Today’s Literacy Headlines

Teachers are trying their best to play multiple roles in the lives of their students at an underfunded public school with limited support from the higher-ups. Sound familiar? That’s the premise of ABC’s new workplace comedy “Abbott Elementary.” Created by Quinta Brunson, who also stars in the show as 2nd grade teacher Janine Teagues, the show follows a group of teachers and their principal at a Philadelphia public school as they navigate challenges in and out of the classroom with laughs and heart. Brunson spoke with Education Week about how the show captures the nuances of the teaching profession, the significance of Black teachers and predominantly Black schools like Abbott, and the hope that the show can garner more support for real teachers across the country.

In addition to recognizing the civil rights movement, teachers can use Black History Month to call attention to the achievements of Black Americans in other areas. If you were to set up a Black history “Man on the Street” interview to ask what names people connected with Black History Month, you’d undoubtedly repeatedly hear Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman because of their significance in the struggle for civil rights and abolition. You might even hear about music and sports icons like Billie Holiday and Michael Jordan. Names you’d hear less often would be those of the hosts of famous millionaires, inventors, scientists, writers, and other Black American influencers from diverse industries and sectors. To celebrate Black achievement, here are some resources you can share with your students.

We’ve all seen the viral photos by now. An adorable little two-year-old named Kenzo, smiling proudly at his TV as he watches the new Disney movie Encanto. Why is he smiling? Because he thought the character of Antonio, who bears a striking resemblance to him … was him. At two years old, Kenzo was incredibly excited to see himself on screen. To relate to a character. To be seen, and know he matters. Librarians certainly know the importance of representation in all forms of creative expression, including books. We see it every day in our branches. The way a child’s eyes light up when they can relate to a character in their favorite story. The way they engage with stories that reflect their experiences.

As the omicron wave spikes across the United States, K-12 education is one of many systems buckling under the weight of expanding needs. Recent headlines highlight staff and busing shortages, parental anxieties about both in-person and distance schooling and disputes between unions and districts. Yet teachers’ experiences in their classrooms can be overlooked in these conversations. As part of our research into teaching, since March 2020, we have been following the experiences of a group of elementary school teachers in one suburban school district in the Midwest. We’ve seen variations in teachers’ experiences and well-being over the course of the pandemic, yet our research suggests their situation continues to be incredibly challenging.

Watercress, a semi-autobiographical story by Andrea Wang, pictures a Chinese American girl and her family in 1970s Ohio. While driving through golden late-summer cornfields in their faded red Pontiac, they pull over to pick wild watercress in a muddy roadside ditch. Back home, they prepare the watercress with garlic and sesame. The girl rejects the greens, which she associates with free meals and secondhand clothes, until her parents share powerful “When I delivered the artwork, I had been living with the pictures very closely for months,” he recalls. “When the book came back [with complete layout], it felt so gratifying. A lot of times I write and illustrate, and get to see it all together from the start. But in this case I feel the text elevates my artwork.” As Chin basks in his Caldecott success, he feels “excited and thrilled” that author Andrea Wang received a Newbery Honor for Watercress too.

A new online tool was introduced this week that showcases innovative, high-potential actions that states, districts and schools are taking right now that deserve additional consideration and emulation. The Ed Recovery Hub identifies strong practices in recovery across a variety of school community needs. These include promising approaches for accelerating student learning, supporting educators and families, and improving facilities and technology.

With Black History Month around the corner, here are 28 books to share with kids and teens that chronicle the strength, tenacity, and joy of Black Americans throughout history.

A caged, talking gorilla breaks free of his captivity with the help of some buddies in Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan. Two neighbors become besties while one of them receives messages from the universe in Jen Wang’s Stargazing. A gallant mouse seeks fun and adventure in Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Desperaux. These are the stories that could only happen in children’s literature, bringing with them a sense of wonder that permeates kid lit. But kid lit has lessons for adults, too.

Some of the most compelling evidence to support a phonics-focused approach comes from historical observations: When schools start teaching systematic phonics, test scores tend to go up. As phonics took hold in U.S. schools in the 1970s, fourth–graders began to do better on standardized reading tests. In the 1980s, California replaced its phonics curriculum with a whole language approach. In 1994, the state’s fourth-graders tied for last place in the nation: Less than 18 percent had mastered reading. After California re-embraced phonics in the 1990s, test scores rose. By 2019, 32 percent achieved grade-level proficiency. Those swings continue today. In 2019, Mississippi reported the nation’s largest improvement in reading scores; the state had started training teachers in phonics instruction six years earlier. For the first time, Mississippi’s reading scores matched the nation’s average, with 32 percent of students showing proficiency, up from 22 percent in 2009, making it the only state to post significant gains in reading in 2019.

America’s librarians awarded top honors to their favorite children’s books of the year on Monday. The Newbery — celebrating its 100th year — and Caldecott medals, as well as several other honors, were among those awards. The John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished children’s book this year went to The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera. In the book, a girl named Petra must travel to another planet to carry on the human race after Earth has been destroyed. The Randolph Caldecott Medal, which the American Library Association awards to the most distinguished American picture book for children, went to Watercress by Andrea Wang and illustrated by Jason Chin. It was also a Newbery honor book. The story focuses on a little girl who comes to learn about her heritage after her family stops the car by the side of a road to collect watercress.

Angeline Boulley did not win a Newbery or a Caldecott medal this year from the American Library Association. Those are the two oldest and arguably most prestigious awards in children’s literature. But they’re among 22 awards the ALA handed out this week to books for kids, and a few names kept coming up during the ceremony, Boulley’s among them. An enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Boulley was honored with the American Indian Youth Indian Awards for her YA novel Firekeeper’s Daughter. It won the William C. Morris Award for a debut book by a first-time author writing for teens, and the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults. That’s three significant awards.

Middle grade novels with neurodivergent characters have become increasingly more prominent. This reflects a larger phenomenon: the growing acceptance of neurodivergence or neurodiversity, a concept coined in the late 1990s to signify that not all brains function the same way – and that this is okay.

Federal stimulus dollars are dedicated to helping students recover from virtual schooling. Many districts are spending some of that money on virtual tutoring. Critics say online tutoring rarely matches up to in-person tutoring, and that only a few such services replicate strategies that research has shown to be most effective: a paid, trained tutor who has a consistent personal relationship with a student; sessions during the school day, so that students do not skip lessons; and at least three sessions per week.

The Newbery Committee has recognized Kwame Alexander twice: He won the Newbery Medal in 2015 for The Crossover and capped it with a Newbery Honor for The Undefeated (both HMH) in 2020. His work has popularized poetry with a range of readers, while his centering of Black experiences and his commitment to building community has demonstrated the broader importance and impact of his work. Alexander says, “I love writing. I love being able to create stories that are meaningful and significant, but my purpose and my passion is creating community. That’s always been in my DNA.”

The dreaded summer reading lists. For decades, teachers have been handing out assigned reading, mostly comprised of old “classics,” which can lack appeal and relevance for today’s young readers. In this first-ever poll by School Library Journal (SLJ) and NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), educators can weigh in on reading lists currently in distribution. Here you’ll have the chance to choose the titles you’d like culled from required reading and those books you would urge students to read instead.

Commercial test providers Curriculum Associates and NWEA have done what the NAEP designers may not have considered: created standardized tests for students as young as five. Banish from your head images of kindergarteners filling in bubble sheets. Instead, imagine kids playing an interactive game, much as they would on an educational app or website, during short testing sessions with plenty of “brain breaks.” The i-Ready and MAP Growth fall kindergarten assessments may look like games, but they also work to gather data that thousands of school districts use to identify student needs, spot trends, and target instruction. Now that almost all NAEP exams are given on devices, too, there’s little reason to think that officials couldn’t design and offer a kindergarten exam as well.

Fantasy and historical fiction have long been creative playgrounds for authors to comment on contemporary issues. Two new books for young readers — one by a legend of the field, the other by an emerging voice — continue that tradition by exploring how fear and misinformation can be used to manipulate people, and how learned experience is sometimes more valuable than received wisdom.

Upper elementary teachers can make small shifts in how they teach writing to spark students’ interest and promote critical thinking. Find out how one teacher uses the “grapple” strategy, student-created anchor charts, free writing time, oral brainstorming, and teacher mentor texts to boost writing in her classroom.

Dana Goldstein, a Times education reporter, weighs in on questions that she hears frequently from parents. “We’ve met new substitutes, scrambled to source tiny KN95 masks, and once again found ourselves wondering how to amuse (and tolerate!) two exuberant children during a frigid, virus-constrained winter. … All to say, I’m here with you during this pandemic. And I’ve heard many questions from parents during the Omicron surge. Here is what I’ve learned from my reporting.”

In 2002, Linda Sue Park won the John Newbery Medal for A Single Shard, a novel set in 12th-century Korea. Her stories have celebrated Korean food and family (Bee-Bim Bop! 2005), examined the joys and constraints of Korean girlhood (Seesaw Girl, 1999), and explored the painful history of Japan’s colonization of Korea (When My Name Was Keoko, 2002). Through meticulous research and carefully crafted stories, Park has enchanted more than one generation of readers. Park says, “You will never again love a book the way you do when you’re a child. Beyond that kind of fierce adoration, people remember their favorite childhood books for the rest of their lives. That’s what we get to do, those of us who write for young readers: We create the books that people remember forever. Privilege, responsibility, joy.”

Outraged at the parents and politicians who are trying to rid school libraries of books they denounce as inappropriate or even pornographic, a band of Texas school librarians is fighting back. Shortly after Texas state Rep. Matt Krause called for the state’s school libraries to review a list of 850 books for possible removal, four librarians formed “#FReadom Fighters” to resist what they call “a war on books.” School districts in at least 30 other states are embroiled in book debates like the one in Texas.

Pandemic-related school closures, which caused an alarming rate of learning loss among the country’s most vulnerable students, have prompted some administrators to reconsider the school calendar. An earlier start date, a later end date and numerous, elongated breaks throughout the year could allow more timely remediation for children in need — and enrichment for those who are not. Such thinking has received at least tacit support from U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “Why do we go back to the same system that gives kids two months without engagement in the summer?” he asked in November. “We need to rethink that.”

What are your favorite classroom games? In the midst of the pandemic, I’m finding games an essential part of classroom instruction. They serve two (and many more) purposes: engagement in learning and distraction from COVID.

Steve Jenkins, an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator whose passion for science, as well as his meticulous and vibrant cut-paper collages, brought the natural world to life, died on Dec. 26 in Boulder, Colo. He was 69. In plain language, he answered many burning questions: How do you catch a fly? What do animals do the day they’re born? How loud is a lion’s roar?

The 2022 Children’s Book Week will include the first annual Floyd Cooper Day, in recognition of the late children’s book author-illustrator who is credited with portraying African American experiences through his storytelling. Teachers, librarians, and booksellers across the country will be encouraged to hold readings of his books on Friday, May 6, and to display his works throughout the week-long initiative. The event will celebrate Cooper, who died last July after illustrating more than 100 children’s books in more than 30 years.

With a little support, young learners can pick up the skills necessary to conduct successful classroom discussions. This article looks at how to use three intentional steps: modeling, waiting, and reflecting.

Katherine Paterson won her first Newbery Medal in 1978 for Bridge to Terabithia, followed by a Newbery Honor in 1979 for The Great Gilly Hopkins. Her second Newbery Medal was awarded in 1981 for Jacob Have I Loved. Over the course of her career, Paterson has been honored with many major award for children’s book authors. Today, as the book world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Newbery, she is one of only six writers to have received that prestigious medal twice.

For a beginning writer, organization and conventions are mammoth mountains to climb, and they can fill all of our instruction and feedback time. But what about those proficient writers who have already mastered these things? A series of lessons focused on word choice can help high-achieving elementary school writers learn to revise their work.

It’s a painful truth already, but new numbers sharpen the picture: 61 percent of educators say that student absenteeism is higher this winter than it was in the fall of 2019, adding new urgency to questions about how to care for students who are struggling with trauma and illness during the pandemic, and how to catch them up academically.

Christopher Paul Curtis has been recognized by the Newbery committee three times. He was the recipient of a Newbery Honor in 1996 forThe Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, and in 2008 for Elijah of Buxton. He received the Newbery Medal in 2000 for Bud, Not Buddy. Curtis’s award-winning fiction featuring African American families and children provides insight into the importance of history and its relationship to the present. In this interview, Curtis reflects on his post-Newbery life and offers insight into why his books, and their centering of African American history, are necessary, especially today.

Award-winning children’s author and illustrator Steve Jenkins, widely praised for his distinctive and detailed cut- and torn-paper collages depicting animals and the natural world, has died at age 69. In all, Jenkins created more than 80 books for young readers. Though it’s a profession he came to by serendipity, it proved a perfect fit. “For me, making children’s books represents the happy intersection of children, science, art, my design partnership with [wife, fellow artist and designer] Robin, and my lifelong love of reading,”

As a middle school language arts teacher, I’ve developed a systematic approach to writing that helps students improve their storytelling skills. It includes strategies for writing in a variety of genres, such as personal narrative, memoir, and creative nonfiction. And in the revision stage I teach a color-coded approach to analyzing details that helps students see clearly what kinds of details they’ve used—and which they haven’t. When these strategies are used together, they help students improve their writing skills while also fostering relationships among themselves as they act as sounding boards for each other’s work.

The new question-of-the-week is: What are you doing—or trying to do—to sustain your morale and the morale of your students in the face of Omicron? What are you doing—or trying to do—to sustain any kind of learning momentum you had built up before the winter break? Annie Holyfield, a K-1 teacher and literacy coach, talks about the value of unstructured play. Special education teacher Ann Stiltner talks about positivity. And elementary teacher Jennifer Orr says “we have to get back into our routines.”

Teachers can use stories and poems to boost students’ understanding of math and science concepts while giving them extra reading practice. In everyday life, we don’t separate our time into short blocks to focus on one set of skills, so why do we do this in school? Here are three ways I incorporate reading into elementary science and math classes.

Schools across the country are overwhelmed with K-12 students struggling with mental health problems, according to school staff, pediatricians and mental health care workers. Not only has this surge made the return to classrooms more challenging to educators, it’s also taxing an already strained health-care system. Schools are seeing many kids acting younger than their age, says Dr. Vera Feuer, an associate vice president of school mental health at Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center in Long Island.

In Everybody in the Red Brick Building, a howling Baby Izzie wakes up a squawking parrot, which wakes up a trio of flashlight tag-playing friends, who wake up a little girl who decides the middle of the night is the best time to set off her toy rocket, which wakes up a cat, who leaps onto a car, setting off the alarm. Soon, everyone in the apartment building is wide awake.

A district assistive technology specialist writes that removing barriers for diverse students requires overcoming pervasive narratives in learning. Myth 1: Assistive technology is only for special education students. Myth 2: UDL is just another education fad. Myth 3: Students need IEPs to qualify for special services or accommodations.

To start the year off on an upbeat note, Colorado’s muscular effort to improve K–3 reading curriculum finally appears to be paying off. One of twenty states that passed or recently considered measures related to the science of reading, the Centennial State began cracking down on how its teacher preparation programs cover early literacy. It is now in the process of requiring teachers to demonstrate more in-depth knowledge about reading pedagogy as well as tightening the reins on which reading programs may be used by districts. Last year, barely two in five of the state’s many local districts used reading curricula from the state’s list of approved programs. That has already risen to 63 percent.

Successful readers develop not just the skill but the habit of reading. As a decline in pleasure reading coincides with a move to different modes of screen-based texts, experts worry students need more comprehensive support to become lifelong readers in the digital age.

People often resist scientific evidence and the reasons vary. In the area of education, the situation is complicated by the fact that scientific findings about learning are often at odds with our intuition. To make matters worse, teacher-prep programs typically fail to inform teachers about those findings and even advocate instructional approaches that go against them. Here are seven examples of common intuitive beliefs that conflict with science.

The coronavirus pandemic upended almost every aspect of school at once. It was not just the move from classrooms to computer screens. It tested basic ideas about instruction, attendance, testing, funding, the role of technology and the human connections that hold it all together. A year later, a rethinking is underway, with a growing sense that some changes may last. “There may be an opportunity to reimagine what schools will look like,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told The Washington Post. “It’s always important we continue to think about how to evolve schooling so the kids get the most out of it.”

For the millions of students who struggle to read at grade level, every school day can bring feelings of anxiety, frustration, and shame. That’s why it’s critical to support students’ social-emotional needs alongside their reading instruction, experts say, especially in later years. School can be a minefield for those students, particularly as they reach middle and high school. Reading is woven throughout every subject area, meaning that children who don’t receive appropriate support can fall behind in multiple classes, even though they are capable of intellectually understanding the material. Teachers may call on students to read aloud in front of the entire class, opening them up to potential judgment or snickers from their peers. And sometimes, students who lack decoding skills are given early-reader texts to practice, which feel babyish and boring.

While city officials clash with the teachers’ union over how to return to classrooms amid Omicron, families around Chicago reflect on the pandemic’s effects on their children.

Avi has written three books that have been recognized by the Newbery committee: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle was awarded a Newbery Honor in 1991, Nothing but the Truth was the recipient of an Honor in 1992, and Crispin: The Cross of Lead won the Medal in 2003. While the prolific author is best known for his middle grade historical fiction, he has written for a wide range of audiences in different genres, formats, and styles. His 81st book, Loyalty, will be published February 2022.

Cynthia Kadohata is the author of 10 books for young readers that encompass a remarkably wide variety of topics, settings, cultures, and time periods. Whether she’s exploring the aftermath of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II, contemporary wheat threshing in the Midwest, or the love of an animal companion, all her works are anchored by a sense of heartfelt authenticity as characters navigate complex emotions and situations. Her reflective storytelling deftly balances darkness with light and consistently affirms the importance of family and connection. She was awarded the 2005 Newbery Medal for Kira-Kira, and her latest novel for young readers, Saucy, was published in 2020.

Author Jason Reynolds is a Newbery Honoree, a Printz Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors, among other accolades. He’s also the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His books for young readers include All American Boys, When I Was the Greatest, and Long Way Down. Griffin has shown his art in major cities around the world. He created the artwork for My Name Is Jason. Mine Too, written by Reynolds, and his most recent projects include a mural for the children’s cancer wing at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. We asked Reynolds and Griffin to interview each other about their artistic approaches and their new collaboration, Ain’t Burned All the Bright, which combines poetry and collage to explore recent events in America and the kaleidoscope of Black experiences.

Gary Paulsen’s final novel, “Northwind” — a tale of survival as masterfully understated as the man himself — brings the author’s career, and his life, full circle. Where his 1986 novel “Hatchet” was about an earned connection to the land, “Northwind” is about an earned connection to the sea. Earned because the main characters of both must face the beauty and brutality of nature, as well as come to terms with its indifference.

Cece the superhero soars from page to screen — her cape flowing, her hearing aids firmly attached to her long, bunny ears and her amazing, power-giving phonic ear strapped to her chest. “El Deafo,” a three-episode animated series based on Cece Bell’s popular illustrated children’s book, premieres on Apple TV’s streaming service Jan. 7. The show adapts Bell’s story, which is a mostly autobiographical graphic novel about growing up deaf and going to school in 1970s-era Salem. The 2014 book earned a Newbery Honor, one of the top awards for children’s literature.

I’ve been writing Obituary posts for a number of years now, and I can say with certainty that in no year have I seen as many notable, unforgettable, downright amazing names as I saw pass away in 2021. This past year was a gut-punch to the children’s literature community. Here is every author and illustrator of books pertaining to children’s literature I knew of throughout the year, in the order in which they left us.

Older students struggling with reading is not a phenomenon new to the pandemic. In 2019, before COVID disrupted schools, scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that only 66 percent of 4th graders and 73 percent of 8th graders were at or above a “basic” level of proficiency in the subject. But the turmoil over the past two years has resurfaced questions about exactly how best to get students up to speed, and it’s directed funding toward academic recovery.

The marvelously versatile Lois Lowry is the author of more than 40 books for children and young adults. She has written picture books, humorous contemporary stories, historical fiction, and realistic and futuristic novels. No matter the genre, her books tend to feature kids trying to make sense of a complicated world. Lowry has said that all of her books are fundamentally about “the importance of human connections.” Lowry was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1990 for Number the Stars and again in 1994 for The Giver.

What are the consequences of closing virtually every American school and shifting to online education for months at a time? It’s a question that education experts have been asking since the emergence of COVID-19, and one whose answers are gradually becoming clearer. With federal sources reporting that 99 percent of students have now returned to classrooms, newly available data are showing how students were affected by spending long stretches of the last two school years at home. And the signs are not good. In a discovery that will reopen questions about the wisdom of keeping schools closed, economist Emily Oster and her co-authors found that learning loss was far worse in districts that kept classes fully remote, and that declines in reading scores were greater in districts serving predominantly poor and non-white students.

Mask requirements are returning in some school districts that had dropped them. Some are planning to vastly ramp up virus testing among students and staff. And a small number of school systems are switching to remote learning — for just a short while, educators hope. With coronavirus infections soaring, the return from schools’ winter break will be different than planned for some as administrators again tweak protocols and make real-time adjustments in response to the shifting pandemic. All are signaling a need to stay flexible.

After 100 years, the Newbery Medal is as popular—and controversial—as ever. People have impassioned opinions. Lots of them. And they don’t hold back. On “Heavy Medal,” the Mock Newbery blog that we cohost, we’ve been discussing the history of the award for the better part of this year. To cap it off this month, we created a special poll for SLJ to collect librarians’ and readers’ opinions on the Newbery process.

In two short weeks, as the year closed out, the Omicron variant drove coronavirus case counts to record levels, upended air travel and left gaping staffing holes at police departments, firehouses and hospitals. And that was at a time many people were off for the holiday season. Now comes Monday, with millions of Americans having traveled back home to start school and work again, and no one is sure of what comes next. Most of the nation’s largest school districts have decided to forge ahead and remain open, at least for the time being, citing the toll that remote learning has taken on students’ mental health and academic success.

Can you believe it? The year is out and done and we’ve come to the end of the 31 Days, 31 Lists series. Today’s list represents just a handful of the titles published this year. This is some, but surely not all, of the finest. If you need a starting place where you can get a sense of what the year entailed, use this list. It was a pure pleasure putting it together.

Using strategies like co-teaching between leaders and teachers to intentionally structure teacher observations and create a positive experience can make the process less of a burden for the teacher and provide more opportunities for growth, learning and understanding, Miriam Plotinsky, an instructional specialist at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, writes. Allowing teachers to invite school leaders into the classroom as observers while they teach a lesson they are proud of lets the teacher showcase their best work. Likewise, teachers could also invite administrators in to gain feedback with problem areas.

The new question-of-the-week is: What is working and what is not during this school year? What has been working? 1. Peer Tutors: Our school has flooded our ELL newcomer and intermediate classes with peer tutors who are either advanced ELLs or students who have previously attended my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge classes. They have been a tremendous asset in “accelerating learning,” and we plan on making this program a permanent fixture at our school. You can read more about it here.

Every year thousands of books are published for children. How do you choose what new books to stock your shelves with before the new year? Award-winning children’s books have always been a go-to resource for teachers, parents, and caregivers.

Lowry, who has lost a sister and a son, has spent decades writing about the pains of memory. Literature, she says, is “a way that we rehearse life.”