Rationale Standard 8: Instructional Strategies

Reading Comprehension Distance Learning Packet

Introduction to Standard 8:
• “The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to
encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their
connections, and to build skills to access and appropriately apply information.”
o In other words, the educator knows a variety of strategies to instruct each
of the content areas based on the learning styles of the students. The
educator uses this wide array of activities and experiences to make
content meaningful for students.
• Indicator 8(s)
o “Values flexibility and reciprocity in the teaching process as necessary for
adapting instruction to student responses, ideas, and needs.”

Introduction of the Artifact:

• Reading Comprehension Distance Learning Packet
o The need to develop and compile remote learning activities for our
students came very quickly. Our biggest goal in planning activities to
send home was providing activities that engage the student in skills they
have been working on that we want them to retain. Distance learning,
especially when it is occurring through paper packets, did not feel like the
time to teach students new content. One skill we work on frequently in
first grade is reading comprehension. Just because a student can read the
words in front of them doesn’t necessarily mean they understand the
words and/or the bigger picture. Comprehension really starts to bloom
for some students mid-first grade. As a team, we felt it was extremely
important that students were engaging in comprehension activities daily.
We found a variety of leveled reading passages with different styled
questions to send home for daily practice in all of the remote learning
packets we sent home.

Rationale:
Comprehension is an extremely important skill for young students to develop.
By deepening their ability to comprehend text they read, students have
opportunities to grow in all other content areas. That is why the first grade team
recognized an importance in sending home comprehension practice in distance
learning packets. Was sending home worksheet style passages with questions
necessarily our ideal instructional strategy? Definitely not. But, as indicator 8(s)
suggests, it was important during this time of uncertainty that we as educators
were flexible in our instructional decision making by providing work that met
our students’ academic needs but that students could also receive support in
from their families. By sending home passages with explicit questions, families
were able to assist their child more directly than if we asked families to ask their
child questions about the books they were reading as we do in the classroom
(especially during guided reading small groups). While our preferred
instructional strategy for teaching reading comprehension in the classroom is
asking for natural summarizations and asking questions based on what the
students do and don’t summarize, this was not practical to send home and
expect of our students’ families. With these comprehension packets, there is
direct skill practice for students to engage in regularly.