to address literacy and mathematics at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and multiple ancillary sections to support other aspects of summer learning and programming.
Access to full document here: