Today’s Literacy Headlines

When Montgomery County Public Schools in southwestern Virginia transitioned to remote learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the district used school buses to deliver daily meals—and reading material—to students’ homes. But now that the academic year is over, the county has adopted an alternative delivery method: drones. The Montgomery County school system is located in Christiansburg, where Google’s drone delivery division, Wing, launched its services last October. Offered as a commercial service in partnership with such businesses as FedEx and Walgreens, Wing soon found a satisfied customer in Blacksburg Middle School librarian Kelly Passek, who petitioned the company to help send students library books. Wing’s Virginia head of operations, Keith Heyde, enthusiastically agreed.

When actor Melissa Victor thought about where she learned the stories that shaped her—important things about life, and how to braid hair—she realized that a lot of that education took place on the Baltimore stoop where she grew up. Victor is deeply spiritual, and at a certain point, as her theater parts started to dry up, she asked God for guidance. His advice, she says: Create a podcast for children of color. Create stories for them because they need to be represented. Victor published the first episode of Stoopkid Stories in January 2020 so that young Black children could hear themselves reflected in audio stories. This Black Voices playlist includes voices from Stoopkids Stories and other Black kidcasters, storytellers, authors, poets, activists, musicians, and leaders.

Teachers across California are worried that students who are learning English will fall behind in their language skills due to the school closures and are trying various approaches to connect with those students and their families. Even as concerns have been raised about the quality of instruction for native English speakers, those who are still new to the language face an even greater hurdle. “The big missing element is that we learn language, usually, in a face-to-face context,” said Leslie Hubbert, who teaches 3rd grade in the small agricultural town of Boonville in Mendocino County. “And English language learners are not getting as much face-to-face contact as they need. It’s just another way that this gap is widening more and more.”

The Detroit literacy lawsuit, a four-year legal battle that sought to establish a constitutional right to literacy for all students, is officially over. When the seven student plaintiffs in the case agreed to a settlement with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last month, they also agreed to drop their complaint that the state had denied them a basic education. The settlement includes roughly $40,000 for each of the seven students, $2.7 million for the Detroit Public Schools District, and a promise from Whitmer to pursue legislation that would bring an additional $94 million to the district. There is still no legal precedent for a constitutional right to literacy. When the Sixth Circuit decided to review the case, it vacated the court’s April 23 opinion, written by Judge Eric Clay, that a right to read is implicitly guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Still, Clay’s opinion will likely be cited in other cases that seek to establish a federal right to read.

Artful Thinking is a pedagogical approach to critical thinking that the National Gallery of Art has been sharing with local teachers for more than 10 years. In January 2019, the museum rolled out Teaching Critical Thinking through Art, a free online course making Artful Thinking available to everyone. A year later, it had been used by 9,800 people in 149 countries, 80 percent of them educational professionals, including classroom teachers. “Critical thinking is a huge, but reachable, endeavor,” says Julie Carmean, manager of national teacher programs at the Gallery. She also hosts the course, which includes lesson plans, zoomable views of artwork, discussion boards and videos modeling critical thinking techniques. Artful Thinking was developed by Project Zero, a Harvard Graduate School of Education program focused on enhancing learning through the arts.

In the fall of 2018 our school made a big shift. After twelve months of planning we launched a new daily schedule based on brain science and designed to encourage deeper learning and student wellbeing. Three months ago, COVID-19 closed our school, along with nearly every other school in the country, and we realized we’d have to start over. Once again, we turned to research. We realized we could teach less content as well as give less homework by focusing on essential questions and core competencies. We elevated project-based learning that didn’t revolve around screens. But we also made sure we took a research-informed approach to project-based learning. We taught our content better by making informed choices of when and where to use edtech tools. Before choosing any tools, we decided on our learning objects and matched them to science of learning objectives.

Teachers from across the country reflect on their experiences teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak. In this post, seven teachers describe the emotional experience of recent months and share some of the successes and challenges of emergency distance learning. From Larry Ferlazzo: “I would have preferred to be able to spend more time with the English language learner newcomers because those are the students — That’s one of the vulnerable populations that’s going to take the biggest hit from missing these last few months of school. I think most students are going to be fine, right. But ELLs, special ed students and students who face other academic challenges, they’re going to take a hit. So I hope that next year, whatever we do, that we look beyond equality and focus on equity so we can provide extra support to the students who need it the most.”

Colorado’s largest teacher preparation program hasn’t done enough to change how it trains future educators on reading instruction. That’s the conclusion of state evaluators who recently reviewed the University of Northern Colorado’s teacher prep program, a year after they first delivered a harsh critique of the program for its failure to adequately prepare students to teach children how to read. The state’s crackdown on teacher preparation programs, specifically their approach to reading instruction, is part of a larger push by lawmakers, state education officials, and parents of students with dyslexia to get more Colorado children reading at grade level. Despite millions of state dollars spent on struggling readers since the passage of a major 2012 law called the READ Act, only about 40% of third-graders are reading proficiently — and many experts fear changes related to the coronavirus pandemic could make things worse.

As unrest over the killing of black Americans and police brutality continued across the country, Jessica Grose, the lead editor of NYT Parenting, asked experts how to talk about the protests with kids. In the interest of keeping an open dialogue about racism, she heard from pediatricians and childhood psychologists about the importance of making sure your home library has books with black people at the center of their stories. To start, children’s book authors and Times staffers gave us their favorites. We also heard from nearly a hundred readers with more recommendations of books that their kids have loved over the years. Here are 12 of the most popular suggestions we received, including books with black protagonists, plots centered on racism and activism, and beloved gems by black authors.

While schools are shuttered in response to COVID-19 and have transitioned to distance learning, how can we make sure that teachers get the professional development and mentoring they need. Schools, especially those that serve large percentages of students experiencing poverty, may struggle to adapt teaching practices to online learning; vet and deploy new tools; and identify and meet students’ varying needs during this time, so it is important for state and district leaders to put in place structures that support teachers. One of the best ways to provide that support is coaching, which can significantly improve teachers’ instructional quality and boost student achievement. Instructional coaching can be much more effective than the traditional “workshop” model, which often doesn’t lead to meaningful changes in teacher practice. And research shows that coaching doesn’t have to be in-person to work. There are additional benefits of virtual coaching models, which allow instructional coaches to work with a larger number of teachers and make it easier to match teachers with coaches who have expertise in their content area and grade level.

The coronavirus school building closures that swept the country this spring and led to purchases of new laptops and tablets for remote learning have also forced districts to make tough decisions now—instead of years down the road—about 1-to-1 computing programs for their youngest learners. Putting devices in the hands of elementary students, sometimes as early as kindergarten, remains a somewhat unsettled approach. Although intended to boost students’ tech skills and empower more creative work, education experts worry about too much screen time at a young age. Some worry that too much device use can affect brain development and take away from more age appropriate hands-on teaching approaches. This spring’s national remote learning experiment, and the lingering uncertainty of what instruction will look like next year—in particular if coronavirus ravages the country again—have changed some perceptions, however. Experts who viewed 1-to-1 programs at elementary schools as optional now say it’s worth another look because of the need to keep students and teachers connected during distance learning.

The author of more than 50 books for children and young adults, Carole Boston Weatherford writes stories that fill in some of the many gaps she saw in the books from her childhood. Her books often depict the stories of African American leaders, explorers and artists, many of whose stories are seldom told. They also navigate ugly pieces of American history like slavery, the 1963 Birmingham bombing and police brutality against black communities. She puts an intentional spotlight on the arts, and incorporates her love of jazz and her passion for artists like Billie Holiday into her work. Weatherford keeps her finger on the pulse of young peoples’ interests as a professor of English at Fayetteville State University. Host Frank Stasio talks with Weatherford about her childhood in Maryland, her growth as a writer and the themes of history, race and music that thread their way through her literature.

The summer is a time when many children’s reading skills decline. This will be more pronounced this year since children have not had in-person instruction for several months. This makes this summer a time parents need to focus on reading. Fortunately, there are several resources available online that can give parents the support they need to help their beginning readers. Advances in reading now will make beginning readers more prepared for the upcoming school year.

In recent years, we’ve seen graphic novelists take on increasingly complex topics, and this year’s Will Eisner Comic Industry Award nominations reflect artists’ willingness to push the format to its limits. From a poignant tale of racist microaggressions to an exploration of childhood anxiety to dynamic reimagining of a misunderstood supervillain, these comics are bold, fearless, and bound to resonate with readers. See below for a full listing of the nominations for children and teens, with links to their SLJ reviews.

Susan Lambert, VP of early literacy instruction at Amplify and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, shares her thoughts on key points in the reading education debate. She tackles questions like these: Does reading really matter that much now that we’re in the digital age? Can kids teach themselves to read if they have access to materials that really interest them? What new methodologies are there to help dyslexic learners overcome reading difficulties? How can educators make the most of mother-tongue literacy when teaching English learners to read in English?

Children are like sponges. They soak up news headlines and images of unrest on TV and social media. They may also be keenly attuned to conversations about current events happening at home. Parents and educators alike (and those of us now wearing both hats) should address questions about racism that arise and maintain an open dialogue with children. To help navigate the best way to do this, I asked Christiana Cobb-Dozier, a school counselor in Los Angeles, and Christian Robinson, a Sacramento-based author and illustrator of children’s books, about how to talk to children about racism. Here’s what they said.

Studies show that babies under one year old recognize differences in skin color. Just like for any other age group, it’s important that babies see people of color in their books. So how do we bring diverse titles to the littlest readers, when the characters in most board books are animals—if there are characters at all? These 50 books—many of which are by #OwnVoices creators—show Indigenous, Black, and people of color learning new skills, fighting for justice, and simply living their lives—and they’re all appropriate for ages 0–3. From simple images to more complex narratives, and classics to upcoming titles from Lin, Vashti Harrison, and Ibram X. Kendi, these titles can help grow your board book collection.

For many students, the coronavirus pandemic drained much of the joy from the last months of the 2019-20 academic year. Summer shouldn’t end up the same way, say organizers of programs devoted to offering enrichment during out-of-school time. This year, however, many organizations devoted to summer learning will have to figure out how to engage students in enrichment programs provided remotely—if they’re offering them at all. But drastically scaling back or cutting summer enrichment is likely to hurt the students whose learning has already been set back the most by the haphazard shift to remote schooling: students from low-income families who rely on free or low-cost enrichment options, said Aaron Dworkin, the chief executive officer of the National Summer Learning Association.

If literacy education is on track in a school, that building has an opportunity for everything else to go well. Success in literacy spills over into success in science, social studies, math, and anything else students are learning. It’s the key to everything schools do. To gain insights into this keystone academic skill, What Kids Are Reading, the largest annual survey of student reading habits, dives into data collected from the millions of students using myON and Accelerated Reader, with the ultimate goal of supporting teachers as they, in turn, support students in doing more reading. With a data set this large and comprehensive, our challenge is not data but what questions we should ask of it. This year, we decided to focus on the reading of nonfiction because, over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in the role of prior knowledge in reading comprehension. It has become increasingly clear through multiple studies that the amount of prior knowledge students have on a topic is a powerful predictor of how well they can read texts on that topic.

As protests over the killing of George Floyd (and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor) spill into a second week, many parents are wondering how to talk about the deaths and unrest with their children. But just as important in the long run, especially for nonblack parents, is how to keep the conversation about race and racism going when we’re not in a moment of national outrage, and to make sure all children see black people as heroes in a wide range of their own stories, and not just as victims of oppression. In addition to keeping an open dialogue about racism, make sure your home library has books with black people at the center of their stories. Christine Taylor-Butler, the prolific children’s author and writer of The Lost Tribes Series, said that she got into children’s literature because she wanted to see more stories of black joy. “I want stories about kids in a pumpkin patch, and kids in an art museum,” she said. “Not only do we want our kids to read, but we want white kids to see — we’re not the people you’re afraid of.”

Quick quiz: What share of black students graduate high school? By the most recent count, 4 out of 5 black students graduate in four years with a regular diploma, according to federal figures. But after watching coverage of test scores focused on racial achievement gaps between black and white students, people tend to think black students’ graduation rates are much lower. The way the education media and policymakers frame education debates can have longer-term effects on how the public thinks about black students and the kinds of policies it will support to improve their learning.

As part of an effort to boost persistently low reading proficiency rates, Colorado education officials will soon require 25,000 K-3 teachers to have completed 45 hours of training on reading instruction. While there are several ways for teachers to comply with the new rule, which came out of a 2019 update of Colorado’s landmark reading law, the state is providing educators two free options. Both adhere to the state’s more than 50 criteria for teaching elementary reading, including direct and sequenced phonics instruction. The new teacher training requirement is among a raft of recent state changes meant to ensure teachers know and use approaches to reading instruction backed by science. Officials have also cracked down on teacher preparation programs to ensure their literacy courses adhere to state standards. And starting next year, the state will require schools to use reading curriculum backed by science in kindergarten through third grade.

Figuring out how to manage IEP meetings from afar and agreeing on what services students are entitled to in an online learning environment emerged as one of the many challenges for families of special education students and the teachers who serve them. In response to requests for help from educators and parents, a group of U.S. Department of Education-backed organizations developed a six-step guide to hosting and participating in virtual IEP meetings, with the acknowledgement that conducting the meetings may happen more often now, even after students return to brick-and-mortar schools. Designed for a 60-minute meeting, the infographic provides a sample agenda and tips on how to keep meetings focused and on-schedule. To learn more about the project, Education Week interviewed Tessie Rose Bailey, the project director of the PROGRESS Center, one of the organizations that helped develop the guide.

A surprising number of school librarians still have no access to their building or school library. For those who do, however, it’s a valuable opportunity to offer summer checkout and get books into the hands of readers. It’s not too late! Here’s how I organized my checkout while ensuring safety for staff and families.

Best-selling YA author Jason Reynolds has grappled with racism personally and in his writing. The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature also recently co-authored a book for young people on fighting racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. We’ve asked Jason Reynolds to join Kojo For Kids to help us understand what has led to the tensions we’ve seen over the last week, and to talk about why racism persists and what we can do to build a less racist society.

A blog, no matter what its subject, no matter how large or small its reach, is a platform. You use it to make your thoughts and feelings known. What can a white librarian do to help, even a little, when injustice is so blatant? You can be an ally. You can work to actually actively fight racism when you hear it, see it, and you can acknowledge it. You can listen. Project Ready, a free online professional development curriculum by UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science (and that my library has been using to regularly educate its employees), created a rundown of what allyship entails. Yesterday, I was asked to create a booklist for my city’s patrons of some antiracist titles. I was immediately helped by about eight of my colleagues and, together, we created the following list of links. Please use this where it is most needed.

While remote learning has presented challenges in every subject and grade level, some teachers and researchers say that early reading instruction is especially problematic. Teaching young students how to read and write often requires hands-on activities, like manipulating letter tiles, or learning how to form their shapes. And before they can sound out words, children rely on read-alouds, interactive play, and conversations to learn vocabulary and build knowledge about the world. They can’t read a complex informational text on their own. Researchers say there isn’t much information about what kind of remote teaching works best for early reading.

Since their beginning in 1967, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards celebrate notable titles in children’s books, middle grade and young adult novels. The books are sorted into the categories of picture books, fiction and poetry and nonfiction, and then reviewed by a panel of three judges. This year, the judges were Sujei Lugo, Leo Landry and Julie Danielson. In its first-ever virtual ceremony, Roger Sutton, editor-in-chief of Horn Book, announced the award-winning titles and honor recipients in each category.

The picture of instruction that has emerged since the coronavirus forced students and teachers into remote learning is clear and troubling: There’s less of it, and the children with the greatest need are getting the least. These dynamics carry serious implications as schools plan to reopen in the fall. But even though the picture of diminished instruction is clear, it’s not simple. Pandemic learning is complex and contradictory. Some students are getting live video lessons for hours daily and staying in close contact with their teachers, while others get no real-time instruction and hear from their teachers perhaps once a week. Many teachers are pulling 12-hour days, while many others work less than they did a few months ago. Some parents push angrily for stronger academics during home-learning, while others demand relief, saying they can’t handle home-schooling along with their other obligations.

There is an inextricable, and yet largely untapped, link between information literacy and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), defined as “process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). We know that news is often designed to trigger an emotional response. And yet, teaching kids to recognize and manage those triggers isn’t always a component of news and information literacy protocols. While many schools are looking for ways to incorporate both news literacy and SEL right now, individually, we believe that the relationship between news and emotion creates an opportunity for them to be combined.

While teachers around the country are sending assignments in seconds with the click of a mouse, I rode the bus for 93 miles and six hours so my students at KIPP ENC in Halifax, North Carolina, could have instructional packets to continue their schoolwork. When I hear government officials talk about how successful remote learning is, I know they have never been to Halifax County. This COVID-19 is awful for our students, who do not have the same connectivity or resources that so many other children do. I know students at my school and in my community are struggling daily. Along the bus route, I would see students waiting in anticipation, waiting for us to come by. I wish I could say they were waiting only for our packets, but our delivery included food for their families, and that was the bigger draw.

Four out of 10 of the poorest U.S. students are accessing remote learning as little as once a week or less, according to a new survey from ParentsTogether, an advocacy group. By contrast, for families making more than $100,000 a year, 83% of kids are doing distance learning every day, with the majority engaged over two hours a day, the survey found. From the beginning, experts in distance learning warned that it can magnify inequities, with the most able and highly advantaged learners humming along while learners who need more support fall far behind.

The SLJ team is hard at work curating some of our top summer reading picks for a variety of age groups by type, genre, and subject area. Those lists will roll out starting after Memorial Day. In the meantime, here are some of our favorite lists from other organizations and libraries.

I’m a high school librarian with a background in teaching reading and English Language Arts, and I hope this ruling on behalf of Detroit Public Schools sets a strong precedent that every public school in America — in big cities such as Chicago, in poor rural communities and elsewhere — must have the resources to teach our children essential literacy skills. The ruling came to mind for me as I worked with my kindergarten-age son during this age of remote learning. He has been learning to read, and his suburban Chicago public school has the resources to do so. Every Chicago school child should get the same quality instruction and resources you’ll find at my kids’ suburban schools — veteran teachers and reading specialists, libraries and librarians.

For Tabatha Rosproy, the newly named Teacher of the Year, the importance of her work goes beyond her students’ achievements, even though those are impressive. Rosproy is a teacher at a preschool located within a seniors community in Winfield, Kansas; the impact of her and her 16 students can also be measured by the smiles and hugs delivered daily from a coterie of seniors. “It’s remarkable to spend time in her classroom,” said Randy Watson, the state commissioner of education. “You get to watch this intergenerational play between 4-year-olds and senior citizens that’s so beneficial to both. You pair that with a remarkable teacher, and you have magic.” Rosproy is the first preschool teacher to win the Council of Chief State School Officers’ top prize in its 68-year history. Winning this award will take Rosproy out of the classroom for a year, during which time she will promote the importance of preschool education and the value of teaching social-emotional skills to 4-year-olds.

All over the country, states, districts, and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by our ever-changing yet imperfect understanding of the virus itself. The AEI “blueprint for back to school” does an excellent job spelling out the major considerations that leaders must take into account, but it stops short of providing specific advice. With the hope of moving the conversation forward a bit more, here’s my attempt to do that for elementary schools, informed by some of the country’s leading educators, lessons from “early re-openers” around the globe, and the newly released CDC guidance. I’ll consider how social distancing might look, how schedules might work, and other logistical questions currently keeping leaders up at night.

Former teachers are returning to education during the pandemic to help educate the 55.1 million public and private school students stuck at home. Motivated by a desire to contribute, former educators around the country are returning to the classroom, virtually. Many are volunteers who are eager to help bored kids and overwhelmed parents, while others are using teaching to pay the bills while their professional lives are uncertain.

In this episode of ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times, Threadgill, Assistant Superintendent of Academics Lakesha Brackins, and George Hall Elementary School Principal Melissa Mitchell, talk about the challenges of operating in the time of coronavirus — including what’s involved in holding in-person graduation ceremonies. Communicating with 54,000 students, their families, and 6,000 teachers and staff members was the biggest challenge, Threadgill says. To communicate clearly the district set up a website that provides information and textbooks and a hotline that provides technical assistance and homework help. Threadgill and Brackins are optimistic that the experience of closing school buildings will have the effect of bringing the district together and forcing improvement. “We completely transformed education in Mobile County,” says Brackins. “This is going to make our district better.”

As school closures were extended and more states announced the rest of the 2019–20 academic year would be conducted online, educators and literacy organizations started brainstorming the best ways to get books to kids for the spring and summer. The efforts have ranged in scope and helped kids in large and small districts across the country. The books—for students to keep at home and not have to return to a school or public library—are distributed to provide comfort, escape, a little normalcy, and hopefully lessen the exaggerated summer slide that is expected to hit after months of remote learning followed by summer break. Many book efforts around the country have been combined with food service programs, whether they are pickups at district locations or school buses that shuttle books with meals for closer-to-home deliveries.

Written English is a code in which letters and groups of letters are used to stand for sounds, and to be able to read, children must learn to break it—literally, to de-code it. Although skilled reading involves many factors, decoding ability is the foundation on which it rests; after all, it is impossible to pay attention to meaning unless ones knows what the words say! The following list is intended to indicate some key warnings signs that may indicate a decoding problem. It is not, however, intended to be used a source for any particular diagnosis. Keep in mind that children learn to read at varying rates, and that some difficulties early on are normal and by no means indicative of a serious problem. That said, if your child or a child you know displays many of these behaviors while reading, we urge you to seek out quality, phonics-based intervention. Reading problems that are relatively straightforward to correct when a child is in elementary school can seriously hinder them from fulfilling their academic potential later on. The longer they remain unaddressed, the more challenging they become to remedy.

Cognitive scientists know a lot more than they did 25 years ago about the brain and how humans learn. And yet, a lot of the new research isn’t making its way into classrooms. There are a lot of reasons for that, according to the panelists, including teacher education programs that haven’t kept up with the research, intransigent institutions that are difficult to change, and human nature. Eric Kalenze, an English language arts teacher and curriculum leader at FIT Academy Charter School in Apple Valley, Minnesota, is also the U.S. ambassador for researchED, an international grassroots organization trying to bridge the divide between effective teaching research and the classroom, spoke about cognitive science and its implications for classroom instruction during a recent Education Writers Association seminar on adolescent learning and well-being.

Today, there are many publishers and imprints that seek to spotlight and promote diverse, inclusive stories and work by creators of color, but 30 years ago, that was not the case. Noting that lack of multicultural voices in children’s literature, Thomas Low and Phillip Lee launched Lee & Low Books in 1991. This week, Low died of cancer, but he leaves behind a legacy of booklists, careers launched, and a publishing house to continue the mission. “He was proud each and every season we released a new list of books,” his son Jason Low, publisher and co-owner of Lee & Low, wrote in an email. “We have heard from librarians who have recommended our titles; educators who use our books in their classrooms; authors and illustrators who have published with us; and agents who have brought manuscripts to Lee & Low for years. The common theme people tell us is that the work that we do is important, that diversity matters, and that even though they are sad to hear of Tom’s passing, they are glad that his legacy will live on through us.”

Kenneth S. Goodman, whose influential theories of reading dominated the teaching of reading in grade school classrooms in the 1980s and early 1990s, died in his Tucson, Ariz., home March 12. He was 92. Whole language instruction emphasized that students learn to read through immersion in books and eschewed traditional systematic teaching of phonics and spelling. During its heyday, it dominated U.S. teacher-preparation programs and curriculum guidelines alike. Goodman was not, as is often asserted, wholly dismissive of phonics. He believed readers did use knowledge of sound-letter systems when reading, but relied on them less as they grew more efficient. But he insisted that phonics should be taught only incidentally. The successive 50 years of literacy research following on the heels of Goodman’s early work, based on experimental studies and cognitive science research, has concluded that, contrary to Goodman’s ideas, skilled readers rely more heavily on knowledge of letter-sound correspondences than context clues when learning new words. For many students, that body of work notes, the alphabetic code must be explicitly taught, not incidentally discovered. Some of the ideas that Goodman fought passionately for are now broad staples of ELA classrooms, including the importance of children’s literature, immersing new readers in books, and creating print-rich environments for students. And the last few years of policy has resuscitated the importance of comprehension—not merely word identification—as a goal of reading programs, particularly in relationship to the background knowledge students need to understand what they read. Goodman’s insistence that writing is a powerful complement to reading rich texts lives on in both the Common Core State Standards, and is a key notion in the current interest in improving elementary and middle-school curricula programs.

In elementary schools, children got 30 minutes of remote instruction in English and math each day. Teachers were supposed to incorporate language skills into that work, but students missed out on 55 minutes of daily English language development they received before the virus struck. The rapid shift to remote learning forced by the COVID-19 crisis has left the nation’s roughly 5 million English language learners in a precarious position. Many have seen their language instruction shrink as districts balance competing priorities and struggle to connect with students attending school from their living rooms. Schools and districts have largely had to figure out how to meet the needs of English learners on their own.

Whether it’s ed tech boosters or teachers union leaders — surprise! — everyone’s take seems to line up with their priors from before the novel coronavirus struck, even as the situation seems to call for radical pragmatism. The districts and charter school networks that are responding the best seem to have just one thing in common — a can-do spirit. Working with stakeholders in different parts of the country has made me certain only about the uncertainty. The impact in a few months or a few years still seems to hinge on collective action and policymakers’ decisions. But there will be an impact. Here are 10 questions I’m watching.

One unexpected silver lining of the shutdown has been an improved learning experience for certain students, including some who struggle to pay attention in class and even some high-achieving self-starters. Enough students are benefiting from this crash course in remote learning that parents and educators are wondering if, when buildings reopen, there are aspects that can be continued for these students, as well as lessons that can apply to everyone else. For some, the avoidance of distractions like disruptive classmates, or simply not being in a room filled with other children, has been a boon. Others have taken advantage of the ability, when offered by their teachers, to work at their own pace and take breaks when they want.

School closures can be challenging for children with special needs, particularly those who rely on a team of teachers and therapists to access their education and who can’t replicate those services at home. While the initial weeks of the shutdowns caused tears and frustration for many students and their families, they’ve also brought unexpected joys and triumphs as parents learn how resilient and capable their children can be. Denise Stile Marshall, CEO of The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc., a national organization dedicated to protecting and enforcing the legal and civil rights of students with disabilities, was surprised by the number of parents in her network who reported positive developments with their children during the closures.

o your normal, too-short summer vacation has suddenly become a hyper-extended, undifferentiated snake-dragon thing. You have a lot of time to read. (And play Minecraft yes, but also to read.) Closed stores are no excuse, either! Apps like Libby and Overdrive let you borrow almost anything, including some of the newest books and audiobooks, and have them sent straight to your e-reader or cell phone. Barnes and Noble is offering curbside pickup for online orders, and some independent bookstores are making deliveries to your doorstep. You can get a Kindle. If you don’t have a lot of books on hand, or easy access to devices, San Francisco children’s librarian Elizabeth Perez recommends making use of Little Free Libraries, small collections of free books at more than 100,000 locations worldwide (you can sanitize the cover if you’re worried about germs), or rereading older books with an eye toward creativity, changing parts of the story and telling your own version. Or set up a safety-conscious series of swaps with your friends.

Speech-recognition systems date back to the 1950s. Yet the recent emergence of “smart” assistant devices in homes—powered by the likes of Alexa and Siri—has sparked renewed interest in their application as educational tools in the classroom. However, do not conflate speech technology with smart speakers and other devices, says Satya Nitta, the former head of IBM’s research team on artificial intelligence for learning. “What Alexa and Siri are are basically consumer assistants built for a specific purpose, which is to bring you news, entertainment, things like that. But the underlying technology can be used for much more specific use cases, especially for learning,” he says. In education, speech-recognition technology addresses questions that are fundamentally different from those posed by general consumers, says Nitta. Instead of responding to queries about what the weather is like, or how to cook a certain dish, these tools can be tailored to support language learning, for use cases ranging from pronunciation and oral fluency. They can also help diagnose dyslexia and speech impairments.

Across the United States, volunteers are reporting a jump in little free libraries as readers look to pass the time. Made of wood or brick, and placed in front of parks or in the trunk of a car, the libraries have seen their small spaces overwhelmed with books. Whether it’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel García Márquez or children’s books or Macbeth, the libraries provide some their only interaction of the day outside of the home. Since 2009, tens of thousands of little free libraries have sprung up in the U.S. and more than 100 countries. The small spaces operate by donations and through volunteers. In rural areas, where broadband internet is sparse, the little free libraries may be only place to find a Toni Morrison novel.

When schools in Owsley County, Ky., closed in early March, James Barrett hopped on his bus each morning to deliver meals to hundreds of students. Then the special education teacher, who is also a bus driver for the rural district, would head home and log in for Zoom meetings with his high school special education students—some of whom have 3rd- and 4th-grade level skills in reading, writing, and math. Across the country, widespread school closures have upended special education, which is administered through carefully constructed plans called Individualized Education Programs and require extensive services that are not easily transferred to the internet, even for families who have access. And, while each student in Owsley County has access to high-speed internet, that does not mean they have it at home. In this rural community where the median household income is $15,805, the third lowest in the nation, not everyone can afford the $50 per month fees.

How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted summer reading? Summer reading programs are among the most popular events run by public libraries. There are reading logs, prizes, performances, and regular visits by excited young patrons and families. It takes months to plan, a process that typically starts long before the school year ends. This year, of course, nothing is typical, and very little will run as planned. Less than two percent of libraries are preparing for an in-person program, while more than 64 percent has shifted to online only summer reading. Many mentioned plans to use Beanstack, a reading challenge software program and app. Scheduled performances or programs by outside people or organizations have been canceled or are going virtual. For some, the crisis has created new and previously unconsidered partnerships.

This will all end. State lawmakers will lift stay-at-home orders, office dwellers will return to their cubicles, and — critical for America’s stressed-out parents — children will go back to their classrooms. For most schools, however, getting there will be easier said than done. Despite widespread uncertainty and the unique demands of online classes, a growing chorus of education leaders say school officials must act now to prepare for a future return to school. New blueprints from education groups, think tanks and government agencies offer school leaders a daunting checklist of measures to consider. From staggered start times to in-class lunches and relaxed graduation requirements, students should brace for a return to class that is anything but education as usual.

Education pundits are predicting wider gaps between groups of students as a result of Covid-related school closures, citing evidence of how much learning is lost over the summer. But hold on: the studies showing that income-based gaps grow over the summer were done decades ago. The Baltimore one began with kindergartners in 1982. A review of research that reached a similar conclusion came out in 1996. More recent research indicates that while most students lose some ground during the summer, especially in math, the gap between rich and poor doesn’t grow more then. It grows at pretty much the same rate as during the school year. To address the inequities resulting from the pandemic, many are now urging that schools expand the number of hours they’re in session, perhaps eliminating summer vacation. But research shows that such initiatives have had little or no effect. Extending the school year would only make sense if we also improved the curriculum so that it focused on building students’ knowledge, beginning in kindergarten.

Jason Reynolds isn’t a parent or teacher, but he does know how to spark the creativity of young people. The New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction wants to make sure kids continue to imagine and grow while they’re at home participating in distance learning. “I don’t want their imaginations to atrophy,” Reynolds says. Earlier this year, the D.C.-area native was appointed by the Library of Congress as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. While Reynolds’ nationwide tour as the literary ambassador doesn’t start until the fall, he’s already had to change the way he engages with young people amid the coronavirus pandemic. Reynolds has released a video series titled, “Write. Right. Rite.” Reynolds says he picked the title because he wants young people to fall into the habit of expressing themselves or writing every day. The series airs twice a week on the Library of Congress’s and Reynolds’s social media pages. It’s a way for him to reach out to his young adult audience and ask them to imagine and write.

With schools looking at long-term closures because of coronavirus (COVID-19), ensuring that students can make the most of their studies at home is more important than ever. The literacy and learning communities are well-equipped to help make online learning easier. In addition to ILA’s resources (including our tips for connecting with readers online and using web tools to communicate), an outpouring of support across industries has resulted in free assets educators and families and caregivers can use to engage their readers remotely. Here, you’ll find a handful of the many offerings at your disposal during this uncertain time.

A historic settlement reached between the state and Detroit students calls for $94.5 million in future literacy funding, a $280,000 payout among seven plaintiffs and the creation of two Detroit task forces to help ensure a quality education for students. News of the agreement came after the Detroit students were locked in a nearly four-year legal battle with the state for better school and learning conditions. The lawsuit was brought by seven students who argued they were deprived access to literacy because of a lack of books, teachers and poor building conditions. Despite the state’s position to defend itself against the students’ accusations of inequality over literacy access, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday she has maintained that every student, no matter where they come from, has a birthright to a quality public education. The proposal faces an uncertain road in the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has fought with the Democratic governor over budget priorities including education spending.

For parents of children with special needs, who often carry an extra heavy load managing academics in the best of times, the burden while on home quarantine is magnified. Many educational services — such as a full-day program for a child with severe autism — are simply impossible to implement effectively online, and not all parents have time to monitor educational interventions. And the reality is that most parents are neither teachers nor therapists. Stay strong in planning for your family’s well-being, but don’t create more stress in your home by taking on more than is realistic. Parents may fear that with schools closed, their children’s progress will stall or reverse. But as always with children, long-term growth relies on a well-monitored three- or five-year plan, not every week or month along the way. Schools will open again at some point, and appropriate services will resume and methodically address whatever ground has been lost.

On May 14, Chiefs for Change (a bi-partisan membership organization of sitting and aspiring state education commissioners and school district superintendents) and Johns Hopkins University released “The Return: How Should Education Leaders Prepare for Reentry and Beyond?” The authors recommend all plans begin with two key goals: ensuring physical spaces embody public health guidelines to keep students and educators safe and prevent further outbreaks; and instilling enough confidence in educators and families so that they will return to face to face classrooms. In order to reorganize teaching and learning so that it addresses the effects of current school closures and can withstand potential regional closures in the fall, “The Return” proposes four categories school communities should address in their scenario planning.

As parents juggle uncertainty in the coming months, there are small yet important things they can do to send their children back to school in the fall with a sense of confidence. Reading prowess may end up being the biggest measure of success. At The Literacy Lab, we work with 6,000 struggling readers every day, helping them achieve big literacy gains via just 20 minutes per day. Evidence-based practice from our work at The Literacy Lab shows that small things, when done purposefully and repeatedly, can make a big difference — even from home. Parents have tools to support their children’s learning and help them to stay on track.