Abstract:

The increase of technology has paved the way for new opportunities to integrate technology into literacy instruction. These opportunities could allow teachers and other classroom facilitators to build capacity for knowledge and skills that promotes reading fluency and comprehension. It is important to make learning meaningful and relevant in order to prepare students for an unknown future, closing the literacy gap between students who are reading at grade level and those who are not is a crucial success factor for society as a whole. Making opportunities available for elementary students to comprehend factual information in order to build knowledge construction that will create a desire to be lifelong learners is essential to our educational landscape.

The focus of this paper is to design a framework using Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) that is relevant to students and doable for Elementary Classroom Facilitators (ECF). The presentation will include a logical model that supports knowledge construction in the area of fluency and comprehension to close the literacy gap between students reading at grade level and those who are not. According to the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (ELA CCSS) for literacy development, “Instruction should encompass reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language applicable in a range of subject areas,” (ELA CCSS, 2013, p. 3). Likewise, literacy development, as the ELA CCSS has described, will be at the forefront of this discussion. The discussion will outline a process that begins with the acquisition of Tier 1 and Tier 2 high-frequency (HF) words by way of blended learning. In most cases, blended learning for Elementary Learning Spaces (ELSs) has its inadequacies with regards to measuring the deep learning potential of the model. This process will support the language development for Kindergarten through Second grade (K-2) as described in the ELA CCSS, with the potential to extend the learning in Third through Sixth grade. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) states blended learning, “Combines the best features of traditional schooling with the advantages of online learning to deliver personalized, differentiated instruction across a group of learners,” (iNACOL, 2015, p. 5). Blended learning could also be characterized as a learning model that combines traditional face-to-face classroom learning with online web-based learning.

Blended learning could advance the learning process beyond the K-2 grade levels in order for students to curate multiple resources that have the propensity to increase the cultivation of student-centered learning spaces for grades 3-6. Blended learning is not a new phenomenon to ELSs in order to promote literacy. The core of blended learning in this paper is explicitly intended for classroom facilitators to make connections that will establish salient fluency and comprehension skills in order to make learning an enjoyable experience while deepening the learning process. The impact of reading fluency and comprehension would then increase when elementary students are given access to online Tier 1 and Tier 2 high-frequency (HF) words regularly, for them to be given the opportunity increase reading fluency and ultimately comprehension with fewer language impediments.

Keywords:

Comprehension, fluency, blended learning, high-frequency words, elementary, TPACK, knowledge and skills, literacy.