Flipping Virtual Structured Literacy Intervention

Written by Sandie Barrie Blackley, Speech-Language Pathologist

Published on March 31st, 2020

Teachers have been using Lexercise for Schools to provide online lessons for their struggling readers during the coronavirus pandemic. Many of these teachers have been offering us valuable feedback and telling us what they need in order to reach more students. These conversations have led to some exciting changes in the teacher dashboard and the flexibility with which teachers can use the Lexercise for Schools platform. In the pre-pandemic days, teachers started with a 45-minute lesson. Online student practice followed each lesson. But teachers told us that some students couldn’t be there for the lesson; some had school scheduling difficulties or – especially since the pandemic has closed schools – due to internet connectivity issues. Practice, on the other hand, has been less of a barrier because it can be done at any time or, in a pinch, using a cell phone, connecting with cellular towers rather than cable or fiber internet.With this valuable feedback in mind, we have re-designed the Lexercise for Schools teacher dashboard. Instead of a lesson-first protocol, the changes make it easy for a teacher to begin with a few days of student practice using Lexercise games. The Lexercise interface reports each student’s accuracy so, after a few days, the teacher can see who is mastering the decoding and spelling patterns and who isn’t. The teacher can get a detailed report on every student’s practice to see exactly which words and which concepts are causing difficulty. Then the teacher can schedule an individual or group lesson and/or short concept-focused instruction to explain and provide guided practice with the concept(s).
Illustration: Accuracy report showing a student’s practice-game results
We have actually anticipated this model for some time. Over the last few years, our data have indicated that most struggling students can master decoding and spelling concepts with just the implicit and explicit instruction provided by the practice games platform.Starting with a little practice instead of with a face-to-face lesson is a "flipped classroom" model. Direct instruction is provided after, not before, initial engagement and practice. Over the past decade, research has indicated that a flipped classroom model can be very effective, especially with regard to improving student motivation. (See, for example, Brame, 2013.)Every day, we see teachers responding to the unanticipated demands of becoming instant online teaching experts. We are extremely grateful for the work they are doing, and for the time they have taken to offer feedback on the Lexercise platform. We are excited and pleased to be able to roll out this change quickly in response to their observations and suggestions.Reference: Brame, C., (2013). Flipping the classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/.

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Sandie Barrie Blackley, MA/CCC

Sandie Barrie Blackley, MA/CCC

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Sandie is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, a former university graduate school faculty member, and a co-founder of Lexercise. Sandie has been past president of the North Carolina Speech, Hearing & Language Association and has received two clinical awards, the Public Service Award and the Clinical Services Award. She served two terms on the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists.

As a faculty member at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Sandie developed and taught structured literacy courses, supervised practicum for speech-language pathology graduate students, and coordinated a federally funded personnel preparation grant. In 2009, Sandie and her business partner, Chad Myers co-founded Mind InFormation, Inc./ Lexercise to provide accessible and scalable structured literacy services for students across the English-speaking world.