Can an Online Reading Camp Teach 5-Year-Old Children to Read?

Abstract

Literacy is an essential skill. Learning to read is a requirement for becoming a self-providing human being. However, while spoken language is acquired naturally with exposure to language without explicit instruction, reading and writing need to be taught explicitly. Decades of research have shown that well-structured teaching of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-to-sound mapping is crucial in building solid foundations for the acquisition of reading. During the COVID-19 pandemic, children worldwide did not have access to consistent and structured teaching and are, as a consequence, predicted to be behind in the development of their reading skills. Subsequent evidence confirms this prediction. With the best evidence-based practice in mind, we developed an online version of a well-structured early literacy training program (Reading Camp) for 5-year-old children. This 2-week online Reading Camp program is designed for pre-K children. It incorporates critical components of the fundamental skills essential to learning to read and is taught online in an interactive, multi-sensory, and peer-learning environment. We measure the participants’ literacy skills and other related skills before and after participating in the online Reading Camp and compare the results to no-treatment controls. Results show that children who participated in the online Reading Camp improved significantly on all parameters in relation to controls. Our results demonstrate that a well-structured evidence-based reading instruction program, even if online and short-term, benefits 5-year-old children in learning to read. With the potential to scale up this online program, the evidence presented here, alongside previous evidence for the efficacy of the in-person program, indicates that the online Reading Camp program is effective and can be used to tackle a variety of questions regarding structural and functional plasticity in the early stages of reading acquisition.

Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development

“…Exclusion criteria included: (1) Any brain injury and medications that impact cognition; (2) Intellectual disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder, mood disorders, and other disorders that impact cognition; (3) Significant and permanent hearing impairments. After the initial screening process, 53 eligible participants were invited to take part in the follow-up study at I-LABS when they were 5-years-old ( Weiss et al, 2022 ). Among the 53 participants who participated in the follow-up study at the age of 5 years, a smaller group also completed brain imaging data collection at 26 months ( N = 20, 12 females, M = 27.34 months, SD = 0.73).…”

“…All 53 eligible participants’ families completed an online parental questionnaire that included questions regarding children’s health and development history, language learning history, family history of dyslexia and reading difficulties, parental education, and socio-economic status (SES). Participants’ reading and related skills at the age of 5-years were measured with the following standardized and non-standardized tests that were adapted to online administration by uploading the stimuli to PowerPoint presentations and presented to the participants during online sessions via Zoom ( Weiss et al, 2022 ). The online administration of these tests was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was not possible to meet with participants in person.…”

“…Online tests were only used to assess participant’s relative performance level, and not as the basis for any kind of formal diagnosis. All participants went through the same procedures, which are also reported in a previous publication ( Weiss et al, 2022 ).…”

The Effect of Digital Game-Based and Different Education Programs on Phonological Awareness Skills of 60-72 Months-Old Children

“…In a study conducted by Jadán-Guerrero et al (2020), using both natural materials and a digital program with children aged 5-6 who had phonological awareness issues, it was concluded that the applied program had a positive impact on the development of children's phonological awareness skills. Weiss et al (2022) prepared an online reading camp education program for five-year-old children. The research included five-year-old children from the experimental group, who participated in the online reading camp program, and the control group, who did not receive the education.…”

“…Using digital games in the educational process; critical thinking, problem-solving, knowledge construction (Moyer et al, 2002), using digital games in the educational process; critical thinking, problem-solving, knowledge construction (Moyer et al, 2002), matching, classifying, sorting, counting and coding (Pila et al, 2019;Stephen & Plowman, 2014), cognitive skills such as discovery, creativity, as well as acting autonomously, cooperation, intrinsic motivation (Arnott, 2013;Ferrari & Addessi, 2014;Lennon et al, 2022;McClarty et al, 2012;Ryan et al, 2006;Xiong et al, 2022), it also supports phonological awareness skills, one of the early literacy skills, as well as social skills such as. Studies conducted using digital games have shown contributions to the development of subdimensions of phonological awareness, such as syllable awareness, segmentation of words into syllables (Da Silva et al, 2022;Elimelech & Aram, 2020), syllable merging, syllable deletion from words (Amorim et al, 2020), rhyme detection, and rhyme matching (Goffredo et al, 2016;Puolakanaho et al, 2003;Van Goch et al, 2017), initial sound identification, matching words with the same initial sounds, sound deletion from words, blending sounds and syllables (Arnold et al, 2021;Cameron, 2023;Li et al, 2020;Sá et al, 2022), word segmentation into sounds, and letter knowledge (Kartal & Terziyan, 2016), as well as coding skills (Weiss et al, 2022).…”