How to Run Online Literacy Intervention - Quick Tips

Hey Everyone!

Hopefully, you’re all well. We know these times are WILD with all caps. But we truly believe this is an opportunity for such massive growth and learning. In this opportunity to step entirely out of our comfort zone,

in a time where everyone is so far out of their own comfort zone …

you’ve been granted a TON of extra grace.

Not that you should ever feel that you need to be granted grace, just take it. You deserve to give it to yourself. Let’s just keep that in the forefront of our minds as we chart these new territories.

We know as the school year starts back up here in the States everyone is feeling that pressure to have things ready, to make sure their online instruction is top-tier.

Here’s the secret, it’s not going to be top-tier.

And that’s okay.

It’s not supposed to be perfect. You’re not supposed to be perfect.

Let’s all just agree to be imperfect together, to take action, to do it messy. To completely suck at this. And then let’s all agree that with continued imperfect action we’re going to get better at this.

So we asked our Intervention Insiders Community to give us feedback on what’s up with online intervention. And we received some really awesome questions. So we wanted to take this week to dive in and answer some of those questions.

Question 1 - My students cannot manipulate digital pieces on my slides. What do I do?!

Our Thought - Do they have to manipulate all the pieces? What if you manipulated movable pieces for your students who are unable to move the pieces on their own because of fine motor control issues, computer issues, etc? You can still make your learning really engaging by incorporating some physical materials into your intervention! Last week we shared some of our favorites that you can check out here. But basically, a whiteboard and some fun markers can go a LONG way. Add some colored magnets for phonological awareness and you’re good to go. This is where flexibility and creativity can take you to the moon. This is where asking your students for their ideas can 100% surprise you with an idea better than you would have ever come up with on your own.

Question 2 - Do I need extra movable pieces and extra slides, or do I need to delete some of the pieces that don’t fit into what I’m looking for?

Our Thought - YES! Now more than ever, it’s time to be really flexible in our instruction. Any resources you are using you SHOULD adapt to your students’ needs and your situation. If you know us, you know that we are NOT a fan of the F-WORD …you know, fidelity.

And so if resources aren’t matching exactly what you need. You should be adapting them. Now, depending on your training this can feel scary - but it’s an absolute must. You can always click “Insert Slide” you can delete slides, and you can reorder slides. You can add new digital pieces (so many great ones on TPT - just Search Movable Pieces).

This student - LOVES dogs so we played Connect 4 with the review game using dog movable pieces.

You can also copy and paste tiles or movable pieces to create more movable pieces or more alphabet letters! Check out this week’s video (below) where we walk through this!

Question 3 - I can’t figure out how to run groups online. Help!

Our Thought - Just the way you run groups in person ;) Haha, just kidding. Kind of. Essentially we suggest running a full-group mini-lesson where you introduce the concept you will be teaching, provide examples using digital slides that you’re screen sharing for your students, then have them work on their OWN slides. A FANTASTIC option for this is Google Classroom. We go into this and how to set it up in more detail in this week’s video, so go check that out! By using Google Classroom you can run your online groups LIVE or you can run them asynchronously (recording the video ahead of time and having students watch on their time).

Okay - hopefully, that helps a little. But really, the biggest tip -

Be okay with being a beginner. Be okay with messing up. Be okay with starting where you are.

We’re all in this together. Check out this week’s video for a run-through of these tips!

For more tips and tricks that will make your intervention EVEN more effective, check out our FREE workshop: How to Create Systematic, SOR-Aligned Lesson Plans. This workshop will help you determine what actually needs to be included in a Science of Reading-based lesson, how to build a lesson plan based on the Science of Reading, and how to optimize your lesson plans. Plus, we’ll share our lesson planning guides!