How to Run Live Online English Reading Classes

An online reading class is still a reading class. Pupils should spend most of the time reading, not watching you. What changes is what you can see. In a room, you notice a pupil who has stopped. Online, a name on a screen tells you very little. So the session needs more structure: short segments, a response from every pupil every few minutes, and a plan for when the connection fails. This article gives a 40-minute plan, what to do before and after the call, and what research on live online teaching found.

How do you run a live online reading class?

Run a live online reading class in short segments, with reading as the longest one. Spend about five minutes setting up the story and fifteen on reading. Give seven minutes to breakout pairs and seven to a quick check. Ask every pupil for a small response every few minutes. Before the call, send the text and audio. After it, record who came and follow up with those who did not.

The timings come from practice, not from a study. Shorten every segment for pupils under ten, but keep reading the longest part. The plan does the same jobs as a classroom session: set up, read, check and close. How to Run an In-School Reading Session explains those jobs in detail. This article covers what changes on a screen.

Before the session: text, audio and a small group

A pupil who cannot open the text in the first five minutes may be lost for the rest. Prepare these the day before.

• The text. Send the unit, or its link, with the session time. Check that it opens on a phone.
• The audio. If the story has narration, check that it plays, and tell pupils who need it where to find it.
• The key words. Choose three words pupils need to follow the unit. Put them on one slide, each in a sentence from the story.
• The questions. Write the five check questions in a poll, so that you only press a button.
• The pairs. Decide breakout pairs in advance, at similar levels, with a spare pupil for any pair that loses someone.
• A backup copy. Keep the unit as a file you can share in the chat if the main link fails.

How big should an online reading group be?

No study cited here tests group size for online reading. In practice, eight to twelve pupils lets you hear from everyone in the check and visit most pairs. With more than fifteen, quiet pupils disappear. If a grade is large, run the same unit at several times. Let Students Choose Their Session explains how.

During the session: talk less, let them read

Day and Bamford (2002) open their principles for extensive reading by quoting Williams (1986). One of his principles is that the main activity of a reading lesson should be learners reading texts, not listening to the teacher. Another is that teachers must learn to be quiet. On a screen, that matters even more.

Keep your own talk under five minutes

The setup has one job: to make the first page easy to start. Show the three key words. Ask one question to read for, such as 'Why does Sami hide the letter?' Then stop talking. If something needs more explanation, do it in the check, after pupils have read.

Reading time, with cameras optional

During reading time, each pupil reads the unit alone, and pupils who need support follow the audio. Chang and Millett (2015) followed 64 beginner-level secondary students in Taiwan for 26 weeks. Both groups improved, but those who read graded readers while listening gained substantially more in reading rate and comprehension than those who read silently. Reading While Listening reviews the wider research.

Make cameras optional. Castelli and Sarvary (2021) surveyed students in a university biology course taught over video. The most common reason for keeping the camera off was concern about appearance. Others included not wanting people or the room behind them to be seen, and a weak connection. They advise encouraging cameras without requiring them. Those students were adults. With children at home, privacy matters even more.

A camera does not tell you who is reading. A response does. Halfway through, ask a one-word question: 'Where is Sami now?' A pupil who does not answer gets a private message, not a public call-out.

Breakout pairs and a quick check

After reading, send pupils to pairs for seven minutes, with one task on the screen. Pupil A retells the unit in three sentences. Pupil B adds one thing A missed. Both choose a sentence they liked to post on return. Visit two or three rooms, and do not take over the talk.

Then run five short questions in a poll: one on what happened, one on a word in its sentence, one on why a character acted. How Many Questions Should a Reading Quiz Have? discusses the number. The answers tell you who read, which a camera cannot.

What research on live online learning found, and with whom

Research on live online teaching is thin, mostly with adults, and none of it cited here is about children reading in a foreign language. Martin, Ahlgrim-Delzell and Budhrani (2017) reviewed 157 articles on synchronous online learning, from 34 countries. Martin, Sun, Turk and Ritzhaupt (2021) note that most of those studies were in the United States and in higher education.

Martin, Sun, Turk and Ritzhaupt (2021) then combined 19 publications in a meta-analysis, about half with undergraduates and the rest with graduates or professionals. They found a small, statistically significant advantage for live online learning over self-paced online learning, on outcomes such as achievement. Live online learning did not differ significantly from face-to-face teaching.

The last row matters for planning. The authors suggest that students who schedule time for a live session want it interactive, not a lecture that could have been recorded. But that result rests on a handful of studies with adults. Treat it as a hint, not a rule.

So the fair summary for a school is modest. Nothing here shows that live online reading classes work worse than classroom ones. Nothing here shows how either works for pupils aged 8 to 16.

Keeping attention when you cannot see the room

The advice in this section comes from practice. None of the studies above tested it with children.

1. Ask for a response every three to four minutes. A word in the chat or a poll is enough. How often you ask matters more than how clever the question is.
2. Name pupils. 'Lina, what did the guard say?' works better than a question to the whole screen.
3. Change the activity often. Each change, from listening to reading to talking, gives pupils a fresh start.
4. Show a timer for reading and pair work, so that the end is visible. Open discussion is the part most likely to run over.
5. Mute by default. Noise from one home can drown out the whole group.
6. Shorten for younger pupils. Under ten, keep segments to about five minutes and the class to about 30.

After each session, note which segment lost attention first. Within a few sessions, a pattern for that group usually shows. Change the plan to fit it.

What to do when the connection fails

Connections will fail. Plan for it, and tell the class the rules in the first session.

• A pupil drops out. If the unit is open on their device, they keep reading. When they rejoin, they type 'back'. Do not stop the class to catch them up.
• Your own connection drops. Make a second adult co-host before you start. The rule for pupils: if the teacher disappears, keep reading.
• The audio will not play. Read the first page aloud yourself, then let pupils continue silently.
• The text will not open. Share the backup file in the chat.
• Everything is slow. Ask everyone, including you, to turn video off.

Keep one filler ready for a pause while you fix something. A prediction question works well: 'What do you think is in the box? One sentence in the chat.'

After the session: record and follow up

1. Record attendance and one sign of taking part. Online, a name on the screen is weak evidence. Note whether each pupil finished the unit and answered the check. How to Track Attendance in Reading Sessions explains what to record.
2. Follow up the gaps. Send absent pupils the unit and the questions. If several pupils missed the same question, start the next session with that word.
3. Set the reading before the next session. Short reading on the days between keeps the story alive. Blended & Hybrid Reading Programs sets out how to divide live and independent time.

Before you record the call itself, check your school's rules. A video of children at home raises privacy questions.

How iRead handles this

In iRead, a session is a live class, online or in school, that students enrol in themselves, and attendance is recorded automatically. Many stories have narrated audio synced to the text, so a pupil can follow the words while listening. A quiz runs after every session, with questions generated from the story itself. Practice questions are available between sessions.

Key takeaway

Plan an online reading class as short segments around one long block of reading. Prepare everything before the call, ask for responses often, and expect the connection to fail at least once.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Martin, F., Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., & Budhrani, K. (2017). Systematic review of two decades (1995 to 2014) of research on synchronous online learning. American Journal of Distance Education, 31(1), 3-19. doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2017.1264807
2. Martin, F., Sun, T., Turk, M., & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (2021). A meta-analysis on the effects of synchronous online learning on cognitive and affective educational outcomes. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(3), 205-242. doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v22i3.5263
3. Castelli, F. R., & Sarvary, M. A. (2021). Why students do not turn on their video cameras during online classes and an equitable and inclusive plan to encourage them to do so. Ecology and Evolution, 11(8), 3565-3576. doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7123
4. Chang, A. C.-S., & Millett, S. (2015). Improving reading rates and comprehension through audio-assisted extensive reading for beginner learners. System, 52, 91-102. doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.05.003
5. Day, R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 14(2), 136-141. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66761