Today’s Literacy Headlines

It’s been 11 months since schools first shut down across the country and around the world. And most students in the U.S. are still experiencing disruptions to their learning — going into the classroom only a few days a week or not at all. To respond to this disruption, education leaders are calling for a reinvention of public education on the order of the Marshall Plan, the massive U.S. initiative to rebuild Western Europe after the devastations of World War II. Education experts, parents and students are thinking about what is going to be necessary to recover — and at the same time the things that are not worth returning to. Here are four key ideas.

In “Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter” and “The ABCs of Black History,” U is for Unfinished. The week I wrote this review, Kamala Harris became the first woman, first African-American and first Asian-American to take the oath of office as vice president of the United States. At the same event, Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first National Youth Poet Laureate, dazzled the world with her inaugural poem. There will be more firsts before the sun sets on this day, and already Black authors and illustrators across the country are dreaming up ways to get these new accomplishments down on the page. But which breakthroughs should they include? Shani Mahiri King (an associate director of the Center on Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida, where he is also a law professor) addresses this dilemma directly in “Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter,” choosing to focus on the “collective” power in “the breadth and richness” of 116 individuals. They embody an impressive range, from the early American revolutionary Crispus Attucks to up-to-the-minute figures such as Jay-Z and Chadwick Boseman.

Pressure is building on school systems around the U.S. to reopen classrooms to students who have been learning online for nearly a year, pitting politicians against teachers who have yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19. While some communities maintain that online classes remain the safest option for everyone, some parents, with backing from politicians and administrators, have complained that their children’s education is suffering from sitting at home in front of their computers and that the isolation is damaging them emotionally.

Ernesto Cisneros won the Pura Belpré Children’s Author award with his debut novel “Efrén Divided,” released in March 2020. The book follows 12-year-old Efrén Nava as his life changes when his mother is deported to Mexico. He becomes responsible for his siblings as his father takes on a second job and is determined to reunite with his mother. Cisnernos started writing the book during the 2016 election and was inspired by some of the deportation experiences of the middle school students he teaches at Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School in Santa Ana. After a day of teaching virtually from his makeshift closet-office, Cisneros talks about growing up in Santa Ana, what kept him motivated to write and his upcoming second novel in this edited interview.

When students who are learning English struggle in school, it can be especially difficult to figure out why—and how to help. There are plenty of “myths and misconceptions about services and supports” for English language learners (ELLs), writes Lydia Breiseth for Understood, leading schools to sometimes refer language learners for special education services when they don’t need them. It’s important to “know the facts behind these myths,” she writes, so educators can “make changes that can result in better outcomes for students.” Start by getting to know English learners in your classroom and becoming better informed about their needs. In all cases, but especially when they’re struggling, Breiseth recommends gathering important information about them—including strengths, challenges, and background experiences—to help determine how to support them as they progress through the stages of language acquisition.

A deluge of data released late last year confirmed what has long been suspected: The coronavirus pandemic caused widespread learning loss while also amplifying gaps across racial and socioeconomic lines. The situation is especially concerning among younger children: one analysis of reading level data by Amplify Education, Inc., which creates curriculum, assessment and intervention products, found children in first and second grade experienced the most dramatic drops in grade level reading scores compared to previous years. This year, 40 percent of first grade students and 35 percent of second grade students are “significantly at risk” of needing intensive intervention compared to 27 percent and 29 percent last year. Here are some of the ways experts and educators are proposing to close the gap.

In a Biden administration full of familiar faces, Cardona is relatively new to the national spotlight. His biggest job to date has been as Connecticut’s education commissioner, a role he’s filled for just the past year and half. As state commissioner, he spent much of his time focused on the impact of pandemic-driven school closures. He was a fierce advocate for Connecticut’s most vulnerable children — those with disabilities, children in low-income families and English language learners — as he pushed for schools to reopen, arguing that opportunity gaps are only widening. Before his brief tenure as education commissioner, though, Cardona had spent his entire professional career as a public school educator in the city where he grew up: Meriden, Conn.

As a high school science teacher, I’ve found that posing true/false statements to my students is one of the best ways to help them build their scientific vocabulary and stimulate discussion. When I construct the statements strategically, my students’ learning is more natural and their retention is more enduring—and they become more curious about the content they’re learning. The end result is better student engagement—engagement that is rooted in conversation, collaboration, and exploration rather than lecturing, no matter the subject.

Some fantastic new children’s books have been released in time for Black History Month, including “Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter,” written by Shani Mahiri King and illustrated by Bobby C. Martin Jr. — with more than 100 Black innovators profiled in its pages (along with Maya Angelou, Chadwick Boseman, Langston Hughes, Misty Copeland and John Lewis). Reading Partners, a national literacy nonprofit, which just released a month-by-month book list for recognizing and celebrating Black history year-round, not just in February. “Black history is American history,” Reading Partners CEO Adeola Whitney said. “We should celebrate Black history and Black heritage every month.”

As if the pandemic weren’t enough, we’re about to be hit with another tsunami, one not likely to be fought with a vaccine. Thousands of our nation’s students aren’t learning to read, and the patchwork of instructional programs, limited resources and frequent change from hybrid to virtual schooling surely is contributing to the problem. So, what would true reform in literacy instruction entail? First, we need curricula based on scientific evidence of effective reading instruction. In the early grades, our students need explicit instruction in phonics and decoding, instant recognition of words from memory, the ability to map sounds to correct spellings of words, knowledge of the meanings and functions of words, and fluent reading to support comprehension of text.

The African American Children’s Book Fair, one of the nation’s oldest and largest Black children’s book fairs will not be held in person in 2021. Founded in 1992, the African American Children’s Book Fair typically takes place in Philadelphia, but the nonprofit behind the event, the African American Children’s Book Project, has opted for a virtual session on Feb. 6. Registration is free. “The Book Project was created to promote and preserve children’s literature written by or about African Americans,” said Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, literary consultant and creator of the event.

Before the pandemic started, conversations about screen time were nearly always critical of the kids who spent tons of time staring at screens, and the parents who enabled them. But the rules of 2019 don’t apply to life in 2021. Now everyone’s just trying to get through the day. Even for those of us who are terrified about the effects of our kids’ having been tethered to screens since March, it’s not too late to take control of our virtual lives. Screen time can just keep going and going, so one of the best practices in reducing it is to discuss expectations in advance. Another approach is to carve out quality family time free of all devices—for everyone. Beyond reducing screen time, consider improving the quality of the screen time your children are inevitably going to have.

In an effort to cultivate a passion for reading and provide more access to books, educators are increasingly creating digital libraries for their students. Using a variety of techniques, educators are encouraging students to read by connecting them to new, easy-to-access books that match their interests and mirror their identities. Bitmojis have taken the education community by storm. These customizable cartoon avatars of educators—and their classrooms—introduce their students to virtual lessons, games, resources, and increasingly, digital libraries. A popular practice in classrooms—book tastings—has turned virtual too. Tastings let students sample a variety of types of books to try out new topics and styles they may not consider normally.

Theis Education Week Spotlight on the Science of Reading is a collection of articles hand-picked by our editors for their insights on teaching children to read; what struggles are commonly seen; how things may change for educators; and methods being applied.

Three years ago, Darlene Thomas-Burroughs, branch manager of the Hardeeville Library in the rural town of Hardeeville, South Carolina, heard about a new way that library employees could help kids boost their reading scores. Intrigued, she signed up for the seven-month program, offered by Partners for Education at Berea College and the federal Promise Zone program. The series featured monthly webinars and networking opportunities meant to help librarians learn to work with the educational system and build relationships with community members—all with the ultimate goal to improve third grade reading levels. Thomas-Burroughs came away with a host of ideas.

It’s no secret that it’s harder to pay attention to a computer screen than to in-person lectures. There are plenty of distractors that can cause students to lose focus. Educators need innovative approaches that can keep students engaged until the day ends. Here are four suggestions: use live media, encourage students to chat, conduct breakout sessions, and play games.

We​ ​Need​ ​Diverse​ ​Books​ ​announced the sixth​ ​annual​ ​Walter​ ​Dean​ ​Myers​ ​Awards​ ​for​ ​Outstanding​ ​Children’s​ ​Literature. The​ ​awards​ are named​ ​for​ ​​ ​children’s​ ​and young​ ​adult​ ​author​ ​Walter​ ​Dean​ ​Myers​ ​(1937-2014) and commemorate ​his ​memory​ ​and​ ​​ literary legacy,​ ​as​ ​well​ ​as​ ​celebrate​ ​diversity​ ​in​ ​children’s​ ​literature. The 2021​ ​Walter​ ​Award,​ ​Teen​ ​Category is: Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam, illustrated by Omar T. Pasha. The 2021 ​Walter​ ​Award,​ ​Younger​ ​Readers​ ​Category is: When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, with color by Iman Geddy.

Using formative assessments designed to check for understanding and provide students with feedback and support is one of the most effective ways to improve and enhance student learning. Yet because of the need to cover large amounts of information and develop many skills, teachers may not take time checking to make sure students understand a concept or can effectively apply a skill, and, if they don’t, figuring out ways to improve their learning. Thankfully, there are practical, proven formative assessment techniques that teachers can use as a quick “pulse check” to gauge students’ understanding. The eight techniques here can be applied across grades and subject areas in virtual, hybrid, and in-person learning environments.

The finding offered this week by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that schools have not been hotbeds of rapid on-campus transmission of COVID-19 or even of significant student-to-staff infection grabbed headlines and raised hope that we can get children back in class soon—a goal we as pediatricians share. The ABC Science Collaborative we lead (and whose research the CDC cited) has partnered with nearly 50 school districts in North Carolina to help educators and families understand the most current and relevant data about COVID-19 so that they may make decisions that will keep teachers, staff, and children safe when they return to the classroom. First and foremost, no school can be called safe without following what North Carolina calls “the 3Ws”—wear a mask, wait at [a safe] distance, and wash hands. Beyond that, with our school partners, we have determined 12 principles that define safe school reopening during this pandemic.

There’s no getting around the particular education challenges facing today’s five-year-olds, what we might call the Covid Kindergarten cohort, especially in districts whose schools have been shut tight all year and are likely to stay that way. We will have a group of kids—about 8 million four- and five-year-olds—entering post-Covid schooling with an unusually wide range of readiness levels. If there was ever a case for allowing students to move at their own pace, this situation must be it. One option is for schools to adapt my plan from last week—adding a “grade 2.5” forever—but use that strategy for just a few years. Here’s how it might work in a given district.

What do kids like to read when given the chance to choose their own books? That’s the subject of this post by three award-winning nonfiction authors — Cynthia Levinson, Melissa Stewart and Jennifer Swanson — in response to a Washington Post education writer who said in a column that kids prefer fiction and view nonfiction as nothing more than boring textbooks. The three write about social justice, science, engineering and other topics. “I like that nonfiction books really make you think about things for a while and then sometimes your thinking changes.” — fifth-grader.

Virtual field trips can help students explore a new space, build vocabulary and background knowledge, and expand their world view. Whether you want to explore the setting of a novel, introduce a place-based math problem, or make connections to current events, virtual field trips can expand upon traditional lessons in many ways. They allow students to view a space that piques their curiosity and provides context for their learning.

How old should kids be when they start learning about the Holocaust? While many educators believe the appropriate age is 10, a new book by Caldecott Honoree and MacArthur Fellow Peter Sís is recommended for children ages 6 to 9. Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued tells the true story of the Englishman, Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 children from the Nazis including Vera Gissing. Told with simple, direct language, readers get to know what Vera’s life was like in her small town near Prague before the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. They learn about Nicky’s hobbies before he grew up to be a banker (“mathematics, stamp collecting, photography, and fencing”). Sís’ illustrations blend the details of everyday life with imaginative, whimsical flourishes. On the cover, little Vera stands alone on the platform of an enormous train station holding a small suitcase and a kitty cat stuffed animal.

The American Library Association announced two of the country’s most prestigious prizes for children’s books on Monday: the Newbery Medal, which went to Tae Keller for “When You Trap a Tiger,” and the Caldecott Medal, an award for picture books, for “We Are Water Protectors,” illustrated by Michaela Goade. “When You Trap a Tiger,” published by Random House Children’s Books, follows a biracial girl named Lily whose family moves in with her ailing grandmother. A magical tiger appears, a figure from her grandmother’s Korean folk tales, and offers Lily a deal in exchange for restoring her grandmother to health. “We Are Water Protectors” was written by Carole Lindstrom and published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing. Goade, the illustrator, uses billowing watercolors and floral patterns in the book, whose main character, an Ojibwe girl, joins with other Indigenous people to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline. Goade, who won the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book for “Shanyaak’utlaax: Salmon Boy” in 2018, is an enrolled member of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

Preschool students work hard at playing. They incorporate what they see in everyday life into their play, and they incorporate the skills and knowledge gained during play into their everyday lives. This is certainly true when it comes to reading readiness. Even though some students look as though they go through a magical and seamless transition from non-reader to reader, research shows that it’s not that simple. Students start getting ready to read years before they do it, using a set of six critical reading readiness skills. This skill set, also known as pre-reading or early reading, is often built through play, and teachers can use the following play-based activities to build each of the skills.

Luis Martinez, an 11-year-old fifth grader with autism, rarely missed a day of school before the pandemic. Though non-verbal, he delighted in seeing his friends and teachers, and his mother, who quit her job five years ago to care for him, was thrilled for his small gains in communication. But that all changed during the shutdowns: Luis, a student in the Los Angeles Unified School District, has logged 14 absences since fall and no longer makes any attempt to interact with his peers online. After 10 months of remote education, he barely looks at his tablet during class and acts out nearly every day. Rivera believes LAUSD should have done more for her son, and other parents within her district feel the same. Their complaints reached the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which opened a flurry of investigations in the waning days of the Trump administration seeking to uncover whether the district — alongside school systems in Seattle and Fairfax County, Virginia, as well as the Indiana Department of Education — failed to serve disabled students during the pandemic.

Illustrator Michaela Goade became the first Native American to win the prestigious Randolph Caldecott Medal for best children’s picture story, cited for “We Are Water Protectors,” a celebration of nature and condemnation of the “black snake” Dakota Access Pipeline. “I am really honored and proud,” the 30-year-old Goade told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I think it’s really important for young people and aspiring book makers and other creative people to see this.” Tae Keller’s chapter book “When You Trap a Tiger,” in which a young Korean-American explores her identity and her heritage through her grandmother’s stories, won the John Newbery Medal for the outstanding children’s work overall of 2020. Keller, who was raised in Hawaii and now lives in New York, drew upon Korean folklore and family history for “When You Trap a Tiger,” also named the year’s best Asian/Pacific American literature.

On a shelf in her Chicago classroom, third grader Arianna has a thick binder that details her achievements, strengths and goals as a student, along with some revealing information about her personality. It describes her love of guitar and singing and notes that she wants to advance to a higher level in reading and grasp math concepts more quickly. Her sister, Alanni, an eighth grader, has a binder too. It discusses her grades and standardized test scores, as well as her academic goals: to speak up more frequently in math class and read texts more closely. The binders resemble, to a degree, the individualized education programs, or IEPs, that are at the heart of education for students with disabilities. But Arianna and Alanni aren’t special education students. Every child at their pre-K-8 school, Belmont-Cragin, has one of these so-called individual learner profiles. The profiles are part of the school’s embrace of personalized learning, which centers on the belief that a teacher lecturing at the front of a classroom is a bad fit for today’s students. Instead, the thinking goes, students must be encouraged to learn at their own pace, with lessons tailored to their specific aptitudes and needs, often with the aid of technology.

From talking about history to volunteering in your community, here’s how to get your kids thinking about what it means to be a good citizen.

America’s librarians announced their top children’s book picks virtually on Monday – awarding the 2021 Newbery and Caldecott medals, among several other honors. The John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished children’s book in 2020 went to When You Trap A Tiger, by Tae Keller. The book’s central character is a girl, Lily, whose family moves in with her dying grandmother — and a tiger from Korean folklore shows up looking for something that was stolen. The Randolph Caldecott Medal, which the American Library Association awards to the most distinguished American picture book for children, went to We Are Water Protectors illustrated by Michaela Goade and written by Carole Lindstrom. The book stresses the urgent need to take care of Earth’s water. ALA’s Youth Media Awards include many other honors, as well, such as the Coretta Scott King Award, which was awarded to Before the Ever After, by Jacqueline Woodson.

The Americans with Disabilities Act says schools have to help not just students but parents with disabilities, too, like making sure deaf or blind parents can communicate during parent-teacher conferences. But what happens when kids are learning at home? That’s uncharted territory. Rosabella Manzanares, a first grader at Betsy Ross Elementary in Forest Park, Ill., has a spelling test. Like so many kids around the country, she’s taking the test at home, sharing a Zoom screen with a class full of other boisterous 6-year-olds. Rosabella’s teacher relies on parents to grade simple assignments like this. But while Rosabella can hear the spelling words, her mother can not. Chantelly Manzanares uses American Sign Language, or ASL, which is different than English. It’s a visual language. It has its own grammar. It uses different sentence structure. Rosabella and her siblings grew up using ASL. But while they’ve become fluent in English, Manzanares is not. She can grade this spelling test, which Rosabella holds up to the screen with a big smile. But it can be tough for Manzanares to help with other work in English.

Social studies students regularly consider the past through its written and material culture, whether that means diving into daily life in colonial America through letters or examining ancient coins to better understand the spread of the Roman Empire. Students can learn a lot about the work of historians by applying this approach to items from their own daily lives. I’ve found that if I remind my students that in the future, our lives and culture will be reconstructed in a similar fashion, they’re intrigued, and if I challenge them to imagine what a student 100 or 200 years from now might infer when examining a contemporary artifact, they’re keen to get to work. My students have analyzed their own artifacts within this historical framework and have been pushed to think in new ways, both creatively and conceptually. This activity fits into a variety of curricula, as it gets students to practice evaluating artifacts so that they can make hypotheses about a society from its material culture and weigh how different interpretations of historical objects can shape our understanding of the past.

As a first-grade teacher for nearly a decade, I enjoyed nothing more than teaching early readers to unlock the code and discover the joy of books. Three years ago, I was hired as the literacy coach for my district. In this role, I led professional development sessions on teaching reading in the primary grades, training teachers and support staff on explicit, systematic instruction, and managed committees on English language arts curriculum. Everything I had been teaching other educators involved in-person, hands-on instruction. How could we ever reproduce literacy instruction in a distance learning format? But no matter the venue, whether on-site, remote, or a hybrid format, teachers can continue delivering high-quality literacy instruction. The following tips have helped me, and I hope will do the same for others tasked with teaching reading and writing virtually.

President Joe Biden launched a new, more centralized strategy to combat COVID-19 and reopen schools, formalizing pledges he made during the campaign and the transition. Biden has set a goal of “getting a majority of K-8 schools safely open” in the first 100 days of his administration. The 200-page federal plan, and executive orders he signed Thursday, call for “sustained and coordinated” efforts with the cooperation of states and new resources, guidance, and data for schools as they continue to respond to the pandemic. Biden’s school reopening pledge comes as states and districts around the country take a patchwork of approaches. While many school districts have held in-person learning with modifications like mask wearing a social distancing, some large urban school districts have remained in or switched back to remote learning amid new surges in virus rates.

What does it mean to go to public school in the United States during the pandemic? The answer looks so different in different parts of the country, it is hard to tell that we are one nation. In some rural and suburban areas, especially in the South, Midwest and Great Plains, almost all students began the 2020-21 academic year attending school in person, and they have continued to do so, except for temporary closures during outbreaks. In many cities, the bulk of students haven’t been in a classroom since March. And in some districts, like New York City, only younger students have the option of going to school in person, with many attending only part-time. With little guidance from the federal government, the nation’s 13,000 districts have largely come up with their own standards for when it is safe to open schools and what virus mitigation measures to use.

San Antonio teachers are combatting pandemic learning loss with a surgical approach to keep young students at grade level, focusing on a core curriculum of must-have skills in reading and math. Given the challenges of limited class time and distance learning during the pandemic, San Antonio educators know students are simply not learning everything they would in a normal school year, especially in the early grades. So this year, educators are going deep. They have identified a strategic set of skills for kindergarten through second graders, such as phonics and arithmetic, so that students build the mastery needed to move on to the next grade.

The Jane Addams Peace Association has announced the recipients of the 2021 Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards. The winner in the Books for Younger Children category is We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illus. by Michaela Goade. The winner in the Books for Older Children category is A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat. Additionally, two Honor Books were named in the Books for Younger Children category: Ocean Speaks: How Marie Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret by Jess Keating, illus. by Katie Hickey; and Black Is a Rainbow Color by Angela Joy, illus. by Ekua Holmes. Beginning in 1953, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award annually recognizes children’s books that effectively engage young readers in thinking socially and globally.

In this lesson, students will learn about Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history; how she came to write “The Hill We Climb”; and how it fits into the tradition of “occasional poetry.” They will also learn about Ms. Gorman’s belief that poetry is political, and that reading and writing are instruments of social change. Finally, they will be invited to create their own occasional poems.

In this lesson, students examine the poetry of Amanda Gorman, who was chosen to read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman’s poem complements Biden’s message and themes of “unity.”

At a charter school in a poor area of Washington, some teachers spend one day a week going door to door, tracking down students who aren’t logging on, and whose education is suffering. Making sure that students participate in classes during the pandemic has been a tall order across the country, with districts reporting record-high absentee rates. It can be especially difficult for large urban school systems, which serve tens of thousands of low-income families and, for the most part, have remained entirely remote since March. The impact on learning is starting to show: A recent study of assessment scores found that public school students in Washington this fall were four months behind in math, on average, compared with a typical year, and one month behind in reading.

Prolific children’s book author and former editor Kathleen Krull, widely acclaimed for her skill at crafting detailed and entertaining biographies and other narrative nonfiction, died on January 15 following a brief illness. She was 68. Illustrated biographies became Krull’s format of choice, and she was often praised in reviews for her lively writing and her knack for including quirky or unusual tidbits about her subjects. She said in interviews that that she enjoyed “playing detective” in researching her books. “To hold their own against all the competition for a child’s time, nonfiction books have to reflect something special…. I try to make fresh, contemporary choices from my research—little ironies, amusing juxtapositions, concrete details, strengths and weaknesses. I use a ‘warts and all’ approach because I want to write biographies for kids living in the real world. I know readers have to survive all kinds of hurts and traumas; my way of helping is to dramatize how people in the past have done it.” In addition to the Lives Of… series, Krull created the Giants of Science and the Women Who Broke the Rules biography series. A critic once dubbed her ‘The Queen of Kids’ Nonfiction.’ ”

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021. The Presidential Inauguration will be a departure from years past due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, but there are still a number of engaging learning opportunities for in-person and virtual students. The ceremony will be broadcast on television news stations and most are expected to also offer a livestream.

Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal to take a more aggressive stance holding back Tennessee third-graders who are struggling to read is drawing criticism from educators and parents who question his logic and timing. As part of a plan to help stem pandemic-caused learning loss, Lee wants to strengthen a 2011 state law that has been largely unenforced, with few students actually being retained. Beginning with the 2022-23 academic year, the governor wants to require schools to hold back third-graders who don’t meet his definition of proficiency — and who also don’t enroll in and show improvement through new summer school or after-school tutoring programs slated to launch this year.

Story time is a powerful tool for helping preschool and elementary kids and their families feel connected during distance learning. One school librarian shares how she set up a virtual story time for her students. “As the weeks progressed, we fell into a comfortable rhythm. Students would drop in at story time, I’d read a picture book, students would offer comments, I’d lead a mindful moment, and then students would stay on to chat. With each passing day, I did less of the talking and leading as students took ownership of our time together. The comments they make after a story often reflect how they’re feeling.”

Kids learning about science remotely, in particular, need opportunities to interact with their surroundings, observe and collect data, and draw conclusions about it. Here are 4 low-tech activities for drawing scientific conclusions for 5th graders that can be adapted for most elementary grades, with appropriate parental supervision. Though these activities are designed to mostly avoid screens—one involves taking photos—some technology might come in handy at times: Students can report their findings by taking photos and/or uploading their findings using Padlet or other sharing tool, or answer open-ended questions on a Google Doc or Notability.

“For many of us in the field, when we hear ‘online’ and ‘preschool’ used together, we think it’s an oxymoron,” says Kathy Hirsch-Pasek, an early childhood expert and psychology professor who directs the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia. But the constraints of the pandemic present a new set of considerations—namely the safety of educators and families, some of whom are not yet ready to consider in-person schooling. “Is getting something better than getting nothing? Probably so. Should it just be what we did when we were offline, now moving it online? Probably not.” Limiting screen time whenever possible is a good first step.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021. The Presidential Inauguration will be a departure from years past due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, but there are still a number of engaging learning opportunities for in-person and virtual students. Traditionally, the public has been able to attend inaugurations, but people are discouraged from doing so due to COVID-19 restrictions. The ceremony will be broadcast on television news stations and most are expected to also offer a livestream.

Public school enrollment is down across the country. For example, enrollment is down by 15,000 in Chicago public schools and by more than 20,000 in the District of Columbia’s public schools. The trend is particularly acute among pre-K and kindergarten students. In an NPR survey of 60 U.S. districts in 20 states, public kindergarten enrollment was down 16% on average. Delaying children’s kindergarten entry is not new, but the pandemic has broadened its scope. Inequities in children’s kindergarten experiences compound inequities in early childhood experiences. Research consistently shows the benefits of early childhood education for children’s development. But access to early learning opportunities has become even more inequitable in the pandemic, according to a report from the Center for American Progress.

Coaching special education students on metacognitive strategies helps them stay motivated during the pandemic. I realized that a majority of my students with learning disabilities were showing signs of frustration, lack of focus, a decrease in motivation, and negative attitudes. These learners were getting burnt out. I decided to promote the idea of intentionality, a metacognitive strategy that would help students focus on those things they could control. The idea was to create strategies and opportunities for students with learning disabilities to monitor their actions and behaviors—and for students without learning disabilities, this would be a chance to reinforce their skills while picking up on some new strategies. Here are some practical strategies that can be implemented at all grade levels within a hybrid learning format.

New America analyzed the national landscape of educator micro-credentials (MCs) to determine how to best harness their potential to more successfully attract, develop, and retain great teachers. We find MCs to be a promising alternative to more traditional (and largely ineffective), compliance-focused teacher professional development, as well as an effective vehicle for defining and determining eligibility for some teacher roles. We summarize early best practices for ensuring quality MC offerings as well as lessons learned about the necessary conditions for teachers to succeed with MCs. As an added resource, New America has built a companion State Policy Guide with recommendations for policymakers looking to integrate MCs into their educator professional development, license renewal, and advancement systems.

President-elect Joe Biden has made reopening school buildings a top priority, but districts are going in the opposite direction, retreating into all-remote instruction as COVID-19 levels soar in their communities, according to new data set. A new analysis by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which tracks how school districts are conducting instruction during the pandemic, found that between early November and late December, the share of school districts offering only remote instruction jumped 10 percentage points. The shift isn’t surprising, given the dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases all over the country this fall and early winter. But it offers a sobering picture for the incoming president, who has included opening most K-8 schools for in-person instruction a top priority for his first 100 days in office.

UNICEF estimates that 93 million children have disabilities worldwide. Yet the Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s most recent study found that only 126 out of the 4,034 children’s books they received from 2019 had a main character with a disability. There is an astonishing lack of children’s books with disabled main characters, especially #OwnVoices books. Unfortunately, these books also seem to lack the marketing funds publishers give to other books. However, that has begun to change in the last few years. Many of the books listed here are debut novels or picture books that have been published in the last two years. These books for the Read Harder Challenge show disabled children enjoying science, flying kites, playing baseball, and being the kids that they are. They’re fun, beautiful, and desperately needed books.

Recent articles and position statements have been calling for pediatricians to view literacy as a developmental domain and to participate in screening for future literacy concerns as early as preschool age.1-4 As a pediatrician, I agree wholeheartedly with one article’s statement that “The development of reading proficiency in childhood is a public health issue.” There is robust evidence linking lack of reading proficiency with school failure, negative impact on meaningful employment, increased risk of involvement in the criminal justice and welfare systems, as well as mental health consequences of reduced self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. As pediatricians we should be aware of and attempt to modify all of these negative outcomes by helping to identify risk factors for future reading disabilities and referring our struggling readers for further evaluation and remediation if available. Yet, is it really that simple? To help answer this question I would like to point out existing barriers that make executing these recent recommendations difficult if not near impossible.

One of the most powerful ways we can bring children together to experience a sense of community during this unprecedented time is through shared stories in the form of reading aloud. And nearly everyone enjoys it—in fact, the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report: 7th Edition™ shows that more than 80% of both kids and parents love or like read-aloud time because they consider it a special time together. The beauty of a read-aloud is that it can happen anywhere, any time, and with anyone. One of the largest read-aloud moments happens each year on World Read Aloud Day. This year, the celebration will take place on Feb. 3, 2021, and will call attention to the importance of sharing stories by challenging participants to grab a book or share a story of their own, find an audience, and read aloud.

Picture books are the perfect medium by which to introduce one of the more difficult and complicated of life’s challenges: grief. Authors such as Andrew Arnold and Matthew Cordell appreciate the unique privilege of creating safe spaces for our children to explore these multifaceted emotions. Their [new] books promote self-awareness and understanding. After they are closed, there may be hard conversations, and questions that have no answers, but we’re left with a comforting message: It will be OK if we are here for one another.

Educator Doug wrote two books full of precise examples of great instruction. They became a publishing sensation: “Teach Like a Champion” and “Teach Like a Champion 2.0” have sold 1.3 million copies, and “TLAC 3.0” arrives this summer. The books allowed Lemov to create a team of teaching experts who have just produced one of the most useful books ever written for this new year. It describes the best kind of online lessons, and how to turn parts of the worldwide experiment in Zoom pedagogy into something that might enhance future instruction anywhere. The book is “Teaching in the Online Classroom: Surviving and Thriving in the New Normal.”

Our district’s one-to-one technology program has made a big difference for my students in our Title I school, as my early learners are equipped with iPads to use both in class and at home. Through these devices, I’m able to foster communication skills that support the language domains of reading, writing, speaking, and listening, as well as the academic standards that accompany them within the hybrid setting. Through videos and interactive online tasks, early elementary students can increase fluency and build vocabulary. Our technology allows me to collect evidence to keep track of my students’ continuous development and growth.

Five educators offer instructional strategies to use when teaching writing revision, including the power of an authentic audience.

Writing improves learning by consolidating information in long-term memory, researchers explain. Professor Steve Graham and his colleagues at Arizona State University’s Teachers College analyzed 56 studies looking at the benefits of writing in science, social studies, and math and found that writing “reliably enhanced learning” across all grade levels. While teachers commonly ask students to write about a topic in order to assess how well they understand the material, the process of writing also improves a student’s ability to recall information, make connections between different concepts, and synthesize information in new ways. In effect, writing isn’t just a tool to assess learning, it also promotes it. This article also includes five engaging writing activities to use in all subjects.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, experts and educators have feared that open schools would spread the coronavirus further, which is why so many classrooms remain closed. But a new, nationwide study suggests reopening schools may be safer than previously thought, at least in communities where the virus is not already spreading out of control. The study comes from REACH, the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice, at Tulane University. Lead research Douglas Harris says the public health risks posed by COVID-19 are tangible and have received considerable attention, but communities must also weigh them against the less obvious public health risks of not reopening schools — to kids’ mental health, of child abuse going unreported, not to mention learning loss and caregivers having to drop out of the workforce and falling deeper into poverty. And because the facts vary so wildly from city to city, county to county, town to town, Harris says, this cannot be a one-size-fits-all national reckoning — but a local decision driven by local facts.