Teaching Reading in the Hybrid School
Teaching skill-based subjects in the hybrid model takes continuity and intention.
If you are launching or running a hybrid program for early elementary kids, you are going to have to decide how to teach reading. Like math, this skill-based subject can be a little tough to teach if you don’t have a good plan. Unless you are following a schedule where days are short and parents have time to teach reading all five days at home, you will likely need to cover it in some capacity.
More and more parents are coming to hybrids because they want strong guidance in academics, so many wary homeschoolers will be reassured if you offer reading instruction. I’m always a fan of good, old - fashioned phonics taught systematically! It certainly can be done in the hybrid model, so let’s talk about how.
Require all your parents to use the curriculum your school chooses and uses at home. This is the most seamless method, theoretically!
You can also teach what you can and rely on them to do their part at home, or
You can just reinforce and review.
The most school-led method is obviously the first. You require your parents to purchase (or provide them with) the pieces of the curriculum they will need at home. Then the teacher will pace out the year and divide the school and home work up predictably, communicate it clearly, and parents must follow along. This last part can be the sticky piece! If parents do NOT follow along, students end up working at different paces and it can be quite frustrating for the teacher. If they do follow along (and how successful this is is an admissions, training, culture thing!), it can work beautifully. One curriculum we’ve found has worked pretty well this way is All About Reading. Because it is divided nicely into phonics lesson and then reading practice/worksheet, it is fairly easy to use in the hybrid model. It is also pretty solid as a phonics curriculum. Check it out here. (I would earn a small commission should you purchase).
The second method keeps school days self-contained. The teacher chooses certain topics to teach and both presents and practices those with the students. Work at home is parent-chosen. This method can also work well as long as the pace is realistic and the parents are using a good phonics curriculum as well. This format allows parents to choose what they want to use and can afford, which is appealing to many of them, and also keeps the teacher from having to rely so heavily on parents keeping pace.
Lastly, the teacher can just work on word building and basic skills. The best way to do this is usually to have the teacher work on skills the student should have learned the previous year. A kindergarten may just work on letter recognition, rhyming, etc… This allows the teacher to not be reliant on what the parent does at home (not very much anyway!) and to work with the class where they are at. However, it may not feel like the best use of time and parents who want primary instruction from school might not be thrilled with it.
To ease the tension some, I recommend:
Ask parents in the application process what curriculum they are going to use for reading or if they will use the school’s recommendation.
Choose something solid for your teachers to work off of! A systematic teaching of letter sounds, CVC words, and then the phonics blends can be spread over three years and the students will learn a lot.
Train your teachers! Make sure they know how to use the curriculum, what they are and are not expected to accomplish (many full-time school teachers have a hard time realizing they are not solely responsible for teaching the kids to read!), but give them some leeway to adjust to their class as well.
Give assessments either during admissions or at the start of the school year. Do this a couple more times during the year. This helps you know if there are any potential concerns such as learning difficulties or parents who are just not doing anything at home, and gives you something objective to talk to the parent about.
Give strong recommendations for home curriculum and maybe even incentivize through bulk ordering/discounts the curriculum you would like them to use
Parents and teachers work closely together to educate a child in the hybrid model and the skill subjects can certainly be done very well in this partnership.