I was recently having an email conversation with an educational lawyer in Chicago whom I deeply respect. We’ve collaborated in the past, and I always learn so much from her. I’d read a piece she wrote about stagnant literacy growth in Illinois, and teacher shortages were one of the main issues she addressed. Redwood’s whole school collaboration model is built to address this problem, so I was excited to engage with her about this. She had a lot of positive feedback about this model, but she also had concerns about the fruitfulness of virtual instruction. Redwood is constantly learning and growing, so this kind of direct feedback is golden.

She’d named that one of the top challenges in education was not having enough personnel to provide the services kids need, and I described the way Redwood is partnering with schools who have special education vacancies. We fill those vacancies with certified SPED teachers who are certified in programs like Wilson Reading System® and Spell Links™, and who provide that specialized instruction virtually. Schools pay for these services with funds they already have – dollars that are allocated for the salaries of teacher positions they can’t fill. And the best part is that kids get access to life changing instruction at no cost to their families. It’s a powerful, sustainable way to confront the deeply concerning literacy trends in this nation. 

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She was excited to hear that Redwood is so intentional about providing meaningful solutions to the massive problem of too few trained instructors in classrooms, but she was uncertain about the virtual model. In her experience, families were more comfortable with in-person services because their students hadn’t done well online. There’s a good number of students who don’t engage well with virtual instruction. 

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And I agree – virtual instruction doesn’t work for all students. But that doesn’t discredit the fact that virtual instruction does work – is working – for a ton of students who otherwise wouldn’t be getting any literacy instruction at all. In today’s educational climate, it’s not often a choice between virtual instruction and in-person instruction; it’s a choice between virtual instruction and no instruction. Virtual literacy remediation in an accessible, impactful solution, and it’s available right now – and right now is when kids need the help we’re uniquely poised to give them. 

What we’re finding in our work is that students make just as much progress virtually as they do in person – this has been true in our data since 2020. 100% of our students have made measurable progress. It’s working, and with nearly 1200 teacher vacancies reported last year in the State of Illinois, virtual instruction represents a giant step toward ensuring that all students in Illinois with IEPs get access to instruction. It’s not the whole solution, but it’s a key piece of the puzzle. When possible, in-person is amazing and ideal for so many reasons. But it’s simply not always possible right now. While we work on long-term solutions for building up in-person capacity, the virtual option can work immediately. 

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She still had very valid concerns about virtual instruction: what about the social emotional impact of remote services? In-person interaction provides something crucial for both students and instructors. She noted the influx of mental health and behavioral challenges schools were seeing after the pandemic school closures. She granted that remote literacy instruction is quite different from those 2020 schooldays spent entirely online – but isn’t something still lost on the screen?

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We are human beings, and we do desperately need in-person interaction. We can’t thrive without it. But we can’t thrive without literacy either, and since virtual services are the only viable option for so many students right now, let’s focus on making those remote sessions as robust as possible while emphasizing the importance of in-person socializing. After spending an hour receiving virtual reading remediation, a student ought to close his computer and toss a ball around outside with his friends. If a struggling reader gets literacy instruction from a professional on a screen and then joins her peers in science class before heading off to basketball practice, that’s a pretty well-rounded day. There’s no doubt that face-to-face time is vital. There’s also no doubt that withholding an hour of critical instruction because it’s not face-to-face would be senseless. 

And, speaking of basketball practice, this instructional model gives students the freedom to do whatever they want after school. In-person literacy instruction is a joy, but – unless there’s a qualified instructor in the classroom, which is scarcely the case – it means students are going right from school to tutoring. So, in addition to being truly the only option for most students, virtual classes during the school day can provide them with more time to flourish in non-digital environments. Don’t we love a little paradox every now and then?

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