Reading Lessons in Online Classes

When it comes to reading in classes for your students, it isn’t really going to vary much from having them in person, except for your students having to do reading through certain tools and features on the program you use. You want to focus on having an opening where you encourage your kids to take turns reading as well as have a follow up at the end, for example: a worksheet, specific target vocabulary or list of questions to ask after you read a book. Also, it is important to know if you want your students to do reading outside of the class as well and this mostly depends on their ages. Younger learners focus on reading along with you in class with your help and older learners will mostly be able to read at home by themselves and then have a discussion about the reading during class time. For instance, you could ask older learners to read a newspaper article or to look up an article or book that is related to the current content that is being taught in your classes. Then you would use the class time to discuss what they read or what they learned that was related to the class content and have the students have a group discussion together. 

So, when it comes to reading lessons with students in an online atmosphere remember these main points:

·         The age of your student.

·         The level of your student.

·         If your student will be able to read independently.

·         How much reading needs to be done to be beneficial.

·         How the assigned reading will help you during class time.

·         Whether the reading should be done in or outside of class.

Following these main points is important because you need to know that your reading lessons will actually be of help to your students. If you are assigning a reading book for students at home who cannot fully read on their own without your support, then the next time you have classes you would not get much out of your students in the next class if you planned an activity around the reading. However, if you did the same but tweaked the activity a bit, like having the students look over a book at home and then reviewing it in class to see what familiar words they saw or what they understood in the book, it can take the potential negative and turn it into a positive. The same is with adult learners where if you over assign work, many will not have the time to complete it on their own due to the obligations of most adults.