Today’s Literacy Headlines

Six educators discuss strategies they’ve used to encourage students to revise their writing, such as demonstrating their own practice.

If you had asked one of Lisa Hepburn’s fifth-grade students to pronounce the word “pandemic” not too long ago, he’d try “pandora,” “pandemonium” or “just kind of guess whatever.” But more recently, Hepburn, a reading specialist at Randall Elementary School, watched that same student “who’s reading at a second-grade level as a fifth-grader chunk out words like ‘tranquility.’” She credits the “science of reading,” a literacy teaching method the Madison Metropolitan School District is shifting toward as it confronts low reading proficiency rates among its students. It’s a move away from the “balanced literacy” approach the district has had in the past, in which literacy is taught through a variety of readings and word studies, to a more phonics-focused format of teaching students how to read.

Cueing has, for decades now, been a staple of early reading instruction. The strategy—which is also known as three-cueing, or MSV—involves prompting students to draw on context and sentence structure, along with letters, to identify words. But it isn’t the most effective way for beginning readers to learn how to decode printed text. In 2019, an EdWeek Research Center survey found that 75 percent of K-2 and elementary special education teachers use the method to teach students how to read, and 65 percent of college of education professors teach it. Now, there are signs that cueing’s hold on reading instruction may be loosening. Recently, one of the most influential reading programs in the country took a step away from the method—raising questions about whether other publishers will follow suit, and whether changes to written materials will lead to shifts in classroom practice.

Photo essay: Remote learning is extra hard for millions of students who lack reliable internet at home. Wi-Fi buses are the solution in this Michigan community.

We are all dealing with high levels of stress right now. On top of normal pressures, current events are causing stress related to job and financial worries, health risks, and disruption to our normal routines. We need to find ways to effectively manage our stress—and practicing SEL activities can help. As an educator, you are in a unique position to provide stability and support to your students and their families during uncertain times. One of the best ways you can help students is by looking after their social-emotional health. Here are 10 SEL activities to help your students learn effective stress management.

For many school districts across the nation, this week is the last one before the holidays, and most large ones are only offering remote instruction. Biden has promised to safely and responsibly reopen the “majority” of schools for in person learning within his first 100 days. This would entail swinging open the physical doors on at least half of the nation’s 130,000-odd schools by the beginning of May. What this timeline portends, especially for the majority of large districts that have intermittently closed or remained physically shuttered, are more enervating stories ahead about learning loss and missing students, as well as harrowing accounts of child abuse, adolescent depression, and suicide. But it hasn’t been all gloom and doom. Indeed, there have been genuinely encouraging developments that provide some reason for Yuletide cheer in a year that’s been otherwise wanting for good news. Five trends in particular could pay dividends when the country finally kicks this godforsaken plague to the curb.

We know more about the science of reading than the science of reading instruction. In other words, we know a lot more about what components are associated with improved outcomes for each stage of reading development (e.g., phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle are essential for beginning readers) than we do about how to teach all these components to a class of students with diverse learning needs. Similarly, we know more about interventions for students with mild to moderate reading difficulties than we do about students with severe reading difficulties. Students with very low reading skills—those at the bottom 10th percentile of word reading and lower—have been challenging to impact. Finally, in policy development, we have not capitalized on theory and science for effectively implementing new practices in schools. Still, there is much we do know that can support excellent instruction. Both here and in two online supplements, we offer guidance to prevent and address reading difficulties. The key to improved outcomes for the vast majority of struggling readers, including those with a reading disability, is enhanced core instruction—and that means enhanced curricula, assessments, pre-service and in-service professional development, and supports.

Children beginning their school careers during the pandemic are likely to need a lot more support than usual to build their foundational skills for reading. The most comprehensive study to date of pandemic-related learning loss in the earliest grades finds that some 40 percent of 1st graders have come to school this fall significantly behind in early literacy skills—particularly around phonics—and they will need intensive interventions to prevent them from ending the year reading below grade level. The study confirms that even the youngest students are experiencing the so-called “COVID slide,” and counters some recent studies that suggested there have been minimal losses in reading.

In a year of extraordinary hardship, children’s authors and illustrators have continued to do what they do best: to engage and entertain young readers and their families through stories. A number of picture books have directly addressed the challenges of the pandemic, while also paying tribute to the everyday heroes who have emerged in its wake. Looking ahead at 2021, LeUyen Pham’s forthcoming Outside, Inside reflects the solace she felt while going on daily walks in her Los Angeles neighborhood during quarantine. And next spring, from the opposite coast, Caldecott Medalist and longtime New Yorker Brian Floca will offer his picture book ode to the resilience of this city—and all cities—and to essential workers, Keeping the City Going. Floca, who has lived in New York for two decades, told PW that his new book originated in the form of everyday observations and drawings. “I started at the end of March or April, doing sketches of what I was seeing in New York, the city where I have lived for a long time but that suddenly felt like a new place. … I began looking at vehicles: ambulances, trucks, and delivery people on bikes. It struck me that, while so many of us are hunkered down, these are the people who are still going to work.”

When school buildings closed last spring, author Steve Sheinkin watched as his peers mobilized to help educators and kids get through the difficult end to the school year with online read-alouds, free writing and drawing classes, and Zoom author visits. As summer was ending and it was clear that the coming school year clearly would not resemble anything close to normal, the children’s nonfiction author wanted to do something different for kids and teachers. Sheinkin came up with the idea of quizzing authors on their own books. Looking for a collaborator, he called Stacey Rattner—a “superlibrarian,” according to Sheinkin. “His initial idea was to have us ask the author questions to see how well they know their own book, and I suggested, What if we add a young fan?” says Rattner, school librarian at Castleton (NY) Elementary School. “We basically had the format after our first phone conversation.”

As new political leaders prepare to take office in Washington and around our country, schools continue to face an unprecedented scenario that will shape an entire generation of young people. It is incumbent upon the administration of President-elect Joe Biden, the new Congress, and local and state officials to prioritize education as a critical step in our nation’s recovery. Here are some clear actions our elected officials can take to ensure students are more prepared for the future. #3: Double down on the science of reading. We’ve known for decades—at least since the National Reading Panel report—that phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension are essential elements for building strong readers. Yet, for too long, many of America’s students have been denied this instruction. There are encouraging signs this is shifting, but we must not let the focus on quality literacy instruction slip as we address pandemic-related challenges.

Michaela Weeks, 7, just has to walk outside her front door in Hutto to get to school during the coronavirus pandemic. Once a week she steps onto a bus parked outside her house. The Hutto school district every week sends one of its buses to 20 special education students, including Weeks, to make sure they get a one-on-one lesson with a teacher. One recent morning, Weeks sat at a table on the bus with her teacher, Lou Quinlan, with both wearing masks. Quinlan read the 7-year-old a story and then asked her questions to see what she could remember about it. Michaela’s mother, Aunchelle Weeks, said her daughter is doing much better in school now that she gets a lesson once a week on the bus. “She goes in there and has the teacher’s undivided attention,” said Aunchelle Weeks. “She’s not feeling rushed by another student and it’s amazing what a huge difference it’s making.”

In 2020, we caught up with some of our favorite stars-turned-children’s authors, including Natalie Portman for “Natalie Portman’s Fables,” Joanna Gaines for “The World Needs Who You Were Meant to Be,” Alyssa Milano for “Project Class President,” Misty Copeland for “Bunheads,” Neil Patrick Harris for “The Magic Misfits” and Gabrielle Union for “Welcome to the Party.” Judy Blume also caught up with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager for the 50th anniversary of “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret,” and “Baby-Sitters Club” author Ann M. Martin told Jenna where she thought her characters would be now, after the success of the new Netflix series. There were so many more children’s books we loved in 2020, at a time when parents and kids were unable to browse in bookstores. Here are 25 of our favorite children’s books of 2020.

As rural schools in my home state of Vermont planned for the start of school this academic year, many education professionals here anticipated that a return to in-person schooling was likely due to the relatively few cases of Covid statewide. In the case of my K–6 school, the Albert Bridge School, we were able to turn some things that were previously considered challenges into advantages, including small class sizes. Our class sizes range from eight to 12 students, making social distancing easier. Some factors we’ve invested in over the last few years include a half-time coordinator on staff who supports place-based outdoor education; and we had a strong school and community identity centered around what we loosely call “The Mountain Curriculum.” With these pieces already in place, we could expand our approach to educating students outdoors while fostering connections within our community.

Each reader walks into a text with motivations, knowledge and experiences. They interact with the text for different purposes and extend what is read through responses. By exploring any reader’s authentic, self-directed responses, teachers and librarians can gain insight into students’ identity and their reading development, as well as their personal interests and goals. Unfortunately, for many students, the reading response activities traditionally assigned and encouraged at school—such as book reports, comprehension tests, cookie-cutter projects, and other performative reading activities—center knowledge about a specific text and don’t include the reader. Looking at samples of reading response activities online, most offerings are worksheets with generic comprehension prompts or book report templates. It is difficult to see how such assignments help students become more proficient readers (and writers) or joyful ones.

I like fiction. I even know some talented people who make money composing it. But as a nonfiction writer, when I go into schools, I am sad that the books students choose to read are almost always fiction. A child thinks: Nonfiction? You mean textbooks. Ugh. That’s supposed to be changing. The Common Core State Standards, which have had a marked effect on teaching lately, say nonfiction is essential. Children need a steady diet of it to accumulate the background knowledge that will allow them to recognize more words as they learn to read.

Many of us discover as children that books can be like secret doorways. They might be at the back of a wardrobe or in the side of a giant tree, but wherever the doors lead, once we step through, time will cease to matter and our everyday worries will disappear. Things might get dicey, as there are bound to be stormy nights, impenetrable forests, monsters and witches, but in the end, and this is most important, everything will be all right. I’m almost 50 and both of my daughters are nearly grown, so it is rare that I pick up a children’s book anymore. What a delightful surprise, then, to be handed three new books that so perfectly evoke that childhood sensation of falling in love with reading. At a library or bookstore, these would be shelved in the “young reader” section, but I believe in 2020 we all might find a little solace in stories about kindness and bravery, about winter giving way to spring and suffering to joy.

San Antonio teacher Celina Quintanilla has names for the two groups of 5th-graders she is simultaneously teaching — those in her classroom are the “roomers” and those on Zoom are the “zoomers.” It’s an arrangement that has sparked resistance from teacher’s unions across the country as teachers say they feel stretched too thin to be effective. The entire class started remotely in August, and slowly the school has brought back those whose parents agreed to send them. The first invitations went out to children with special needs, no internet connection, or economic hardships that made learning difficult. Teachers also reached out to students who simply were not engaging over Zoom. Those are the students who drew Quintanilla into teaching. “The louder students who speak up more, you can see that they are struggling.” But her heart goes out to the kids like her who are shier, who don’t speak up. That’s the kind of kid she was, as she struggled with a learning disability.

After a year being cooped up in houses, why not delight young readers this holiday season with stories about the joy and wonder of flight? They can learn how the 747 was built, enjoy backyard star-gazing, and follow a little moth who hopes to land on the moon. Our selection includes titles for all ages, from new readers to teens.

We’re tired of being isolated, and for some of us this will be a no-Christmas. All of this is hard on the kids, some of whom are stressed from going back and forth between school and distance learning and missing their grandparents. It’s a time for books that soothe us, stress kindness to humans and animals, and bring smiles to our face. So today’s roundup includes only books that offer good thoughts and the best of humanity. Happy birthday India Opal Buloni and a celebratory “woof” to Winn-Dixie. It’s hard to believe that Minnesotan Kate DiCamillo’s novel “Because of Winn-Dixie,” is 20 years old. The phrase “modern classic” is thrown around too much, but DiCamillo’s big-hearted story of a lonely girl and her scruffy dog deserves that description.

Schools and libraries across the country and the world faced daunting challenges in 2020 as buildings shut down and millions of students shifted to online learning during the pandemic. These facts and figures about schools, libraries, books, and learning help tell the story of this unprecedented year. Amid all the uncertainty and stress in 2020, there were some bright spots: Audiobook sales surged, more kids tuned into podcasts, and children’s book sales continued to grow.

For every child in an afterschool program in the U.S., three are waiting for a spot, according to new data. And the demand for programs has increased by 60 percent since 2004. More than half of the 31,000 respondents to the Afterschool Alliance’s “America After 3 p.m.” survey said cost is what’s keeping their children out of afterschool programs, which average about $100 per week. A lack of transportation and available programs in their neighborhoods were other common barriers. The 7.8 million students enrolled in afterschool programs represent the lowest participation since 2009, down sharply from a peak of 10 million students in 2014. And fewer students from low-income households are involved: 2.7 million this year, compared to 4.6 million six years ago.

As school districts and families continue to try and combat the educational and economic impact of the pandemic, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched a volunteer tutoring program to help students in her New York City district. A pilot of about 125 tutors went well. By early December, the program had conducted approximately 100 sessions with students and was ready to expand toward its goal of serving 1,000 students by June. Studies have shown the effectiveness of one-on-one tutoring, and many communities are looking toward tutoring programs to help with the pandemic’s impact on education. Ocasio-Cortez and her staff have obviously created a huge network of volunteer, but Homework Helpers could be a model for a much bigger idea.

We bring you this year’s Big Ideas in Education in the spirit of change and transformation. This report, written by Education Week reporters and editors, questions some basic assumptions about how you do your work, whether you’re a teacher, school or district leader, or a policymaker. And it is likely to even make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but we hope it will also inspire you to think about how and why you do the work that you do. Many of the essays also include original survey data from more than 1,000 teachers who shared their opinions on the role of robots in the classroom, the goal of big technology, the cause of math anxiety, the messiness of school governance, and more.

Nationally, 8 percent of American Indian and Alaska Natives, and 15 percent of Pacific Islander students are ELs. These students don’t fit into the conventional EL profile, that is, students who are adding English to another language spoken at home, and therefore can be harder to identify. Unlike other ELs, Native American ELs, such as those in Montana, do not necessarily speak their heritage language, but also haven’t necessarily developed their academic English skills enough to support content learning. As with other ELs whose language is influenced by the immigrant background of their parents, Native American ELs have had their English acquisition framed by parents/grandparents, family members, or guardians who may have been ELs themselves.

Brain scans reveal crucial reading circuitry flickering to life when young readers print letters and then read them. The effect largely disappears when letters are typed or traced. We look at two studies which compare handwriting to typing—both conclude that handwriting taps into brain networks associated with deeper learning. That doesn’t mean we should toss out our keyboards, though. Kids with processing disabilities like dysgraphia or dyslexia often benefit from computer technology, and all kids need to develop digital skills.

My two young daughters, ages 3 and 6, are big pretenders. 2020 has turned their world, real and imaginary, upside down. Explaining all that’s going on around them—a global pandemic, the struggle against systemic racism, protests, a volatile presidential election—at a level that they can understand, and in a way that teaches and moves them, without inducing anxiety has been challenging. As a parent, I always turn to children’s books to guide me, and this year, some of my favorite new books that have come out are pathways to conversations and teachable moments, while others provide a needed laugh, a lighter note or a breath of fresh air.

Simultaneous crises of a pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and — in the most extreme cases — denied these children access to quality education. But some families and their advocates are hopeful that the pandemic could prompt a reckoning and systemic change. During distance learning, educators have needed to get creative to reach all their students, leading to new ways of collaborating with parents and approaches to instruction that education experts say could be integrated into how schools operate going forward.

How do we prepare 21st-century kids for challenges and jobs that we at present cannot even describe? The Best STEM Books help by celebrating convergent and divergent thinking, analysis and creativity, persistence, and the sheer joy of figuring things out. Best STEM Books winners explore problems and possible solutions in the scientific world and, where applicable, in the lives of the protagonists. Instead of focusing on specific content, the Best STEM Books emphasize real-world issues that cross disciplinary boundaries. Teachers can use these books to foster and model “minds-on” work. Parents, grandparents, and other caregivers can involve even the very youngest children in the process of STEM thinking.

Even in hybrid districts, some students have been learning remotely, either part or full time. In short, online learning is the reality for a majority of students this fall. We are still starved for data on what this all means. The earliest standardized test scores coming out show modest learning loss for students in math, but there are worries that the most at-risk students are not being tested at all. For this story I talked to educators in six states, from California to South Carolina. For the most part they say things have improved since the spring. But they are close to burnout, with only a patchwork of support. They say the heart of the job right now is getting students connected with school and keeping them that way — both technologically and even more importantly, emotionally. Here are five lessons learned so far.

As the pandemic disrupted life across the entire globe, teachers scrambled to transform their physical classrooms into virtual—or even hybrid—ones, and researchers slowly began to collect insights into what works, and what doesn’t, in online learning environments around the world. Meanwhile, neuroscientists made a convincing case for keeping handwriting in schools, and after the closure of several coal-fired power plants in Chicago, researchers reported a drop in pediatric emergency room visits and fewer absences in schools, reminding us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. Edutopia reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant—covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.

Think back to the books you read as a child — there’s a good chance that some of them had to do with the environment, nature, or animals. Children’s books are so important — not only do they help little ones learn new words and concepts, but they can also help shape children’s perception of the world. So for any budding young environmentalists in your life, a children’s book about the environment would make a perfect gift.

Many children in the U.S. live their lives in two or more languages: A child of Guatemalan descent may read bedtime stories in Spanish with their parents and learn in English at school—and perhaps speak K’iche’ with their grandparents. Research has shown that these multilingual children may have strong math skills, conflict resolution skills, and executive function skills. By welcoming the whole multilingual child, including their linguistic practices, we send a powerful message that children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds contribute to the vibrancy of our early childhood programs. Multilingualism is an asset to be nurtured in our classrooms, and the following five strategies can help teachers strategically and intentionally celebrate and extend multilingual children’s existing linguistic expertise as well as their participation in learning activities both in person and virtually.

It’s now official. Unless Congress pushes back on Secretary DeVos’s request—which seems unlikely—the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests of fourth and eighth grade reading and math that were scheduled for 2021 will be deferred at least a year. That means this vital source of data on student achievement won’t tell us anything between spring ‘19 and autumn ‘22, when we can reasonably expect the next results to appear. This means, in effect, that NAEP is AWOL for the pandemic and its school shutdowns, turning a blind eye to the learning losses that they’re causing. This also means that state testing in spring 2021 is now more important than ever—and that President Biden’s education secretary should resist all demands for another round of waivers from ESSA’s requirement that all students in grades three through eight should be assessed annually in reading and math. Absent such data, we’ll see both a collapse, perhaps permanently, of results-based school accountability and—more immediately—an appalling dearth of information about who is and isn’t learning what during these challenging times for K–12 education.

Children’s podcasting responded to the pandemic with episodes speaking to the moments children and families are experiencing, fortifying them with valuable information, and providing great storytelling, messages of empowerment, and off-screen learning. While adult podcast listening is down, with fewer people tuning in while commuting, children’s listening increased by 24 percent in March, and by August, one in four children were tuning in to podcasts. This playlist provides an overview of how children’s podcasters pivoted, responded, and engaged with their audiences in new and creative ways. We selected episodes that represent general trends, including growth of podcast programming into other children’s media, empowerment of student podcasting, expansion of topics for kids, and activism and civic engagement.

As protests against racial injustice spread to communities large and small in this year, many educators have been pushed to examine how systemic racism harms students. Some have publicly proclaimed the steps they will take to create anti-racist schools, including diversifying classroom and library bookshelves. That task may be easier than ever, thanks to six years of advocacy by the We Need Diverse Books campaignBuilding a classroom library that offers “windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors” to all children is more than a numbers game. It requires thoughtful curation of who is represented and how. Here are seven pitfalls to avoid when deciding what to leave in and out, accompanied by more than 50 title recommendations based on conversations in this piece to help kickstart the journey.

Preschool years are arguably among the most formative of a child’s life. A student who starts kindergarten without preschool is more likely to repeat a grade, require special-education services or drop out. “Unfortunately, for children, the impact of this pandemic will be felt for years,” said Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician who directs the Seattle Children’s Hospital Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development. It’s hard to quantify how much the pandemic is undermining children’s readiness for kindergarten. Schools such as those in the Educare network are in the process of rolling out virtual assessments designed to measure students’ achievement levels, but experts warn that the findings from those evaluations will need to be taken with a grain of salt.

A sweeping new review of national test data suggests the pandemic-driven jump to online learning has had little impact on children’s reading growth and has only somewhat slowed gains in math. That positive news comes from the testing nonprofit NWEA and covers nearly 4.4 million U.S. students in grades three through eight. But the report also includes a worrying caveat: Many of the nation’s most vulnerable students are missing from the data. “Preliminary fall data suggests that, on average, students are faring better than we had feared,” says Beth Tarasawa, head of research at NWEA, in a news release accompanying the report. “While there’s some good news here, we want to stress that not all students are represented in the data, especially from our most marginalized communities.”

I write to request that you not approve the proposed replacement of NAEP’s assessment of reading comprehension, a change that could go into effect with the 2025 tests. In short, this well-meant proposal to replace the framework that governs NAEP’s reading assessment is not helpful and should be disapproved. It would not accurately report reading comprehension ability. It would not accurately expose the unfair gaps in reading between groups—gaps that we know how to close, that schools should be encouraged to close, and that their customers, the parents and guardians of these children, wish them to close to improve their life chances.

The need for media mentorship is gaining urgency under three rapidly evolving and interrelated developments: The Digital Age has brought a deluge of new types of content and tools, from apps to social media networks to video streams. Becoming an informed citizen now demands new skills in filtering out disinformation, understanding how the media works, and learning new mindsets that advance media literacy. And the COVID-19 pandemic has required that more and more learning and exploration be mediated by digital media and technology, putting questions of digital equity front and center. Media mentorship is part of building a more informed, discerning, and media-savvy citizenry, greater social cohesion in communities, and, ultimately, a stronger democracy. Download the full guide here.

Browse the most notable picture, middle grade, and young adult books of the year, selected by The Times’s children’s books editor.

Nell Duke, a professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Michigan, says that the biggest difficulty lies in asynchronous time, specifically the lack of a “direct teacher presence.” Worksheets, instructions, books, and videos don’t adequately replace in-person teacher mediation, where a teacher adjusts or coaches in the moment. “We just don’t know how to move the needle substantially for children in early literacy without direct contact and interaction,” she says. But Duke believes that synchronous instruction can work well through videoconferencing. “You can still do phonics instruction by videoconference. You can still listen to children read and use information from that to plan future instruction. You can still work on more phonological awareness. You can still read to them and do an interactive read-aloud,” she says.

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), there is a common misconception that being bilingual contributes to speech or language delays in children. However, it is important to note this is a difference, not a delay or disorder. Bilingual children may present with common speech patterns and phenomena that make it appear they are delayed or confused. Rather, these are common processes that occur when children are learning multiple languages. These patterns are typically not indicative of a speech disorder. Rather, there are aspects of bilingualism that speech therapists should be aware of when evaluating or treating a child.

Browse this list of recommended titles, including upside-down fairy tales, a neon periodic table, the art of Ramona Quimby and more.

Written words are always processed in the left side of the brain (primarily in a small neural region known as the visual word form area, or VWFA). It is believed this part of the brain serves to break down words into phonological chunks so that they can later be built back up to derive meaning via frontal regions of the brain. In short, effective reading appears to require auditory discrimination: a significant tick in favor of the role of phonemic awareness in teaching children to read. This process of phonological decomposition makes sense for alphabetic scripts like English – but does it still occur with syllabic scripts (whereby each character represents a complete syllable) or logographic scripts (whereby each character represents a complete word)? It turns out, yes. Interestingly, dyslexia supplies another line of evidence in favor of phonologic training.

Many new children’s books offer something especially useful this year: an opportunity for kids to understand the perspective of someone who’s not just like them. That may come from a friendship story, a head-on look at racism or even a picture book about eating lunch. But it’s not a coincidence that books for young readers have become more diverse in the past several years. It has been an organized push for change. Children’s author Ellen Oh and a half-dozen other authors, illustrators and book industry professionals, started the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books with the aim to shake up the industry. The organization has done so with a dizzying array of programs.

A year ago, mother and daughter taught in classrooms one room apart at Bushnell Way Elementary School in Highland Park — Mrs. Carter with 4-year-olds, Ms. Tai in a mixed group of children ages 4 and 5. Many of the felt puppets and linking cubes they shared there are the same ones Karen Carter used when her daughter was a student in her classroom. Now, the pair teach their pint-size students from home, keeping L.A.’s youngest learners engaged online even as kindergarten enrollment has plummeted and online attendance has slumped. “I’ve been an early educator for 35 years and it’s really hard for young children to learn on Zoom,” said Mrs. Carter, who re-created her kindergarten classroom around her dining table. “Especially with everything they’re dealing with at home.

Essay writing and math class might seem like oil and water, two things that don’t mix easily. But there’s increasing evidence that students who are asked to write about what they are learning master the material better — even in number-filled subjects like math and science. Education experts call it “writing to learn,” in contrast to “learning to write,” which is usually taught in an English class. The theory is decades old. The act of writing clarifies thoughts and improves understanding, similar to talking over an idea with a friend. Putting pencil to paper also creates and reinforces memory, helping a student to recall information later during a test. Many experiments have documented the power of writing outside of English classes but others haven’t found it to be so beneficial. Steve Graham, a national expert in writing research at Arizona State University, along with two researchers at the University of Utah, decided to review all the studies and found that the writing-to-learn theory is solid.

When students are learning how to write, mentor texts can be a valuable tool. These published pieces provide students with a road map as they’re trying to find their own voices as writers. Author Lynne Dorfman says mentor texts are designed to be “studied and imitated,” and they “help students to take risks and be different writers tomorrow than they are today.” What comes after mentor texts? How does this help me outside of class? Part of the response is the value of transfer of the learned concepts or information in new situations. Here are four routines for using mentor texts.

This summer, teachers rolled up their T-shirt sleeves and set out to make a plan for outdoor learning. A teacher in Wisconsin worked with her students to build a 12-sided outdoor classroom. A school in New York City held class on the roof. A district superintendent in Maine bought every Adirondack chair she could find. But now, less than a month from the winter solstice, it’s getting cold. Some days, it’s raining. Other days, there’s snow. And often, the elements pose a stiff challenge to outdoor learning. Many schools have not had the time, or the funding, to plan for contingencies, but folks have been getting creative. Here are some strategies that might work to keep students in nature for longer.

It’s always important to help children develop oral language, in any languages they speak. Oral language includes vocabulary, listening comprehension, asking and answering questions – really anything that helps students speak and listen in meaningful ways. When children have opportunities to develop strong oral language, they will be better prepared for learning how to read. Literacy can be improved by improving their comprehension and knowledge of language as a whole. Along with reading to children, podcasts, audiobooks and educational television can be great tools for building oral language.

COVID-19 has blown the doors off our schools and the walls off our classrooms. It has Zoomed educators into homes and parents into classrooms, providing the transparency that parents have long deserved. No longer are our practices hidden behind doors or buried in the pages of policy and collective bargaining agreements; they are now in full view on a screen. And our parents are watching. Parents in every community and ZIP code have always cared deeply about their children’s education. The difference now is that we are seeing it in both more intimate and more public ways. No longer can we dust off the welcome mats for back-to-school nights and parent-teacher conferences and then swiftly roll them back up, shooing parents away and telling them, “Trust us.” We are now guests in their homes. For the first time ever, parents can see what exactly we’re giving their children— and what we’re not. They are hearing how we talk to students. They are coming to know, through all that we do, what we believe about their children.

Accessing education during the nation’s COVID-19-related school closures was often an uphill battle for the combined 12 million students who are English-language learners and students with disabilities. A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office outlined the factors that complicated the delivery of special education services and shut off access to learning for English-learners. Under federal law, these students are eligible for tailored, specialized education services designed to help them succeed in school. But those services are not always easily transferable to distance learning. To adapt to the schooling limitations created by the pandemic, some schools adjusted students’ learning goals and service plans with mixed results, the study found. For students with disabilities, schools were often unable to deliver services, such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy, that were guaranteed in students’ Individualized Education Programs. In districts that provided virtual therapy, parents were pressed into duty, forced to try to replicate the therapy that trained specialists would normally provide in school.

Though few public schools have the budget to hire a full-time mindfulness teacher, many have been introducing mindfulness in the classroom since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered buildings and thrust children into their at times stressful and chaotic home environments. Mindfulness school programs have been shown to improve young people’s emotional well-being, academic performance and relationships. For schools that want to offer mindfulness but don’t have the money or resources to hire someone or provide training, digital programs with recordings may be helpful, and can offer customization for students. Some apps ask the students a series of questions about how they’re feeling and what they want to focus on, for example, and provide a specific meditation based on their responses.

When schools and districts shut down abruptly in the spring, principals jumped into action. They knocked on doors to find students, packed meals for families, scrambled to set up remote learning programs, and, in some cases, even provided money to families struggling to make ends meet. Their experiences in those early chaotic days as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the country, and their preparation for the new school year, are captured in a series of five recently published briefs by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, at the University of Pennsylvania. The briefs, based on interviews with 120 principals in 19 states, show principals’ raw reactions as they and their districts struggled to make plans amid a fog of uncertainty and the challenges they faced. The analyses also include takeaways for schools and districts to prepare for the next emergency.

The question of how to authentically and fairly assess distance learners is one that educators, administrators, and school districts have been struggling with since the spring. In my district, a list of suggested methods of online assessment was released after significant pressure from teachers, but few of them were very specific or plausible. My guess is that many teachers are in the same boat regarding a lack of direction in regard to assessment and have been left to work it out on their own. Below are four assessment strategies that I’ve tested in my digital/physical classroom. Although every subject area has unique assessment needs, I think most teachers will be able to find something in this list that could work for them, whether they are teaching in person, online, or in a hybrid format.

In celebration of book 15 in Jeff Kinney’s mega-bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, the author took an innovative approach that followed pandemic protocol. Kinney embarked on The Deep End Drive-Thru Pool Party, a socially distanced tour along the East Coast. The tour, which kicked off on October 27 and ended on November 13, featured a number of interactive book-themed stations for kids and their families to experience from the safety of their vehicles. At the end of each visit, Kinney posed for photos with fans. We’ve gathered highlights from the festivities.

In this era of junior chef competitions and Instagram food influencers, it’s no surprise that middle grade and young adult books are more food-focused than ever. But what’s refreshing is that the food isn’t as exclusively Anglo-American as it used to be. Four new books featuring Taiwanese, Pakistani, Indian and Chinese families might spark the curiosity of kids who’ve grown up eating plain old “regular” American food. And for immigrant kids grappling with the weird lunches their moms pack, they just might inspire a bit of pride.

At the tail end of a recent symposium titled “Why children can’t read—and what we can do about it” hosted by American Enterprise Institute, Margaret Goldberg, a California first grade teacher and founder of the Right to Read Project, made a simple and surprising observation. As a teacher, she feels that her most important job is to teach reading. But that’s not the message she and other elementary educators are hearing. If you’ve never been in the classroom, hearing a first grade teacher say she’s told that her success is judged on things other than teaching reading must sound like telling an air traffic controller she has things to do that are no less important than safely landing planes. If we’re serious about raising reading achievement (is there anything more important for early childhood education?) the best place to start is by clearing away the weeds and signaling to pre-K and elementary school teachers that their primary job is to teach reading. Since nearly every bad outcome in education has its roots in early reading struggles, everything else matters less.

At its core, librarians say the limitations imposed by COVID-19 have not fundamentally changed their roles. But how they execute their vision undoubtedly has. They are reimagining how to build a culture of reading for students who can no longer peruse the stacks or—in some cases—even set foot on campus. “We can’t have kids pluck books off the shelves,” says Michelle Luhtala, the library department chair at New Canaan High School in Connecticut, and an expert in emerging library technology. “Typically droves of kids come down and get fresh books, and it’s a whole time for exchange and fun and conversation about what they read, and having to do that virtually is not nearly as fun as it is in person.”