Published in the Australian Journal of Education, the study highlights how remote learning offered a unique opportunity for parents of early years students to observe the methods used to teach reading and spelling.
“We used this opportunity to explore the perspectives of 19 parents on the content and materials provided to their children during remote learning periods in Australia,” Professor Serry explains.
“Remote teaching gave us a rare window into these classroom practices. It allowed us to gather valuable insights from parents of Foundation and Year 1 students in Victoria and New South Wales.”
She says parents were overwhelmingly appreciative of teachers’ hard work during this period.
“They valued teachers’ sensitivity and often spoke about the compassion and care shown for families’ wellbeing. Many also appreciated the more informal communication that remote learning made possible.”
For some parents, however, remote learning revealed that their child was struggling, and this motivated them to do their own research.
“Many parents started reading about how children learn to read and even purchased their own resources,” Professor Serry says.
This led to a growing sense of cognitive dissonance for some families, as what they observed during remote learning didn’t always align with the structured, systematic approaches to reading instruction they were learning about.
Professor Serry says the remote learning period also acted as a catalyst for breaking down barriers between families and classrooms.
“Our findings suggest that many parents of beginning readers became more engaged and informed as a result of their exposure to reading instruction during remote teaching,” she says.
“While this new awareness may occasionally create tension, it also promotes transparency and accountability around instructional practices.”
Overall, Professor Serry says these insights could help shape educational policy, whereby educational leaders are required to inform parents about and justify to them the reading instructional practices adopted in their child’s school.
