BLENDED LEARNING AND READING SKILLS

Review of the Literature

Blended Learning and Reading Skills in Elementary

Laura Fonseca

Department of Education, Lamar University

EDLD 5315: Assess Digital Learning Instruction

Dr. Julene Reed

June 27, 2021

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Abstract

Technology is changing and advancing on a day to day of our everyday living. As time

goes on, we tend to relay more and more on technology, and much less on our everyday

traditional methods. For purpose of this literature review we will focus on how technology has

been a powerful positive influence on education. Years back, education only happened when

student and teacher were in the classroom at the same time. Thanks to the advancement of

technology, we can forward that now to online courses, where the teacher and student are not at

same brick and mortar location. As we back track to just a few months ago, when our whole

world, was shaken by pandemic, COVID-19 and some schools had to transition to e-learning

from one day to the next. COVID-19 also created a learning gap for majority of the students.

Staff and most importantly students felt the impact of the need of technology resources in the

campus. Having a classroom set of tablets will also allow teachers to implement rotation model

of blended learning into their daily curriculum. Making the classroom more technology savvy

will have a greater impact for quantity and most importantly quality teaching in the classroom.

Plus, pedagogical approach to reach the differential learning of each student. Blended learning

will allow individually lessons for each student, providing personalized learning will give

teachers the opportunity to target each student and help close the gap of learning. This study

focuses on how station rotation of blended learning can raise the reading comprehension for

individual students.

Definition of Blended Learning:

What is blended learning? “Blended learning is any formal education program in which a

student learns at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over

time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away
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from home” (Horn & Staker, 2015, p.34). There are four major types of models in blending

learning classroom: Rotation, Flex, A La Carte, and Enriched Virtual Model. Different models

of blended learning were studied and evaluated to conduct this literature. Primary resources

from the last ten years were reviewed for purpose of this literature. Implementation of station

rotation model in the classrooms supports the critical thinking and communication practices for

the environment of the interaction between all students in the classroom. One of the purposes of

this implementation is to prepare and generate critical skill thinking students of the 21st century.

The station rotation among different stations does not come as a brand-new innovation to the

classroom. Specially in the elementary classrooms, rotation has been around for a very long time.

From having different learning centers such as creative writing, manipulatives, spelling center,

etc. What station rotation model in blending learning is introducing is the aiding of learning via

online. During this station rotation model, blended learning is taking advantage of the

technology available and using it to reach the pedagogical approach and reach the differential

learning of each student. The teacher can work in smaller groups, making it possible to have a

1:1 personalized instruction with students. Additionally, via this station rotation model the

teacher can monitor achievement daily and possibly accommodate the learning materials for the

students based on those achievements.

Review of the Literature

Every year at the beginning of the school year educators encountered students’ different

academic levels. It is the teacher’s responsibility to make sure the students achieve the grade

level and or surpass their academic level at the end of the school year. The ideal would be to

have a classroom with more personalize studies for each student giving the student a COVA

(choice, ownership, voice, and authentication) for their learning. Blended learning would help
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the educator to help close the gap for the students learning. After reading and doing some

research, came across research done at an urban school for the school year of 2014-2015. “This

study found that students in a Title I school made great progress in a blended learning program

and subsequently demonstrated significant growth on a standardized reading test.” (Prescott,

Bundschuh, Kazakoff, 2018). The action research will focus on how the blended learning station

rotation can in fact enhance the reading levels at an elementary level. Using the appropriate

technology resources the students and teacher can achieve closing the reading gap for students.

Questions in study: What is the correlation between station rotation in blended

learning model and reading instruction?

Station Rotation

Station Rotation is simply that, stations throughout the classroom where students rotate

during a lesson block and work on the assigned stations. In general, there are four stations:

teacher station, practice independently, group/collaborative practice, and technology station. The

time allotted for each station is set according to teacher depending on needs and lesson. During

these stations, the teacher can work in small groups focusing on at risk students while others

work at the other stations. Having small groups allows the educators to deliver their content to

smaller groups versus the entire classroom at once. The station rotation allows the teacher to

work with the low-performing students first while the more independent students start at the

technology station. At the group/collaborative station, students work on teamwork and

leadership skills. As they work together, they can communicate among each other and try to

work out any conflict they may come across. In the independent station, students can have the

opportunity to work on their own creativity and at their own pace. After, all the students have

participated in all stations the teacher can log in to the technology resource and get immediate
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academic results of students’ progress. If you walk into a station rotation classroom, you will see

all students engaged and participating in an activity. As we move forward in education,

educators shall transform the classroom to meet the needs of each student and prepare students

with the 21st century skills.

Programs in Technology

A very important part of blended learning is not just using the technology but how to use

the technology. What kind of programs to use? What programs are most beneficial to each grade

level and provide ample feedback to the educator? Most importantly is what program will the

student be able to use independently while at the technology station? (Macaruso, Wilkes,

Prescott 2020) stated:

As a recent example of a technology-based study, Putman (2017) investigated the

benefits of a popular digital program iStation (https://www.istation.com/Reading) to build

reading skills in kindergarten students. The study compared students who did or did not use

iStation in their classrooms and found that students who used iStation showed higher

performance than non-users on basic reading skills such as letter-sound knowledge.

The iStation online program offers the educators formative assessments, adaptive

curriculum, individualized lessons, and flexible resources for teachers to measure the

advancement and growth of each student, providing accurate result daily of their progress. The

iStation program begins with an assessment to evaluate the student and know what reading level

the student is at. From there the student is guided to different reading stages while student is

making progress. Istation provides individualized lessons based on the data to pair the students

results. At an early stage, such as kindergarten or 1st grade learning the phonemic awareness and

phonics is very crucial. For this reason, it is important to start the blended learning at an early
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age to try and close the reading gap for the students. The program iStation focuses on skill

content areas by level such as Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and

comprehension.

Challenges

As with any changes come challenges. As a school year ends teachers evaluate the

school year to see what worked and what did not work, what can be improved to reach every

student potential. Teachers and administrators must be involved 100% to make the blended

learning station rotation program work and effective. Studies have concluded that many times

the teachers must be well trained for the blended learning to work. Teachers must work hand in

hand with the technology department, as it has been shown that many teachers are not

technology savvy and that makes them afraid of change. Many schools have replaced the

blackboards with smartboards and that already has the teachers at a scare already. Many of these

teachers are not adequately trained for the change in technology. Teachers have so many hats to

wear and adding an additional hat of techs is hard to adjust. For this reason, teachers must have

full support from IT department. Teachers also must be very well familiar with the online

resource to use such as iStation, Clever, MyOn, etc be it the program to use. For the reason in

case the students have questions they may be able to assist and move forward. Having

appropriate development training of the teachers is crucial and a key factor for making the

station rotation a success of the implementation. A final challenge was that internet connection

was not there for many campuses. However, now due to recent global pandemic, COVD-19 the

campus had to invest in the high-speed internet for the connectivity of the students. This has

been improved as the last school year the school has invested in high-speed internet for the

whole school. As students had to be on technology devices.

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Conclusion. As educators it is our goal to reach each students potential and reach their

academic goal. The teachers are doing their best to meet this goal. Blended learning has proven

to show an increase in helping to close the gap. It has the potential to help both the educators

and most importantly the students. As mentioned before many schools are new to blended

learning however, with additional practice it will become a success. We have accomplished

the first step in the blended learning as students are now at a 1:1 device. More challenges will

arise as we move forward but studies also indicates that blended learning has been a success

for increasing reading scores in the elementary.

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References

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READING CLASS. Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi , 18 (2) ,

953-970 . DOI Number 10.17240/aibuefd.2018..-431467

Kim, H. (2014). Effects of using mobile devices in blended learning for English reading

comprehension, Multimedia-Assisted Language Learning, 17(2), 64-85.

Macaruso, P., Walker, A., (2008) The Efficacy of Computer-Assisted Instruction for Advancing

Literacy Skills in Kindergarten Children, Reading Psychology, 29:3, 266-

287, DOI: 10.1080/02702710801982019

Macaruso, P., Wilkes, S. & Prescott, J.E. An investigation of blended learning to support reading

instruction in elementary schools. Education Tech Research Dev 68, 2839–2852 (2020).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09785-2

Prescott, J., Bundschuh, K., Kazaloff, E., Macaruso, P. (2018) Elementary school-wide

implementation of a blended learning program for reading intervention, The Journal of

Educational Research, 111:4,497-506. Doi number 10.1080/00220671.2017.1302914

Royer, R. (2014). Blended Learning: Integrating Reading Strategies and Multimedia Tools  to

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