Today’s Literacy Headlines

Ready or not, the nation’s elementary school educators are staring down a daunting new challenge: teach hundreds of thousands of young children to read, without being able to interact with them in person, using instead digital tools and videoconferencing platforms in sweeping new ways that are mostly untested. With thousands of schools reopening virtually or using a mix of online and in-person instruction, even those teachers trying the kind of phonics instruction supported by cognitive science will be forced to do so remotely, in online environments they are still learning to navigate. Many more educators appear likely to try a hodgepodge of early-literacy software programs and digital apps—many of which have shown no evidence of effectiveness, and almost all of which are best suited as supplements to regular classroom teaching—as primary instructional tools.

In a post on the Right to Read Project, Margaret Goldberg points out that a love of reading is not something that can actually be taught, particularly when children are struggling with the most basic aspects of the task; rather, they must be taught to crack the code of reading so that they can begin to experience reading as a source of pleasure. As Goldberg points out, “[e]nthusiasm is a part of good teaching, but communicating a love of books isn’t the same thing as teaching reading.” Essentially, the standard narrative gets things exactly backwards: it is assumed that children must “discover” how to read and be taught to love, whereas in reality children must be taught to read so that they can discover a love of reading on their own. So allow me to make a radical proposition: The point of reading instruction is not to teach children to love reading. The point of reading instruction is to teach children to read. … although reading can involve great enjoyment, the consequences of knowing how to make sense out of marks on a page extend far beyond the ability to devour, say, Harry Potter. A child who cannot read below a basic level will almost certainly become an adult who struggles to decipher things like the instructions on a medication bottle, or articles in a newspaper written above a tabloid level.

As a result of the pandemic, many schools throughout the country are moving forward with the hybrid learning model, combining face-to-face instruction with both synchronous and asynchronous learning. The tricky part is during synchronous class time when some students are in class and the rest are at home. How can a teacher best manage in-person and at-home learning at once? One of the seven models of blended learning that stands out due to its ease of use is station rotation. To accurately reflect the station rotation model in our era of social distancing, students who are in person are grouped in squares so that all peers are only six feet apart and can easily turn to each other to talk. Students at home should be grouped together to easily shift into asynchronous instruction as the teacher decides how the learners will divide their time among stations. A station rotation setup uses small groups for the purpose of teacher-led instruction, online learning, collaborative activities, and offline learning. Here is a sample lesson plan template for a station rotation; this is a good way to begin to map out your stations. When you are ready to go live, here is a great template to use for planning your rotation and sharing it with students.

Children don’t often get to read stories by or about Latinos. The American book publishing industry remains overwhelmingly white, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, which found only five percent of books published for young readers are by or about Latinx people. But several new groups of writers, editors and agents are trying to increase Latino representation in children’s literature. They’re working in different ways, and have their own stories to tell. I spoke to a few of them — and got some reading recommendations, too.

During this school year, thousands of children will begin reading. Despite their best efforts, however, up to a tenth of them will struggle. If we were aware of the early warning signs, we could help these children by using research-based remediation. But dyslexia is poorly understood by the public. Unveiling these misconceptions can help millions of children. It could also help decode the human mind. Before a child learns to read, she needs to recognize that spoken words are composed of sounds (e.g., cat begins with a k sound), or else, the function of letters is mysterious. But for children with dyslexia, phonemic awareness is difficult. Speech perception is likewise atypical. Infants who are at risk for dyslexia (because dyslexia runs in their families) show atypical brain response to speech well before they ever read their first word. And since the reading brain network “recycles” the speech and language network, an atypical speech system begets atypical reading.

Danielle Whittington teaches 40 fourth-grade students each day but she has not met all of them in person. In her hybrid classroom, 15 are at home, and the rest are in school — and, she says, she is worried that the two groups are not getting the same education. For students at home, Whittington gets to school each morning at 6:30 to record 15-minute videos, which walk the remote learners through the day’s online assignments. She said she is certain many of the students at home are alone, doing their work with no help from an adult. “They will be delayed,” she said of the virtual learners. “They’re not going to be as advanced as the kids that are sitting in this class.” Whittington’s students who learn from home must check in by 8 a.m., each sending her a message so she knows they are logged on, but she may not be in touch with them again until students in the classroom leave for the day at 2 p.m. When they get on the bus, she is available to the virtual learners to answer their questions. At night, she responds to parent emails — but she doesn’t have Internet access at home, so she parks her car on the highway where she can get a signal.

When parents drop off their kids at the Guadalupe Community Center on San Antonio’s West Side, program manager Manuel Garcia doesn’t want them to feel like they are making yet another tough choice in the middle of the pandemic. In the last few months as the pandemic has dragged on and jobs either disappear or hours are cut, more families are choosing between groceries and medications. Between paying electric bills or rent. Now that school is in session, remotely, kids need wifi, log-in help, quiet workspaces, and, for younger kids, constant supervision. Providing any of those things will cost money and time that have to come from somewhere else. Garcia wants the program he manages to provide a safe place where the entire family will be given the support and routine they need to thrive during remote learning — an easy choice, and a high quality one.

Aimee Dearmon, Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) and Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), says the disruption of routines, schedules, classroom layouts, and necessary social distancing protocols will be very difficult for our most vulnerable students with autism and other developmental disabilities. The biggest challenge with developing classroom action plans is establishing the same level of support while maintaining social distancing. Educators need to craft strategies and processes that meet health guidelines and ensure that students understand and adapt to new routines and behavioral expectations. Dearmon recommends social scripts, video modeling, visual supports, and prompts. Using these ABA reinforcement tools, students with autism and other developmental disabilities can learn simple distancing protocols such as how to wear a mask, walk in the hallway, and remain apart from others in the school setting. Learning new routines establishes a level of comfort for these students to understand and allows them to predict how, what, where, and when learning will happen.

All it takes is a nationwide crisis to underline the most glaring equity issues our society faces. The one that has captured my attention during COVID-19 is the chronic lack of home internet access for people of color, low-income households, and rural residents. That lack of access puts schools in an especially difficult position as they expand their use of technology during the pandemic, and beyond. It’s important to remember that this technology challenge has been staring us in the face for decades. It is not just a COVID-19 issue—it is a civil rights issue of the utmost importance.

The dominant view is that the way to improve America’s abysmal elementary reading outcomes is for schools to spend more time on literacy instruction. Many schools provide a “literacy block” that can stretch to more than two hours per day, much of it allocated to efforts to develop reading skills such as “finding the main idea,” and “determining the author’s perspective.” But it doesn’t seem to be working. Yet a small army of cognitive psychologists, analysts, and educators has long cast doubt on the view that reading is a discrete skill that can be mastered independently from acquiring knowledge. To these contrarians, a focus on academic content—not generalized reading skills and strategies—will equip students with the background knowledge they need to comprehend all sorts of texts and make them truly literate. Fordham’s newest report, Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, brings forward new evidence to this debate.

From making soup to creating a butterfly garden, everyone can do something. And we can learn how to find common ground among disagreements.

After the news broke of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her most famous quotes filled social media. One speaks volumes to educators, particularly, librarians. “Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life,” she said. “Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.” Educators who want to explain her work, impact on the country (specifically women’s rights), and legacy can turn to one of the many biographies of her life. Here are SLJ’s review for some of the options.

Like many Appalachian Trail hikers, Emily M. Leonard of Lowell had a lot of stories to tell once she returned from hiking the famous footpath from Georgia to Maine. So she decided to write them down in the form of a children’s book. In “Black Bear’s Adventure: An Appalachian Trail Journey,” Leonard offers highlights from her monthslong journey through the wilderness. Released in August, the self-published book was written by Leonard and illustrated by twin sisters Laurie Joy Miller of Old Town and Lisa Joy Jones of Orrington.

Booker Innovative Elementary School learning strategist Juliana Urtubey was named Wednesday as the 2021 Nevada Teacher of the Year. Gov. Steve Sisolak and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert made the announcement during a virtual ceremony, with members of the Booker school community in attendance. Urtubey, who was born in Bogota, Colombia, is a member of Ebert’s Teacher Advisory Cabinet. She’s passionate about “closing cultural and linguistic gaps that can exist between educators, students, and families” and works with students who face learning, mental, emotional or physical challenges, according to the release.

Sometimes humans struggle to find the words to convey the sheer depth of their love for one another. Leave it to Sam McBratney’s Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare in Guess How Much I Love You to show us the way. They love each other as high as they can hop, they love each other across the river and over the hills, and finally, all the way up to the sky. McBratney died at his home in County Antrim, Northern Ireland surrounded by family on September 18, according to his publisher, Walker Books. He was 77. No cause of death was given.

In Broward County, Florida, school officials noticed something worrying this month. Schools were back in session, virtually. But a few weeks in, one group of students was missing in large numbers: kindergartners. The trend seems to cut across income lines, with declines in schools that serve mostly students from low-income families as well as wealthier ones. When the Education Week Research Center surveyed some 400 school district administrators and principals in late August, more than half reported seeing a decline in kindergarten enrollment — and the pattern was similar for high-poverty and more affluent school districts.

Thousands of children in pre-K and students with advanced disabilities returned to in-person school in the nation’s largest school district.

Education during a pandemic is hard enough, but for families experiencing homelessness, remote learning is especially challenging as families grapple with access to devices and wi-fi, rules about adult supervision at shelters or hotels, and lack of access to the support and safety that schools offer.

As plans for reopening U.S. schools vary widely, librarians are strategizing amid uncertainty and adapting makerspace environments — whether in-person, remote, or through hybrid learning models — to ensure hands-on learning remains available to all students.

The reality is that students with autism and others with highly specialized requirements need in-person school more than other student populations, but the actual work puts both teachers and the students at risk for transmitting COVID-19. The adults who work with these students can’t rely on the kind of social distancing other educators can.

In this article, Donalyn Miller writes, “During the pandemic, social readers have lost outlets for discussing books with others, but we can still encourage students to read and keep their reading momentum going by finding opportunities for young readers to share and promote books with their school communities.”

Most of the nation’s nearly five million English-language learners are returning to classes, whether virtual or in-person, after a months-long stretch of distance learning where they were separated from the educators who are key to their academic success. How those students and their teachers rebound from the struggles tied to the school shutdowns of the spring could depend on guidance from their states and school districts about how to recover from learning loss and reconnect with families. To help educators and state leaders take a look at what others are doing around the country, Amaya Garcia, the deputy director for English-learner education with the education policy program at New America, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, compiled a national database of state guidance and resources for English-learner education.

Early education advocates have warned of serious learning losses among young children in the wake of the pandemic, since many preschool programs and child care centers were slow to move online or didn’t offer virtual options at all. In Chicago, school district leaders acknowledged the challenge of teaching 4 year olds online and initially intended to offer in-person preschool full time this fall, but plans were scuttled in favor of an all-virtual start after a late summer spike in coronavirus cases. That meant teachers had to move quickly to shift play-based lessons online and figure out how to two-dimensionally dazzle new classroom recruits — most of whom are having their first real experience with school.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a pioneer in the women’s rights movement and the second woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, died Friday at age 87 due to complications of pancreatic cancer. On education issues arising during her 27 years on the court, Ginsburg was a stalwart vote for sex equity in schools, expansive desegregation remedies, strict separation of church and state, and, in a memorable dissent, against broader drug testing of students.

After months of distance learning, students around the world are returning to the classroom — even though many countries are bracing themselves for a second wave of coronavirus infections. What does the pandemic mean for children, parents and teachers this academic year? We take a global look, with special correspondents Olly Barratt, Lucy Hough, Patrick Hok and Michael Baleke reporting.

As COVID-19 continues to impact schools, one MSU instructor has found a way to help her students and help students, teachers and parents in area public school systems. Shawn Justice, instructor of education, was trying to develop creative ways to help students in her Children’s Literature and Materials class get their required field experience hours virtually this fall. “I have had to really think outside of the box about how to give my students the quality experiences they need and still meet all the course requirements,” Justice said. “Education is changing, so I thought the structure of the field experience hours probably should look different, too.”

We knew in March that students wouldn’t learn much during lockdown, and they seem to be in for more of the same this fall. The problem isn’t just that teachers lack experience with remote instruction. For reasons scientists only partially understand, it’s demonstrably harder to learn via video than in person. The problem is dramatic in children younger than 4. In a typical experiment, a researcher is filmed using a new word or describing the location of a hidden object. A child who sees the experimenter live is more likely to learn than one who watches the video. One explanation for this phenomenon is that videos lack the social cues face-to-face interactions provide. Older children don’t show a learning deficit, implying that they’re somehow compensating for what the video lacks. But they can’t maintain the necessary attentional focus for an entire Zoom class, so learning suffers. How might teachers help?

Chicago families started the school year by logging onto online classes last week. All parents are struggling to navigate remote learning, childcare, and work. For parents of children with special needs, those issues are magnified. When school buildings were open, children with special needs were able to have a special education classroom assistant to help them stay on task in class. Students had critical sessions with a school psychologist, occupational therapist or speech-language pathologist. In the spring, those services vanished for some students for months, and some families didn’t regain them for the rest of the school year. Chicago Public Schools has pledged this year will be better for students in special education. But it’s still unclear how the district will provide some services virtually — and the burden on parents is huge. Many are already overwhelmed. Here are the experiences of three Chicago families as they navigated their first week of school.

In the past two years, as I traversed the country to report for The Atlantic’s “On Teaching” project, nearly every veteran educator I encountered shared success stories and reflected on what effective teaching actually involves. American public schools are going through a consequential transformation: The majority of Baby Boomer teaching veterans—who just over 15 years ago constituted more than half of the teaching force—have retired or will retire in the next few years. “On Teaching” aimed to collect the wisdom of some of the nation’s most accomplished veterans to find out what has helped them bring out the best in their students. The 15 teachers I got to know closely—from rural Oklahoma to Mississippi, subarctic Alaska to suburban Arizona, California, Texas, Kentucky, and Michigan—told me that effective teaching depends on paying attention to students as individuals, addressing their needs with cultural sensitivity, and seeking the active support of peers. But they also told me that their capacity to teach successfully has been weakened by misguided, top-down policies, chronic funding cuts to public education, and growing structural inequities. To do their jobs fully, they said, they need basic resources—and they should be viewed as experts on what their students need.

Marking what would have been his 86th birthday, family, friends, and colleagues honored the late author-illustrator Tomie dePaola during a digital memorial service on September 15. DePaola died on March 30 of complications from surgery following a fall. Those attending the virtual memorial learned more about some of the earliest sparks of dePaola’s creativity via memories shared by his sister, Judie Bobbi, the youngest of the four dePaola siblings. As a boy, she noted, “Tomie was always creative, whether it was making papier-mâché puppets of the cast of the Disney movie Cinderella, in all their costumes and then putting on a puppet show in the attic, making fudge, having a taffy pull, and popcorn on Friday nights when [friends] would come to watch prize fights or Gorgeous George wrestling.” A tribute website—rememberingtomie.com—had been created as a place where anyone can share their memories of Tomie and his books.

For English-language learners and students with physical or learning disabilities, the indefinite shift to distance learning poses additional challenges. Under federal law, these students are eligible for special education services designed to help them succeed in school. But those services are not always easily transferable to distance learning, or even in-person learning with social distancing.Here are some steps, developed by English-learner and special education advocacy groups, and state departments of education, school districts can take now to connect with their students doing distance learning.

John Sweller is one of the most influential learning science researchers, best known for his “cognitive load theory,” which suggests that educators should present information without extraneous details. Otherwise, the brains of students can literally overload with what amounts to intellectual clutter. Sweller’s latest line of research offers a new insight: the human brain may need regular breaks when learning to help it refresh its “working memory” capacity. At the heart of both lines of research is that the human brain has a pretty limited ability to hold thoughts in working memory. “If a student is having trouble understanding something, what we mean is that their working memory is overwhelmed,” Sweller said.

A new report from the Council of the Great City Schools suggests a wide range of actions that schools and districts can take to help English learners (ELs) make up for the educational opportunities lost during the first few months of school closures due to the pandemic. Supporting English Learners in the COVID-19 Crisis makes recommendations on all sorts of crucial decisions such as which technology to use when, how to assess what ELs missed during shutdown, how specific professional development for all educators who work with ELs can help, how to encourage family engagement, and how to deploy aides and English-learner specialists to help afford students one-to-one or small-group learning support during remote classes.

Many children around the world, Black children in particular, live in the shadow of death and violence. In America they’re all too soon turned into “dangerous” or “delinquent” adults in the eyes of those with the power to destroy them. For these children, lighthearted narratives that don’t acknowledge this reality can feel exclusionary. Two new novels, “Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero” and “Ikenga” raise thorny questions about the burden and nature of Black manhood and its relationship to Black boyhood.

Infants and young children have brains with a linguistic superpower, according to Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists, who found that unlike adults who use a specific areas in one or the other of their brain’s two hemispheres to process most discrete neural tasks, young children use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task. This may explain why children generally recover from neural injury much better than adults.

How can I teach music if the kids aren’t allowed to sing indoors? How will lag time affect group singing online? How will I make students feel seen and heard via Zoom? Those were some of the questions that elementary music teacher Angela Carpenter spent her summer trying to figure out. Though she would be entering her 15th year of teaching, it was like being new to the job. “No one has done this before. Even the teaching that we’re doing now is so vastly different than what we did in the spring,” she said, “because that was panic teaching.” She’s not alone with that thought.

In the spring, Jessica Hughes, a K–6 STEAM Lab teacher at the Hyde Park School in the Cincinnati Public School District (CPS), quickly realized the connection between nonverbal signals and student engagement in her online meetings. By the end of the year, teachers across her building used agreed-upon signs, successfully making messages clearer and attention easier and more meaningful. Now, Hughes plans to shift to using ASL signs for “Thank you,” silent cheer, “Stop,” and “Happy” as learners continue to engage in an online environment. ASL provides Hughes’ students a common language and emphasis on delivery practices, such as strong, clear facial expressions that communicate or reinforce the intended meaning of a sign. This intentionality in visual online communication can support activities that require high-energy delivery to maintain attention and focus, including read-alouds, problem-solving steps, and other instruction. In ASL, facial expressions can significantly affect the meaning of a sign and need to be attended to. This intentionality in our expressions helps us and sends the right message of support, encouragement, confusion, or agreement to our students and encourages the same from them.

With so much of teaching now online, teachers everywhere are wondering how we can best support struggling readers. Here are some tips that can work with online teaching, based on the author’s 40 years of experience in the U.S. and throughout the world. Ideas include integrating American Sign Language, songs, Readers Theater, games, videos and engaging decodable books into the mix, taking virtual field trips, and to remember to take care of yourself and your students. Students who struggle with reading need warm, supportive, engaging interactions with a caring adult who understands the way children acquire the skills of reading.

Gary Koppelman dreamed of creating a science lab as soon as he began working at Blissfield Elementary, but for more than 20 years there weren’t any funds for it. Then, in 1999, the school received grants from a few local foundations and built a lab for the elementary grades. Today, the Environmental Life Lab is open to the more than 1,200 students in the district’s elementary, middle, and high schools. Over the years, teachers in all grades, working in subjects ranging from math to English to social studies, have developed lesson plans that incorporate the lab. Michigan’s long, harsh winters make it difficult for students to engage with the natural world throughout the school year, but thanks to the lab, students are able to learn about rain forests, deserts, and various other ecosystems in all seasons.

Special education has emerged as one of the most significant concerns for families and schools during the global pandemic, with much of the focus on the plight of students who are separated from the teachers and specialists that ensure they have equal opportunities to learn. But students with undiagnosed learning disabilities may also be missing out on services and supports during distance learning. To help families and caregivers who suspect that their children may have disabilities or developmental delays, Understood.org and the American Academy of Pediatrics have developed Take N.O.T.E., a digital guide available in English and Spanish. The guide walks parents and caregivers through four steps—Notice, Observe, Talk and Engage—to help them become aware of patterns in a child’s behavior, talk with teachers about what they’re seeing, and engage with pediatricians and school specialists who can help determine why their child is struggling.

Many of Jacqueline Woodson’s books tackle serious issues in a way that’s accessible for kids: Race, drugs, foster care, classism, intolerance. Her latest book does that, too. It’s called Before the Ever After and it’s written in the voice of a 12-year-old boy whose father is a professional football player, a big star both on TV and to the neighborhood kids. But his father is also suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the degenerative brain disease that’s been diagnosed in many collision-sport athletes. Before the Ever After documents his father’s decline. But first we get to know his dad. How he loves playing football. How he loves his family. And how when his son and a group of his young friends pile laughingly on his back, he shakes them off “like feathers.”

For Chicago families, the start of the school year this week brought an often hectic return to supervising their children’s learning — but with markedly higher demands than last spring. After an uneven foray into remote learning, Chicago Public Schools called for a six to seven-hour school day this fall, with hours of live video instruction for most students. First graders are expected to spend three hours a day in live classes. The Chicago Teachers Union and some parents are pushing back against the changes, saying they saddle students with too much screen time and make for a draining school day, especially for younger children. District officials counter that these changes are needed to keep Chicago’s academic momentum going. Some parents said they feel torn: The first days of school have left them overwhelmed and sometimes at a loss for ways to keep students focused on their screens. But they balk at the idea of scaling back requirements.

Especially during remote learning, parents are discovering their kids struggle with writing. In many cases—but not all—parents can help. One parent who is an education journalist did a column about an assignment—”write a story about a realistic character”—that reduced her six-year-old to tears. Another told me her fourth-grader had a meltdown when he had to write an opinion essay about “manifest destiny.” No doubt similar scenes have been playing out across the country as parents get an unusually intimate view of this aspect of their children’s schooling. Here’s why so many kids struggle to write and what parents can and can’t do about that.

Tracy Murray has witnessed a lot of change in her 27 years of work in classrooms. But in her view, no shift has been as radical—or as positive—as the difference in the way children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are viewed by society. Murray’s kindergarten class is part of ASD Nest, a program run by New York City’s Education Department and New York University; it includes kids with and without ASD in the same classroom and helps them all develop social and emotional skills. When Murray started teaching with ASD Nest in 2003, many of her general-education students were pulled out of the classroom by their parents, who cited concerns that their five-year-olds would regress academically if they spent every day with children on the spectrum. Today, many parents request to be a part of the program.

Four educators suggest strategies for responding to racist comments from colleagues, including mirroring the person’s words and explaining that intent “does not lessen the blow.”

Rebecca Palacios became the first in her family to graduate from college, eventually earning a Ph.D. in education in 1996 from the University of Texas at Austin. She began teaching in 1976, at Lamar Elementary in Corpus Christi: the country’s first district to integrate Latino and white children. And she continued to teach preschool for 34 years until she retired in 2010, becoming one of the most distinguished bilingual early-childhood educators. In this interview, Palacios reflects on the most essential building blocks of a high-quality preschool program, including the importance of of building background knowledge, word knowledge, integrated learning themes, and parent engagement.

David Rosenblatt’s 8-year-old son Nico takes part in a virtual speech therapy session. Nico has complex developmental disabilities caused by a genetic condition called Angelman Syndrome, meaning he mainly communicates using an assistive device. A majority of Nico’s supports come through the Arlington Public School system. He attends class along children without disabilities, but has a dedicated aide to help with classwork, social interactions and personal needs. Being in that setting has been a huge boon to Nico, says Rosenblatt. “A huge thing that Nico gets out of school is being a part of a physical community,” he says. “For him, being in a space where you can’t touch people or share things with people or get their attention, is very, very challenging.” Those challenges became a reality earlier this spring when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shuttering schools and sending kids home to learn on computers. Parents of kids with disabilities say virtual learning has been a particular burden; in some cases, children are falling behind or acting out as the educational supports they once relied on were yanked away.

Bilingual children and adolescents may grow up with more grey matter, according to a new study published in Brain Structure and Function, in which an international team of academics led by the UK’s University of Reading and the U.S. Georgetown University examined detailed scans of children’s and adolescents’ brains and found that bilingual participants had potential advantages of both grey and white matter than similarly-aged monolingual children. While bilingualism has previously been shown to positively affect brain structure and cognitive performance in adults, the paper is the most comprehensive analysis to date showing that the effect of speaking more than one language may have similar impacts on developing brains.

Jacqueline Woodson’s new novel, “Before the Ever After,” is not a work of horror (despite the haunting title), but a creeping, invisible force is upending ZJ’s world and slowly stealing away his father — known as “Zachariah 44,” for his jersey number — before his and his mother’s eyes. The father’s hands have begun to tremble uncontrollably. He stares vacantly. He forgets basic things, most achingly the name of the son who bears, and at times is burdened by, his name. He’s prone to angry outbursts, to the point that ZJ’s friends no longer want to come by the house. He is suffering the effects of a degenerative brain disease that, while not named, bears a strong resemblance to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which has been found in scores of former N.F.L. players.

For as long as Connie LuVenia Williams can remember, letters have been giving her trouble. Sure, she learned the ABCs, but making sense of how these symbols we call letters combine to form the sounds that make up the English language – that part stumped her. And from what she remembers nobody taught her those skills as a kid. Activists in Oakland, California, where Williams lives, have been pushing schools to focus on how students are being taught to read as a way to improve literacy. Members of the NAACP and an advocacy organization called Oakland REACH, started by Oakland parents whose kids attend the district’s lowest performing schools, have coalesced around a campaign for better reading instruction they’re calling Literacy for All. Williams is one of its most outspoken members.

This can’t be emphasized enough: Strong relationships will be essential to students’ academic success and well-being this coming school year. And now, the beginning of the semester, is a crucial time for developing the personal connections that students will need to sustain them through what is going to be an unpredictable school year, at best. But with schools either operating remotely, alternating online instruction with in-person classes, or closing due to an outbreak, developing meaningful relationships between teachers and students—and even among staff, students, and families—will be a challenge. How can educators, then, build these all-important connections with students, especially over physical distances? Following are four tips for how to make that work.

Micki Boas has been fighting for years for both of her sons, now ages 8 and 11, who have dyslexia, a type of learning disability that can lead to difficulty in reading comprehension and can impact the person’s interest in reading. For her 11-year-old, Boas said it took four years, four lawyers and four schools to finally get him a formal diagnosis of dyslexia and the support that’s mandated by law. To help other parents navigate the confusing waters of a dyslexia diagnosis, Boas quit her job and wrote, “One in Five: Fighting for Our Dyslexic Kids,” published in August. The book features the stories of 20 parents of children with dyslexia, the struggles they’ve faced, and shortcuts that parents can use to help their children now. Part of the problem, Boas said, is that children are being diagnosed with dyslexia too late. Oftentimes, they’re diagnosed around age 10, but the average child should be reading by age 7.

The U.S. Department of Education will allow flexibility within the 21st Century Community Learning Center program so that schools can use the funds during the regular school day. The waiver will accommodate districts’ efforts to provide learning hubs and centers for students during distance learning. The notice, published in the Federal Register Thursday, states that the department “requested an emergency clearance because schools are already opening or will be opening very soon, and the flexibility offered through a waiver will enable [state education agencies] and subgrantees to better meet the needs of students through more nimble” programs. While a 60-day comment period is still in place, states and districts can already apply for the waiver.

As many Michigan children return to online classes this fall, educators warn that online instruction — already challenging for most students — will be especially damaging for students who don’t speak English. In theory, this would be terrible news for the Hamtramck school district: 64% of the district’s students are classified as English learners, while another 14% are former English learners who have learned enough to leave the program. Instead, Hamtramck Public School’s pre-pandemic support systems for immigrant families have ensured that students don’t fall through the cracks. A team of bilingual parent liaisons, hired two years ago to support newcomers from other countries, worked through the summer to ensure that families had access to food, laptops, and an internet connection. An in-person orientation held weeks before the first day of online classes helped hundreds of U.S. newcomers navigate the challenges of remote instruction.

Across the country, whether your kids are learning remotely, doing some hybrid of online and in-person, or back fully in-person, with new protocols like masks, social distancing and staying in only one classroom, school will most likely not look anything like it did in February. I know how lucky I am that my kids used to enjoy school in the first place, but I really started to wonder: How do I keep their love of school alive in these unusual and unstable circumstances? So I asked a kindergarten teacher, a child psychologist and a learning specialist for their suggestions.

It is a misconception that learning sign language hinders spoken language development for implanted children. Research shows the opposite to be true. Deaf children of deaf parents, whose first language is sign language, end up having better spoken language skills once they are implanted than deaf children of hearing parents who did not learn sign language. Research also shows a relationship between sign language and spoken English in school-aged children with cochlear implants: The children who scored highly in sign language were the same ones who scored highly in English. And the children with weak sign language skills also struggled with spoken English. In fact, sign language is so good for the developing brain some hearing parents teach it to their hearing children to boost brain development and jump-start communication before speech.

School librarians are creating plans to greet their returning students, ease their anxieties, and address whatever learning gaps widened during the spring and summer. “Especially in this time of uncertainty, librarians have never been more critical to the nation’s schools,” says a new report from EveryLibrary Institute, “School Librarians and the COVID Slide.” “They are essential in helping teachers and students understand how to find and utilize high-quality digital tools and content.” More than 80 percent of respondents to that study said they provided curated resources for at-home activities, nearly as many shared community resources, and six out of 10 offered technical support. Almost half of librarians reported co-teaching a class, while slightly more than one in 10 offered students makerspace events and gaming.

Remote learning isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s especially challenging for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other learning disabilities. NPR’s Jon Hamilton reports on the challenges facing these students and their parents, who are often required to become educators to make it work. Not all parents have the privilege of being able to help their children with remote learning though. Many students also face the challenge of logging on for school without reliable Internet. NPR’s Anya Kamenetz and WWNO’s Aubri Juhasz report on “learning hubs” that offer free child care and additional learning resources — but only for a lucky few.

We asked you to tell us about your favorite kids’ books, from board books for babies to great read-alouds to early chapter books and even a few books for older readers. And thousands of you answered. As with all our summer polls, this one isn’t a straight-up popularity contest. (Otherwise it would have been nothing but 100 Mo Willems books — and we love Mo Willems, but that wouldn’t have been the most useful list.) Rather, it’s a curated list built from your recommendations and picks from our expert panel of judges — a fantastic group of authors, librarians, publishers and all-around book nerds. And instead of a ranked list, it’s grouped into categories that we hope will help you find just the right books for the kids in your life: Picture Perfect, Baby’s Bookshelf, Conversation Starters, Family Life, Animal (and Monster) Friends, Folktales and Fairy Tales, Fun to Read Out Loud, Nonfiction, Early Chapter Books, and Older Readers. Happy reading!

Research suggests a way to restructure remote learning to give students what they’ve been missing. Staff at the Policy Analysis for California Education at Stanford University have been reviewing research that can help guide districts as they think about this fall. We started from the premise, based in research, that whether in person or remotely, effective instruction provides students a mix of expository, active, and interactive learning opportunities. The best evidence for how to sequence expository, active, and interactive learning—and how to make the most use of the limited synchronous time in virtual classrooms—comes from the flipped-classroom model, which has shown small positive effects on student outcomes over 100 studies. Flipped classrooms first present students with new information asynchronously (by textbook or video, for example) and then require students to complete activities that help them process the basic information and practice new skills independently (via comprehension questions or practice problems, among other means).