Today’s Literacy Headlines

For all the exhausted families trying to keep their children entertained during the coronavirus pandemic, here’s some good news: Michelle Obama is hosting story time. The former first lady announced that she is teaming up with PBS Kids and Penguin Random House to host a weekly read-aloud series. For four weeks starting on April 20, Obama will read from one of her favorite children’s books in an event called “Mondays with Michelle Obama.” First up on the list is “The Gruffalo,” written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Families can tune in to the livestream on PBS Kids’ Facebook page and YouTube channel, or the Penguin Random House Facebook page.

New research finds that harnessing children’s interest in cause and effect promotes early literacy. Young children are committed to making sense of their world. That’s why they exhaust the adults around them by getting into everything. A new study, born of the insight that kids want to understand how things work, gives an exciting clue on how to get kids excited about reading. Kids prefer books rich in details on causality.

Creating lifelong readers is the goal of any school program, but many districts struggle with how to build a culture of literacy among students. Faced with that dilemma, educators in Tuscaloosa, AL, set out to find a solution and discovered the answer was right in front of them: Put the people most closely involved with reading in the same room—school librarians, reading specialists and literacy coaches. This holistic approach to literacy, one that engages the very staff who address reading at every level, is paying dividends. The early successes lead district officials to believe their goal of making sure every third grader can read on grade level is achievable.

Author Mary Amato offers help to jump-start your creativity. Everybody loves a good story. As an author, I’ve got to make sure that every story I write has a strong beginning, a surprising middle and a satisfying end. Here’s the beginning and middle of a new funny story — and now I’m challenging you to finish it! You’ll find tips for the writing process and suggestions for how you can share the story once you’re done. Grab your notebook, sharpen your pencil and turn on your brain.

It’s important for children to understand that everyone is different, and that our differences make us wonderful and unique. But sometimes, this message isn’t so easy to convey. These books that celebrate differences and disabilities highlight characters who are different from (and in some cases similar to) the reader. From the real life story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, who had a deformed leg and eventually became a cyclist, to John Green’s novel about a girl coping with anxiety, these books embrace the things that make us who we are.

Sarah Garland is the executive editor at The Hechinger Report, and she’s been watching as parents like her across the country have been forced to sub as teachers while schools are closed because of COVID-19. For students, school as a mainstay of day-to-day life has evaporated. Garland talked about what she’s hearing from teachers, parents and students as they adapt. She also shares what she’s experiencing herself and what changes might still be yet to come. “What I think is fascinating is that these districts and experts know that online learning — completely remote education — is really, mostly, a last resort. That the vast majority of technology used in education goes with a really skilled, in-person teacher and that’s what’s missing. So even in these places that absolutely know what they’re doing, and have teachers who’ve been trained for years in how to use technology well and do online learning in the classroom, are still struggling because they’re missing that key in-person element, which is the relationships with kids, peer-to-peer interactions, all of that stuff that a great teacher knows how to do and that you just cannot do very well online.”

Across the nation, differing visions of how and when to reopen school buildings that were closed—many for the rest of the school year—to slow the spread of the coronavirus are creating tension among local, state, and federal officials. “There is no research and there is no best practice for this kind of mass extended closure,” said Stephen Pruitt, the president of the Southern Regional Education Board and a former education commissioner in Kentucky. “This is going to be new for everyone.” Governors—working alone or in cooperation with newly created multistate consortia—are considering a variety of factors as they determine when to ease their stay-home directives in general and when to reopen schools. Those factors include whether public health officials can effectively track the spread of the virus to allow for more targeted mitigation efforts; whether hospitals are prepared and equipped to treat patients; and what modifications schools should make to their operations to allow for social distancing in classrooms.

A new podcast that pairs kids ages six to 10 with authors to create short stories aims to spark creativity in its young listeners. Betsy Bird, a librarian who blogs at “A Fuse #8 Production,” hosts The Story Seeds Podcast, which was created by Sandhya Nankani. Season one includes a coronavirus PSA by Jason Reynolds and episodes feature Reynolds as well as authors Dan Gutman, Veera Hiranandani, Chris Grabenstein, Aram Kim, Rajani larocca, Carlos Hernandez, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Bil Lepp, and Tracey Baptiste. They meet with children in New York City, sometimes take a little field trip, and turn their discussion and adventure into a growing story.

A partnership between your public library and the public school district makes sense. Both organizations can save money by sharing space, personnel, and collections. Both can reach out to new patron groups through shared programming and marketing and leverage their partnership when it comes to advocacy and grant writing. What’s not to like? Before making the leap into a partnership, it’s important for decision makers to understand the sometimes complex issues at hand. In my 10-plus years as library director, the issues that require the most consideration are space, collection building, personnel, and programming and marketing.

As schools and learning have moved online, one of the biggest challenges has been providing special education. An estimated 14% of public school students receive such services in the U.S., and federal law requires schools to provide them. The U.S. Education Department has offered schools some flexibility, but with no road map or template for how to teach special needs students in this new world, teachers have been forced to innovate, adapting as they go along. “We’re seeing kids have services because people are being creative,” says Kelly Grillo, a special education coordinator at Cooperative School Services who oversees special education at two rural school districts in Indiana. She’s inspired by the ways teachers have embraced familiar tools, like Youtube, or apps like Remind. And it’s not all high technology. For students who don’t have access to the Internet, Grillo and her team — like many teachers across the country — are resorting to phone calls and text messages as well.

As every state now deals with schools that have been shuttered to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many district leaders have struggled to figure out how – or even whether – to provide virtual learning for the estimated 55.1 million kids out of school. Expanding e-learning districtwide raises thorny questions about digital equity and access, especially for students with disabilities, children living in poverty and those who are homeless. This has forced school leaders to ask, “If we can’t teach every student equitably, should we be teaching any at all?” In Washington state, districts have spent weeks weighing the dilemma of trying to teach all students, or no students, remotely. The answers have not been simple. But early lessons from the first center of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. could offer a preview of the ongoing questions that will consume the nation’s public schools for months, if not longer, as the temporary closures appear likely to last through the rest of this academic year and potentially into the next.

There are many school districts across the country that have been struggling to set up distance learning programs for students. Online offerings are sometimes nonexistent or spotty at best, and getting paper work packets to students is a near impossibility with much of the country’s public life shut down because of the covid-19 crisis. So where to turn? One possibility: your local public television and radio stations. Many of these stations across the country are partnering with school districts and state education departments to provide curriculum-based lessons and educational programming — all free and commercial free. And in some places, award-winning teachers are leading the lessons. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, its members reach almost 99 percent of the country, including areas where families have no Internet service.

I have spent much of my time as an educator concentrating on providing mirrors to my students so that they can see their identities reflected in the works that they read. Right now, I am also very consciously making sure I include Asian voices and perspectives to provide windows to non-Asian readers so that they develop the empathy necessary to recognize and combat xenophobia and racism. Luckily for all of us, there are so many good, complex, and contemporary books for all ages about the Asian experience. My 7-year-old son was reading Bao Phi’s A Different Pond. It’s the subtle and beautiful story of a father and son who go fishing together. As they sit quietly and wait for fish, the father talks about growing up in Vietnam, a different pond from where they are now in the United States. We so often live in our own worlds, unable to envision what it is like in others’ landscapes. This is a time for more understanding. Cultural literacy is about fluency in another culture, its customs and beliefs; it is understanding gained through literacy.

As American families shelter in place due to COVID-19, children with hearing loss may need additional help at home, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). The association offers parents guidance:, Here are two examples. Turn on closed captioning. Watching Frozen for the 100th time? Even if your child knows every line of the movie by heart, practicing reading along can help them keep up with new dialogue when you finally switch movies or shows. Most streaming services offer the option for closed captions or subtitles. Set aside time for regular face-to-face activities. These could take the form of a board game or meal together. During this time, make sure all screens are down and eyes are up, so everyone can fully capture what is being communicated.

As the coronavirus pandemic has forced the vast majority of schools across the country to close, educators are scrambling to find ways to keep reaching students during a crisis that is exacerbating existing inequities and increasing academic gaps. The twelve teachers interviewed for this story—from the Mississippi Delta to San Francisco, Texas, Arizona, subarctic Alaska, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—identified the four most urgent needs that must be addressed in order to help reduce rapidly increasing disparities in access to learning.

Starting April 14th, The Reading League (TRL) will host a daily 30-minute live educational television broadcast on WCNY, Central New York’s PBS affiliate. The program will run from 2:30 PM to 3:00 PM every weekday for the duration of WCNY’s “TV Classroom” broadcasting. The Reading League’s program, called “Letters and Language with Katie and Kelli,” will be hosted by two leading TRL coaches and longtime educators, Kelli Johnson and Katie Sojewicz. The program will primarily serve an elementary-level student audience and focus daily on phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and the blending of words and phrases. Like all TRL programming, the televised lessons will be deeply rooted in evidence-based reading instruction.

One of the most frequent questions an author hears from students is how they started to write—and how young people can start, too. Maybe that’s why a number of middle grade and YA authors have created writing and journaling guides for kids and teens. With schools closed and millions of students learning from home, it’s a fertile time for young people to find their writing voice in the midst of chaos. These four standouts will help.

With the outbreak causing indefinite school closures across the country, children are having to figure out new ways of learning and playing together while living in isolation. Special correspondent Karla Murthy checked in on one second-grade class in New York City to get a glimpse of how their worlds have changed – and what remains the same. Classroom social-distancing doesn’t have to mean the end of social traditions.

As schools close in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, educators and parents alike are thinking about how the ways that kids spend the coming months will affect their school readiness in the fall—especially in the development of crucial reading skills. Children living in disadvantaged communities are particularly vulnerable to falling behind. Harvard education professor James Kim has some guidance to offer amid all this uncertainty. Kim is the key person behind READS for Summer Learning, a read-at-home literacy program designed to help students sharpen their reading skills when school is out of session. Research has shown that the program, which was developed for use by school districts, helped students in high-poverty elementary schools gain nearly 1.5 months of reading skills on average compared with non-participants. As the likelihood grows that classroom doors may be shuttered for months, Kim is providing all READS resources free online and is adapting them ​for use by parents and caregivers. Recently, he discussed why reading matters so much, what parents can do to encourage more of it, and how educators should be rethinking summer literacy programs.

In Dinuba, Calif., in the Central Valley, Dulce Meave cares for 14 children for 11 hours a day. Some arrive as early at 4 a.m. so their parents can go to work in nearby fields or packing houses. Most are Latinx, and about half speak Spanish at home. Yet Meave, a former preschool teacher who opened her home child care program two years ago, hasn’t had the opportunity to have much training in how to support young children under 6 learning two languages. And that’s a shame, because research shows that without specialized support, young dual language learners (DLLs) are likely to fall behind in school and lose their home language. But thanks to $5 million in new state funding, Meave is participating in a unique, locally developed training program to support teachers and caregivers of young DLLs and help ensure children are ready for kindergarten. Developed in Fresno, the Language Learning Project was recently awarded $1 million by California’s Department of Education to expand across the state, one of six funded projects.

With most of the world’s schools shut because of the coronavirus crisis, you can now find a lot of advice on the Internet about the best ways to carry out distance learning at home, where more than 1.5 billion students are now supposed to be getting their lessons. If you want a thorough rundown of what to do and not to do, read the following 19 strategies from renowned master educator Andy Hargreaves. Hargreaves, a research professor at Boston College and visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, has been working for decades to improve school effectiveness.

School-public library collaborations take many forms, with both sides committing to increase access and opportunities. Planning and implementing colocated libraries, where one site serves both an educational institution and the public, can be complex. But those who have established joint-use facilities say the shared libraries can greatly benefit both populations. Whether the partners are fully enmeshed in policy and procedure or have some autonomy, the goal is better access and fiscally responsible resource sharing.

When he was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in January, author Jason Reynolds envisioned a crazy year with even more travel and visits to schools and juvenile detention facilities than usual. But, as with everything else, those plans have changed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Today, the Library of Congress announced a new way Reynolds would reach out to young people during this stay-at-home-time. On April 14, Reynolds will begin a biweekly video series called, “Write. Right. Rite.” to inspire young people to tell their own stories, as well as a monthly newsletter for parents and educators on “relevant topics of the day.” The program is the first initiative for his platform, “Grab the Mic: Tell Your Story,” and is a collaboration among Reynolds, the Library of Congress (LOC), the Children’s Book Council, and Every Child a Reader. The videos and newsletter will be found on the “Grab the Mic” page on the LOC website.

The timing for this year’s “Drop Everything and Read” Day couldn’t be better. With coronavirus quarantines leaving us at home and looking for things to do, the D.E.A.R. reading celebration day this Sunday could be a welcome distraction and possibly the start of a daily reading habit. D.E.A.R.’s mission is simple: to encourage families to take at least 30 minutes on D.E.A.R. Day to enjoy books together. Nashville Public Library officials say reading aloud to your preschool child is the single most important activity you can do to prepare them for school and that continuing to read to, and with, them is invaluable.

For the last 40 years, scientists across a number of disciplines have studied how our brains turn abstract symbols, or letters, into words — in short, how we learn to read. Different pieces of research, using cleverly designed experiments and high-tech brain imaging, have created a fairly clear picture of how the brain learns to wire itself to recognize words on the page, and have shown how the brains of high-flying readers wire themselves to make the process automatic. That’s led to a new idea in some education circles: that there’s a scientific way to teach reading — a systematic approach shaped by those brain-science discoveries that would help most students master literacy by the end of third grade. It’s a system that could be especially helpful to those with learning disabilities, like dyslexia. And the implications might be even more important as school districts and parents seek to teach kids at home in the wake of this month’s widespread school closures.

The night before a safer-at-home order was issued in her Wisconsin town, all Pernille Ripp could think about was getting to her books. When her middle school opened for a few minutes the next day, the seventh grade English teacher and creator of the Global Read-Aloud grabbed all the books she could from her classroom library, before the school closed for the foreseeable future. “I went to my classroom and grabbed a ton of books I could read aloud to my students online,” Ripp said. “I thought that this might be it for the rest of the school year.” Teachers across the nation are turning to digital read-alouds not only to keep student skills sharp, but to forge connections while they’re apart. Instead of gathering around the rug or a “lit circle” for a story like they used to do in class, some teachers are gathering students on the “virtual rug” of a Zoom conference call or Instagram Live to continue reading books to them. Online read-alouds allow teachers to provide students with a daily dose of literacy—and maybe even some laughs.

Nearly 30 disability rights and education advocacy organizations have launched EducatingAllLearners.org, a resource hub and online network designed to answer questions and provide insight about remote learning for special education students during the coronavirus crisis. Keeping services flowing for special education students has been difficult. Confusion over guidance from the U.S. Department of Education and fear of violating federal laws, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has left some school districts struggling to get their online learning programs off the ground. Acknowledging that difficulty, the alliance aims to provide resources to ensure the millions of students with disabilities in the nation’s schools aren’t further marginalized. EducatingAllLearners.org users can create a free account to share ideas, contribute to discussions and access case studies and webinars. The site will also host virtual office hours with special education attorneys, parent advocates, and educators to field questions about legal rights and classroom practice.

In response to the spread of coronavirus, schools across the nation, including the University of Nevada, Reno, are transitioning to online learning for a period of time. This adjustment can be a challenge for some students; particularly those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Cady Stanton has coached people with autism or ADHD for the past 15 years and has studied the role it plays in academic outcomes. People who have ADHD or who are autistic tend to have more executive function challenges, to the point where it can really interfere with their productivity, and ability to organize and set goals for themselves. They really do need external support. They also need a lot of understanding and encouragement from those around them, and to not have the challenges that they face minimized.

To be successful, remote instruction requires a lot of the same things any instruction does: clarity, review, checking for understanding, prompt feedback. But distance adds additional challenges, and these tips can help. But even in the best of circumstances, remote instruction can intensify challenges inherent in face-to-face settings. Research has shown that online learning doesn’t generally work as well as traditional instruction—and that students who are already struggling are likely to be harmed the most. Still, in recent weeks some experts and practicing teachers have offered pointers that can help remote instruction be as effective as possible.

John Daniel, superintendent of Cottonwood Public Schools in rural Oklahoma, talks about the challenges of making sure students don’t fall behind when many of his students and teachers don’t have access to computers, Wi Fi, or even reliable cell phone service. The one good thing that might come out of this experience, Daniel said, is a public commitment to ensuring digital access to all of Oklahoma and the rest of the country. You can learn more about Daniel and Cottonwood if you listen to Episode 2 of Season 2 of ExtraOrdinary Districts.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act outlines specific requirements for identifying and educating children with disabilities, but the coronavirus crisis has sparked fierce debate over how adaptable the law is to a world where online education may be the only option. For some educators, the biggest challenge has been determining how to handle students’ Individualized Education Program, the carefully constructed plans designed to meet the educational needs of children with learning and physical disabilities in an online learning environment. More than 7 million children in U.S. schools have IEPs, leaving no room for a one-size-fits-all resolution. Education Week interviewed three experts—a special education attorney, an attorney who represents school districts in special education disputes, and a professor who studied special education law for decades—to find out what advice they have on handling IEPs during the global pandemic. During the discussions, three common themes emerged. Schools should: provide services to students as soon as possible; worry more about making progress than following the letter of the law; and understand that much of federal law wasn’t written with online education in mind.

Amid the flurry of new technologies used by K-12 schools to fire up remote learning in recent weeks, a piece of seemingly antiquated technology is playing a key role: the television. School districts are getting help from an old school tech solution—television stations—that includes a cross-country public broadcast initiative to deliver remote e-learning activities while the unprecedented wave of school shutdowns affecting more than 55 million students continues. On Monday, public television stations in New Jersey and the Washington D.C., metro region started featuring the at-home learning program, which is now set to air in all 50 states. In other cases, school districts are producing new original educational programming on their own local cable stations. The effort amounts to a low-cost alternative and readily accessible solution for districts that have been forced to develop and implement long-term online lesson plans on the spot, while facing a shortage of available devices and WiFi accessibility for many students.

The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act allocates $13.5 billion for K-12 education through a stabilization fund, of which at least 90% is intended for school districts through the Title I aid formula, including serving English-language learners, and the rest of which can be used for most educational purposes. The package also includes a $3 billion fund for state governors to use as they wish to help K-12 and higher education.

Comprehension is a complex and gradual process involving factors that don’t lend themselves easily to scientific measures of effectiveness—with one exception: metacognitive strategies, techniques that help readers think about whether they’re understanding what they’re reading. Many studies of these strategies, generally lasting no more than six weeks, have shown positive effects. Other kinds of studies have shown that background knowledge and familiarity with the conventions of written language also have powerful effects on comprehension. While their effects have been measured, we don’t have scientific data that shows boosting them has a direct impact on reading comprehension. Given the abundance of data on the effectiveness of strategies, educators and reading experts have placed greater weight on comprehension “skills and strategies” than on the other elements of comprehension.

If you’re trying to keep up with reading lessons at home during the coronavirus school shutdown, now is a good time to explore reading science materials with early readers. ReadWA leaders suggest these sources, which are geared toward both parents and educators. Some are free, but others cost money. For students who are well on their way to knowing how to read, Seattle schools reading specialist Julie Bedell suggests buying two copies of the same chapter book, and reading it aloud with your child. The book should be a bit harder than what your child can read on his or her own. With this exercise, the parent serves as a “scaffold,” helping the student sound out unknown words, and defining the meaning of words. It helps children map new words into their brains, and helps with comprehension and builds vocabulary, Bedell said.

Tomie dePaola brought comfort and laughter to young readers for decades. His death this week after a fall felt somehow more difficult to endure for his fans and friends at this uncertain time when the world could use Strega Nona to blow a few kisses and save the town. Unable to gather together and remember him in person, even those closest to him took solace in his literary legacy. “His books radiate his love of life, food, family, music, art, travel, culture and friendship,” said Lin Oliver, president of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and a friend of dePaola for 40 years. “His joyful spirit and big heart spill from every page. Who doesn’t love both Nanas, the one upstairs and the one downstairs? Who doesn’t cheer for Oliver Button when he triumphs over those bullies? Who doesn’t think of Strega Nona every time you put up a pot of pasta? “Tomie’s books offer children his soul and spirit, which is why they will be forever loved. In that sense, he is with us forever.”

WizardingWorld.com is hosting Harry Potter At Home, a hub of information and activities for parents, children, and carers to discover the magic of Harry Potter, by reading or listening on their own or together with loved ones, whilst staying at home. Explore the hub for a wealth of creative and craft activities, quizzes, puzzles and more. There will also be a weekly email newsletter bringing fresh ideas into inboxes each Friday.

“I miss my friends and all the specials that we had like P.E., music, computer lab,” says Nina Daer, a third-grader from Tempe, Ariz. Coronavirus has shut down schools across the country, forcing millions of students to learn at home. Parents and kids are struggling to adjust to this new reality. In this video, families from Seattle to Maine react to how they feel during this time and talk about what it’s like to navigate these changes together. “You’re not used to me being your teacher, so I think I get a little more pushback than you normally give your other teachers and little more attitude when I ask you to do work,” said Stephanie Petrides, a parent from Bethlehem, Pa.

April is National Poetry Month and is often celebrated across the nation’s schools through reading, writing, and sharing poetry all month long. While many students will be home this month due to the COVID-19 crisis, poetry can be a source of comfort as we face tremendous challenges and waves of uncertainty. Poetry can also serve as an expressive outlet for the small moments of joy students may be experiencing as well as the difficult feelings they are navigating. Poetry offers a pathway for students to look inwards but also to look outwards to take notice of the sights and sounds of their everyday lives at this moment. In this post, we share ways you and your students can celebrate poetry from home. There are low-tech suggestions that include drawing, noticing, wondering, and composing. There are also high-tech suggestions including the investigation of online poetry sites and ways to incorporate technology into the composing and sharing processes.

As schools, teachers and families face the shock of abruptly shifting to online education, one small question has been how to shift these read alouds to Zoom, Facebook, Google Hangouts and YouTube, the spaces where many classes continue to meet. A second question has been given almost equal importance: Is reading a book to students online even legal? The short answer is, well, yes. While many well-intentioned commentators have warned teachers against this practice, the fact is that copyright law—specifically fair use—permits many read-aloud activities online. As instructors and learners adapt to new educational environments, copyright concerns about reading aloud need not be among the challenges they face.

Novelist Jacqueline Woodson is a slow reader. Taking her time lets her savor each word, brings her closer to each story, and it lets her pay respect to her ancestors who weren’t allowed to read. Jacqueline Woodson is the author of nearly thirty books for children and adolescents, including many award winners like Brown Girl Dreaming and Miracle’s Boys. From 2018 to 2019, she served as the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and from 2014 to 2016 served as the Young People’s Poet Laureate.

Tucked away in the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization bill is a provision that allows Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to seek congressional approval to waive parts of the federal special education law while schools combat the coronavirus pandemic. Schools are scrambling to shift classes online as more than 55 million children stay at home. For now, that has upended special education, which is administered through meticulously devised plans called Individualized Education Programs, or I.E.P.s, which require extensive services that are not easily transferred to the internet. Students who qualify can have moderate to severe disabilities and require a range of support, such as tutoring and behavioral assistance, hands-on services like physical and occupational therapy, and specialized staff. Such services are critical for school districts to comply with IDEA’s mandate that students with special needs receive an education comparable to that of their peers. The possibility that those obligations could be waived has driven a sharp wedge between school administrators, parents and special education teachers

The evidence suggests that the way to boost reading comprehension is to build kids’ knowledge—ironically, through the very subjects that schools are pushing aside to spend more time on comprehension skills. But some reading experts point to hundreds of studies showing that teaching strategies boosts reading comprehension. So what’s a teacher (or suddenly homeschooling parent) to do? Focus on comprehension skills and strategies, or focus on building knowledge? Of course, most teachers don’t get to choose; they need to adopt whatever approach is mandated, and it’s usually “skills and strategies.”

Policymakers are focusing on the craft of teaching reading. They must also focus on the politics. Most conversations about literacy treat the problem of poor reading instruction as one of craft. The problem is that teachers don’t know how to teach reading, so how do we make sure they do? Solve the craft problem, the argument goes, and the politics take care of themselves. But what if this is exactly backward and, instead, it’s a political problem that allows the craft problem to persist? And maybe not just on reading but also on other issues like testing, accountability and teacher evaluation, where we’re constantly told that if things were just a little better from a technical standpoint everyone would actually be on board? On reading, fierce ideological debates persist despite a lot of research.

Authors and celebrities continue to try to help students, parents, and educators during the coronavirus pandemic that has closed schools and put stay-at-home orders in place across the country. This week, Dav Pilkey, Dolly Parton, and LeVar Burton begin their initiatives. Dav Pilkey at Home, a collaboration between the “Dog Man” and “Captain Underpants” author and the Library of Congress (LOC), launches today with free activities, including how-to-draw demonstrations, read-alouds, and resources from the LOC’s collections. On Fridays at 8 a.m. EDT, new video content created by Pilkey will be released. More videos and content, including downloadable activities, discussions about books, and tips to create characters or act out scenes from the “Dog Man” series will be added periodically throughout the week.

As students with learning disabilities enter distance learning environments, a tangled patchwork of state regulations, a lack of therapist training, and limited access to high-speed internet threatens to limit their access to key services that help them speak, move, and acquire skills for daily living. The sudden shift to online learning going on across the country to tamp down the spread of the coronavirus will, at best, place new burdens on children with disabilities and their families—and, at worst, lead to extended disruptions in services such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy. The federal government does not track the number of students with disabilities who receive tele-therapy, or are supposed to under federal law, but the total could swell into the millions during the widespread national school closures. Roughly 1.5 million students have diagnosed speech or language impairment, making it the second most prevalent disability category in the nation’s K-12 schools.

The reading wars are back, reignited by radio journalist Emily Hanford of APM Reports, who in 2018 began arguing that too many schools are ignoring the science of reading and failing to teach phonics. The debate has elicited passions, vindication for proponents of phonics and distress for defenders of a so-called “balanced” approach to reading instruction. As a journalist who regularly covers education research, I wanted to boil down the key points of what we know from the research on reading and answer the big questions that people have been asking me: 1. Is phonics really better? 2. What’s wrong with balanced literacy? 3. What about memorizing sight words? 4. What about reading comprehension?

More than 55 million American students are staying home amid the coronavirus pandemic. The impacts are huge — affecting students, parents and teachers. Learning is happening with a host of new challenges. Kate Gardoqui of the Great Schools Partnership joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

The COVID-19 pandemic has kicked off a series of changes in the American book world that may well lead to permanent changes down the line. Publishers were quick to set up services for the homebound. For example, Penguin Random House moved up its “Read Together, Be Together” campaign, which was originally scheduled for the summer but instead launched in March. The campaign, developed in partnership with Parents magazine, encourages parents and caregivers to read with young children. As bookstores and warehouses close, publishers are taking steps to make their digital products more affordable to schools, libraries, and individuals. The Association of American Publishers has a list of publishers’ actions, including free access to digital and e-book platforms for educators; resource guides for parents, teachers, and librarians; online storytimes and other events for kids; and social media activities.

Tomie dePaola, the celebrated author and illustrator of scores of beloved children’s books including the “Strega Nona” series, whose heartwarming stories nurtured and delighted many young generations, has died. He was 85. Mr. dePaola stirred imaginations by writing or illustrating more than 270 books. The ones that resonated most with children, he told The Times in 1999, were inspired by his own life. His grandmother and great-grandmother formed the basis for the characters in “Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs,” one of his most famous books, which dealt with the death of each woman. And “Oliver Button Is a Sissy,” a book about a young boy who is bullied by his peers for preferring dancing and reading to doing sports, was inspired by his own experiences as a child.

Tomie dePaola passed away yesterday. He will be remembered and missed. Members of the children’s literature community shared their remembrances on Twitter. From Jarrett J. Krocoszka: “We are gutted. Tomie was joy & love personified. We will remember him for all of our days. We are mourning & crying but his laughter will live in our hearts & our ears. Sending 3 kisses up to the sky.” From Lin Oliver: “Today we lost the adored children’s book creator Tomie DePaola who passed away from a head injury. Forever joyful, he was a creator of beauty and a beloved friend. RIP you genius imp.”

Teaching kids to read isn’t easy; educators often feel strongly about what they think is the “right” way to teach this essential skill. Though teachers’ approaches may differ, the research is pretty clear on how best to help kids learn to read. Here’s what parents should look for in their children’s classroom. Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on reading instruction, said phonics are important in kindergarten through second grade and phonemic awareness should be explicitly taught in kindergarten and first grade. This view has been underscored by experts in recent years as the debate over reading instruction has intensified. But teaching kids how to read should include more than phonics, said Shanahan. They should also be exposed to oral reading, reading comprehension and writing.

As the vast majority of schools in the U.S. have transitioned from the classroom to the computer — teachers and administrators have struggled to offer learning to special needs students. Some districts have plowed ahead with holding one-on-one lessons over software like Zoom and virtual meetings to discuss the individualized education plans — known as IEPs — that are required for students in special education. Others have put all learning on a pause, as they figure out how to use distance learning to serve all students — not just those with disabilities but also those who don’t have computers or high-speed internet. On Saturday, the U.S. Education Department announced it was giving schools flexibility in interpreting IDEA, saying that complying with the law, “should not prevent any school from offering educational programs through distance instruction.”

Every day, Hannah Haskell reads a chapter of Harriet the Spy to her 3rd graders. She used to read the book to students during snack time. Now, she reads the chapters online, as her students tune in from their own homes. Haskell reads the book live on Google Hangouts, but saves the recordings in her Google Classroom so students can listen whenever it fits into their schedules. One student told her that he listens to it before he goes to bed at night. As school districts scramble to get online learning systems up and running, virtual reading sessions are a way for educators to provide a sense of normalcy and connection to their students.

There’s been heated debate over reading instruction within the education world lately—and some confusion. Now that the coronavirus has closed most schools, parents may be experiencing confusion too. Here’s some help. “This is the remote reading lesson I taught to my kindergartner yesterday,” a New York City parent named Michael LaForgia recently tweeted. “I am a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, and I could not correctly identify the ‘main idea’ in this passage—though the instructions assured us it was in there.” The passage, sent home by the teacher, wasn’t an excerpt from Kierkegaard. It was a paragraph briefly mentioning sharks, whales, dolphins, and other sea creatures. The teacher eventually revealed, via a recording, that the main idea was “ocean animals”—which also happened to be the title.

Picking the best bedtime story to read for your child is an incredibly daunting task. And reading the same story over and over again isn’t always fun. Luckily, you can find your newest bedtime hit in the digitized archives of a few academic libraries scattered around the United States. As you and/or your child travel through the world’s complex social history in these books, you might see just how connected the past and the present really are. The Library of Congress’s collection of children’s books is smaller than some repositories, but it has a wide variety of titles for parents to choose from.

Members of the Senate worked through the weekend on a bipartisan, nearly $2 trillion “economic rescue” bill that passed the Senate, and is expected to quickly pass the House of Representatives and be signed into law. Education, from early education on up through higher education and workforce training, has been drastically affected by the coronavirus crisis, and it has a big part in the emergency spending bill, including some funding for education technology. However, the bill includes relatively smaller amounts of funding to address the needs of households with little to no access to high-speed Internet, even though students in schools and colleges around the country are expected to learn online from home. We’ve teamed up across New America’s Education Policy Program to explain what’s included – and what’s next for the field.

Every morning in Berkeley, a video conference call platform designed for white-collar workers is taken over by a group of antsy 6-year-olds. Welcome to the Zoom version of Alicia Traister’s kindergarten class. Traister has been offering the daily lessons completely voluntarily. After COVID-19 forced schools to close for at least three weeks, starting March 16, Berkeley Unified Superintendent Brent Stephens said the district was unable to come up with a “distance learning” program that could equitably serve all students — those with disabilities, those without computers and English learners. Under federal law, a school district must provide a “free and appropriate” education to all students or none at all. So BUSD opted instead to post a set of optional “home learning” resources on its website, launched a free meal program, and began distributing Chromebooks to students in need. But the decision around academics runs the risk of exacerbating disparities itself. With only some parents able to craft elaborate homeschooling plans, and only some teachers deciding to contact their classes, existing gaps could grow. And, while BUSD was struggling to figure out how to get technology to students, some small private schools in the city were able to launch comprehensive learning plans on day one, creating a larger divide within Berkeley.

School leaders are grappling with how to deliver special education services — and stay compliant with state and federal civil rights law — as governors shut down school buildings to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. A handful of districts announced in recent weeks that they won’t yet require distance learning because they haven’t figured out a way to serve all students, including students with disabilities, English Language Learners and students who don’t have internet access at home. The U.S. Department of Education told schools Saturday that they should not let concerns over how to reach students with disabilities stop them from offering distance learning, and that they don’t have to reach all students the same way.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education released today a webinar on ensuring web accessibility for students with disabilities for schools utilizing online learning during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In addition, OCR published a fact sheet for education leaders on how to protect students’ civil rights as school leaders take steps to keep students safe and secure. These resources will assist education leaders in making distance learning accessible to students with disabilities and in preventing discrimination during this Administration-wide response effort.