The COVID-19 pandemic affected schools worldwide. When schools shut down, teachers and students had no choice but to go to remote learning. A school in a rural setting participated in blended learning where students did a combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning. The subject of this study was two sixth grade groups of students with the focus being their scores of reading achievement. One classroom conducted traditional face-to-face learning during the 2019-2020 year before the pandemic, while the other conducted blended learning during the 2020-2021 school year during the pandemic. T-tests were used to analyze the means and change scores for each group based on their scores from the district benchmark STAR Reading pretest in the fall and posttest in the winter. The results showed that students who participated in the face-to-face instruction had lower growth than the blended learning students from the pre- to posttest; however, the students who participated in the blended learning had lower pre- and posttest scores, but they showed significant growth from fall to winter. This study concluded that blended learning can be as, if not more, effective in middle school reading instruction. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]