Today’s Literacy Headlines

In this time of virtual and hybrid learning, navigating the intricacies of distance learning can be tricky, especially when it comes to phonics. Research shows that time on task with a teacher has the most impact on reading proficiency. But how do we get the most out of our limited time in front of students? Although reading instruction can be more challenging online, here are some strategies to make it work.

These new works from Tomi Ungerer, Sophie Blackall and Christian Robinson are realistic and — without being soppy — filled with hope.

“I’m not a reader.” It’s a common refrain Julia Torres, a teacher-librarian in Denver Public Schools, has heard throughout her 16-year career. She’s seen students tear up books, throw them away or check them out only to immediately return them all because they didn’t have confidence in their ability to read. As a librarian, Torres feels strongly that libraries should be spaces of liberation, places where students can develop a love of reading at any stage. Reading is a skill that everyone can grow to love, but too many negative experiences during a child’s literacy education can result in trauma that appears as boredom, apathy or even anger. In an American Library Association presentation , Torres and Julie Stivers, a teacher-librarian at Mt. Vernon MS in North Carolina, explored how reading trauma is inflicted on students and what librarians can do to interrupt and prevent that trauma from occurring.

It’s been a challenge to shift kindergarten online, as that particular year of school is a huge leap for young students discovering not only how to actually be in school — and all that entails — but also developing new skills such as learning how to read. But there are steps educators can take to ease the transition, both to school and an online space. Taking a step back from educational pressures, such as learning to read, also may help if that’s a possibility. If reading is a goal, creating smaller groups to work on phonics is one way to help focus students, and spelling practices where young children write a word and hold it up to the camera may encourage active involvement.

Can teachers really convey things like the importance of cooperation and how to resolve conflict when students only see their friends in tiny boxes through Google Meet or Zoom? What about the intense work that’s required to teach a 5-year-old child how to decode words? And then there’s the children, who aren’t really built for it. “Kindergartners usually need a lot of movement and exploration, and these are things that you can’t really do remotely, especially having to sit and stare at a screen,” said Lily Kang, a kindergarten teacher in the Boston area who’s teaching her students online this year. Not far away, Catherine Snow, a professor of education at Harvard, agreed: “The biggest worries about missing in-person kindergarten are about socio-emotional development, learning to work in groups, and things like that,” she said. Having a parent or guardian to assist kindergarten children with online learning makes a big difference.

Listening to students read aloud is an essential practice for any primary-grade teacher. It is no less essential than a swimming coach watching children swim or a piano teacher listening to a child play. Listening to students read aloud provides an important opportunity for the teacher to coach or prompt students when they are stuck on a word or when they encounter other problems when reading. Listening to students read aloud is also a potential tool for formative assessment. That is, it can provide information to inform next steps in instruction. For example, we might ascertain from listening to students read aloud that they are successfully decoding most consonant-vowel-consonant words (e.g., rip) but not consonant-vowel-consonant-e words (e.g., ripe), or that they don’t attend to the captions when reading an informational text.

Paul Tough, author of the PBS NewsHour October pick for the NewsHour-New York Times book club, Now Read This, joins Jeffrey Brown to answer reader questions about “Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why.”

Rebecca Palacios, a National Teachers Hall of Fame inductee on why getting parents and guardians involved in their kids’ earliest school experiences has always been key. When parents and caregivers get involved in their preschool-age kids’ learning, research shows, it’s the number one predictor of early literacy success and academic achievement in later grades. “One of the biggest mistakes I made in my career, early on, was not involving the families in my work,” said Palacios.

Seeking ways to teach safely during the pandemic, schools across the United States have embraced the idea of classes in the open air, as Americans did during disease outbreaks a century ago. The efforts to throw tents over playgrounds and arrange desks in parks and parking lots have brought new life to an outdoor education movement, inspired in part by Scandinavian “forest schools” where children bundle up against frigid temperatures for long romps in the snow. Here is a look at four American schools where students are learning in the open air, and where at least some parents and teachers hope that the temporary measures might become permanent, for as long as the weather cooperates.

Approximately 3.7 million 5-year-olds were expected to enroll in kindergarten this fall. In pandemic times, most of them — 62 percent by one estimate — were slated to start the school year sitting at home in front of a computer. Asked what 5-year-olds stand to lose if their entire kindergarten experience is moved online, Laura Bornfreund, the director of early and elementary education policy at New America, was concise: “All of it.” And children who already have the least stand to lose the most. Research has shown that high-quality early education benefits children, especially children from low-income families, through to their adulthood. A strong start can improve academic achievement, financial independence, even heart health. For the most vulnerable students, missing kindergarten could become a permanent handicap.

A new report by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) stresses that states should play a “coordinating role for their school districts and ensure that they have the capacity, pedagogical support, and resources to address the needs of ELs.” Drawing from the report’s insights, here are three areas where state leaders can do more to support ELs today and lay the foundation for more equitable systems in the future: ensure that ELs receive equitable access to federal, state, and local funding; coordinate resources and guidance to support EL instruction in all learning settings.; and share guidance and tools related to EL entry, exit, and assessment procedures.

It’s important to remember that students develop socially and emotionally at the same time as they develop academically. That’s why it’s crucial to integrate SEL skills into the daily instruction you’re offering to your students. A classroom where good decisions are consistently being made, and where students learn the value of self-control along with the true impact their actions and words can have on others, will be a positive learning community for all, even during a pandemic. How will you ensure your students are learning and growing socially, emotionally, and academically during virtual learning? Here are a few easy ways to maintain SEL skills in the virtual elementary classroom this school year–when children need this focus more than ever.

In July, Slate sat down with four teachers for a candid conversation about their hopes and fears for the coming school year. “I’m scared,” one said. “The opportunity gap is just going to widen,” said another. And they all agreed: “When a kid or a teacher dies, everything is going to change.” We’re now halfway through the fall semester—time for a midterm check-in. Our panel of teachers reconvened to talk about how remote learning is going, what it’s like to be back in the classroom, and the ups and downs of what may (hopefully) be the strangest academic year of their careers. Our teacher are Matthew Dicks, a fifth grade teacher in West Hartford, Connecticut; Brandon Hersey, who teaches second grade in Federal Way, Washington, and is also on the Seattle school board; Cassy Sarnell, an early childhood special education teacher in Albany, New York; and Amy Scott, an eighth grade English teacher in Durham, North Carolina.

What are some of the most common mistakes teachers make when working with ELLs, and what should they do, instead? Many of us who teach English-language learners make lots of mistakes in our classroom practice. This six-part series will explore what the most common mistakes teachers make with this vulnerable population and what should be done in their place. Today’s column features responses from Marina Rodriguez, Altagracia (Grace) H. Delgado, Dr. Denita Harris, and Sarah Said. Here are my choices: confusing lack of proficiency in English with lack of intelligence; looking at ELLs through the lens of deficits instead of assets; and trying to rush ELLs to be “reclassified” as English proficient to look good under the Every Student Succeeds Act. The biggest mistake that many schools are making now during the pandemic is not providing extra support to ELLs.

Using the popular game in station rotation activities during distance learning is a way to bring an element of play and collaboration to writing assignments. It is a playful approach that aligns with Resnick’s 4 Ps — projects, peers, passion, and play. What’s more, it embeds the self-determination theory, the idea that students become motivated when they have a sense of autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Students are immersed in exploring a digital environment where they already may feel competent, and so have a sense of autonomy. These worlds are multiplayer, enabling students to feel like they are again in a community—pixels don’t require physical distancing.

A review by graphic novelist Nathan Hale (Hazardous Tales series) in comics format helps inquisitive young citizens learn how we choose who runs our country.

Early childhood literacy advocacy has been a quiet casualty of our current annus horribilis. Back in the BCE years (Before Covid Era), considerable interest had been building among practitioners and policymakers in curriculum and instruction built on the “Science of Reading.” That critical conversation has been largely sidelined for obvious reasons as states, districts, and schools prioritize setting up and running remote and hybrid learning plans and focus on a return to in-person schooling with public health imperatives more than instructional ones, first and foremost. But a pair of recent events have re-energized literacy advocates and may help push the conversation about reading instruction back to the front burner in a way that’s been absent for the last several months.

When the pandemic disrupted school in the spring, Brandie Gogel did everything she could to keep her students with disabilities on track. She used YouTube to broadcast music therapy sessions. She made paper packets for students who couldn’t connect to the internet. When summer rolled around, she continued to meet regularly with her elementary schoolers over Zoom, hosting virtual field trips on her own time. Still, parts of their special education plans had to be put on hold. Without being in the same room, some things just weren’t possible. Now, Gogel is back in her classroom in Polk County, Florida, where schools have been open for two months. Already, she’s seen students’ communication and motor skills getting stronger. But things haven’t exactly returned to normal.

“The word of the year is ‘pivot’” our assistant middle school principal told us as we prepared to return to school this fall. At the time, I expected that meant being flexible in my lesson plans, being ready for day-to-day disruptions, and accepting challenges as they come. Turns out, it also means pivoting my head back and forth between my Google Meet screen and the students in my classroom. My school is offering in-person classes for the many parents and students who opt in. We keep these students in two groups, sending half in person Monday and Tuesday and the other half Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is an all-remote day for deep cleaning and community building for teachers and their advisories. We will soon pivot once again and offer more students the chance to come in person for four days instead of two. A handful of families have already elected to keep their children fully remote and will likely continue to do so.

Picture books enable readers to see themselves reflected in the larger world. With increasing Muslim representation in published books, all readers can explore the diversity of Muslim communities, identities, and cultural backgrounds as they intersect to create unique expressions of Islamic cultures and practices. Picture books also offer a visually intimate look into Muslim experiences and places where individual and private family traditions, conversations, and interactions flourish. The books featured in this article were published in 2019–20 (with one from 2018) by mainstream publishing houses.

World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, today announced Cynthia Leitich Smith as the winner of the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature. The biennial NSK Prize recognizes outstanding achievement in the world of children’s and young adult literature. Leitich Smith is a New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-selling YA author of the Tantalize series and Feral trilogy and won the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Young Adult Books for Hearts Unbroken. She is the author-curator of Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, which will launch its first list in winter 2021. Leitich Smith is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

Literature introduces people to worlds they have never set foot in, which is why it is so important for classroom libraries to be full of diverse stories that reflect students’ backgrounds and cultures. Students seeing themselves in the stories they read to foster a sense of belonging, recognition, and most of all, validation, is crucial—representation matters. Students also need to read stories that show experiences other than their own to expand their worldview. Teacher Natalya Gibbs believes that early exposure to diverse literature forms understanding students who can relate to people of all walks of life. Even as learning has shifted online, the ethos of a diverse library can be carried over and adapted to the virtual classroom.

Early reading teachers and researchers are reacting with surprise, frustration, and optimism after the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, the organization that designs one of the most popular reading programs in the country, outlined a new approach to teaching children how to read. A document circulated at the group’s professional development events, first reported on by APM Reports on Friday, calls for increased focus on ensuring children can recognize the sounds in spoken words and link those sounds to written letters—the foundational skills of reading. And it emphasizes that sounding out words is the best strategy for kids to use to figure out what those words say. While the document suggests that these ideas about how to teach reading are new and the product of recent studies, they’re in fact part of a long-established body of settled science. Decades of cognitive science research has shown that providing children with explicit instruction in speech sounds and their correspondence to written letters is the most effective way to make sure they learn how to read words.

When created well, instructional videos can be a highly effective medium for supporting instruction in remote, hybrid, and flipped or blended learning environments. Effective instructional videos are concise—no more than six minutes if possible, as that is the proven drop-off point for attention—have a clear purpose and focus, and, above all, are interesting and engaging. Fancy equipment or software isn’t necessary to create great instructional videos, although there are free or low-cost apps and programs for enhancing and improving videos to make them more engaging for learners. I’ve found success creating instructional videos that fall into three broad categories: screencasting, explainer videos, and live demos.

Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver have done this Zoom thing before. That’s what it’s like, in the time of COVID, to promote a book — in this case their children’s book “Lights, Camera, Danger!,” the second in their “Alien Superstar” series, which they discussed Sunday at the Times Festival of Books. Though they are 35 books into their collaboration, Winkler and Oliver have a new mission now — to help kids adapt to a radically changed world by helping them escape. “One of the things that’s really important to us in our books is to make sure that they’re entertaining,” says Oliver. “If we can bring a little lightness and a little joy, that’s a nice thing. … It motivates us more to get our work done because it really has an important place in kids’ lives.”

The author of one of the nation’s most influential and widely used curriculum for teaching reading is beginning to change her views. The group headed by Lucy Calkins, a leading figure in the long-running fight over how best to teach children to read, is admitting that its materials need to be changed to align with scientific research. The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, where Calkins has served as founding director for more than 30 years, says it has been poring over the work of reading researchers and has determined that aspects of its approach need “rebalancing.” Calkins’ changing views could shift the way millions of children are taught to read. Her curriculum is the third most widely used core reading program in the nation, according to a 2019 Education Week survey.

The odds are that, at one point or another, all of us teachers are going to end up teaching in some version of a “hybrid” environment this school year. That could mean teaching some groups of students two days each week in the classroom, while they spend the rest of the time doing asynchronous online work. Worst of all, it could mean teaching students simultaneously online and face to face. This series will share the experiences of educators who have already begun teaching in this kind of situation. In today’s post, the teachers stress the importance getting to know your students, benefits of a “flipped” classroom, differentiation, and more.

Classroom libraries should include culturally inclusive texts. More important, though, teachers should be using these texts to affirm and challenge students in real and intentional ways. It starts with read-alouds. Instead of dropping the books in a bin in your classroom library, put them in your daily lineup. We know that students benefit from being read aloud to on a daily basis, so be conscious of the books you’re choosing to read. Think about how texts can be tied into your existing curriculum. Teaching about drawing conclusions? This skill can be applied to many books, and I am sure that one of your diverse texts will fit the bill. Consider using different texts even when introducing math or science concepts. It may take a little more time to prepare the lesson, but it will be worth it to allow students another opportunity to see themselves in literature. Let’s not stop there. Take things a step further by allowing students to really discuss the texts.

From preschool to college, education continues to evolve in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In their own words, people who are living and working through this experience shared their victories, frustrations and strategies.

One-third of schools in Colorado’s second-largest district use a reading program the state has rejected and researchers have panned for promoting strategies that run counter to science. Another 20% of schools in the 84,000-student Jeffco district rely exclusively on a district-created core reading curriculum that some educators and school board members say is hard to navigate and has numerous holes. These problems came to light after Jeffco officials released a school-by-school list of K-3 reading curriculum, meeting a long-standing request by parents, advocacy groups, and media outlets to make the information public. Previously, district leaders didn’t know what each of Jeffco’s 90 district-run elementary and K-8 schools used to teach children how to read. The list of reading curriculums illustrates not only the stark differences between Jeffco schools, but also the large number of district schools that are out of compliance with a 2019 state law requiring them to use K-3 reading curriculum backed by science.

In mere weeks the U.S. will tally votes and a new president will be chosen to serve our country as the leader for the next four years. Helping children understand the election process and the importance of voting can actually be enjoyable with the help of books. Discover children’s books that celebrate and discuss the United State’s representative democracy in this board and picture book list below.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there’s been a lot of discussion about digital equity in U.S. public schools. But the virus has drastically expanded another gap that is key to children’s learning and wellbeing: out-of-school enrichment. Through enrichment, children form bonds with peers and mentors and find sustenance for their passions, interests and social-emotional development. At the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine, we have conducted many studies of out-of-school programs that serve Black/BIPOC and low-income youth. Community-based organizations, such as Boys and Girls Clubs, The Clubhouse Network and YOUmedia Learning Labs, are safe spaces where young people can stop by after school to hang out with friends, get help with homework, take enrichment classes and grab a snack. As we look toward long-term support for online and hybrid learning, it’s imperative that public leaders consider critical equity gaps and quickly move to increase funding for enriched and out-of-school time learning.

Reading lessons held via video conference could be just as effective as face-to-face classroom teaching in providing literacy help to struggling children. A pilot study from Macquarie University’s reading clinic is among the first to test whether online lessons work for children with reading difficulties, after thousands of students turned to online lesson delivery during the coronavirus pandemic. Lead researcher Saskia Kohnen said the findings could open up learning opportunities for struggling readers in rural and remote areas, who were often isolated from access to professionals providing high quality literacy interventions.

Babies and young children are sponges that soak in practically everything in their environments. It’s true! Even during story time, their minds are at work, taking in all the language they hear and lessons the characters learn. Reading to your child — at any age — will boost their brain development, listening skills, vocabulary, your bond, and so much more. And all it takes is a few books, motivation, and a little time. Here’s how to get started.

With all the talk of remote learning for secondary schools and colleges, one important population is missing from the nationwide conversation about learning during the pandemic: babies and toddlers. Many parents are keeping their little ones away from playgrounds, playgroups and preschool preparatory programs. As a result, the social and learning opportunities for the youngest children have been curtailed, just like everyone else’s. Those who study and work with the youngest children are concerned about the effects on learning and school readiness. “There is going to be a bit of a collective lag in academic skills and in those executive-function skills that allow a child to navigate a classroom more easily,” the developmental psychologist Aliza W. Pressman predicted.

In the 1990s, researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley studied families from different socioeconomic levels and found that their children were exposed to vastly different numbers of words in their formative years—specifically, 32 million more words for higher-income children than for lower-income children. The variability in exposure accounted for significant differences in children’s language skills when they entered kindergarten, the researchers s found, and had a direct impact on how students fared early on in school. But now, the study’s conclusions are contested by recently published research from the psychologists Douglas Sperry and his wife, Linda, which found less straightforward connections between the quantity of words children hear and their family’s socioeconomic background. Their findings have inspired a growing debate around whether biases about race and class influenced the original study’s methodology—and distorted the takeaways.

I had been teaching as an elementary teacher for 17 years when my beliefs on how to teach reading were shattered. Prior to my revelation, I had earned a master’s degree in reading, attended so many conferences and workshops, and read every professional book about reading that I could buy. I was confident that I knew everything about how to teach reading and writing. Yet despite all my efforts, my daughter couldn’t read. My gut told me that she had dyslexia, but at that time, there was very little information about the disability. Since her diagnosis, I have put all of my time and energy into learning. about dyslexia, how the brain learns to read and what science has been telling educators for 40 years. I have attended Orton-Gillingham training sessions all over the state and taken courses on the science of reading. Now, as an educator, I’m driven to help those children who have been left behind – not because their teachers did not try to help them, but because the science is not in the classrooms and not in teachers’ professional-development training.

In New Orleans, even as classes remained remote, a number of schools started catching their special education students up over the summer, evaluating whether they have regressed and strategizing about the best ways to help them bounce back. Now, as students are starting to come back to schools in person, educators are refining those plans and assessing whether their special-needs students need more individual support. Schools credit a push from the state, which prioritized providing assistance aimed at boosting the quality of distance learning, for their swift move to address special education losses. Over the summer, state officials urged schools not to wait for complaints to roll in to begin providing compensatory education.

The essays, stories, poems and letters commissioned by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson for “The Talk” focus on preparing children for a world that can be bewildering and hostile. Written before 2020 began its assault, they only gain relevance as we close in on a heated presidential election. They also make plain that the hard conversations we all need to have about race are part of a broad reckoning with our nation’s history. The book’s black-and-white images project love and support. By contrast, “This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes,” written, illustrated and published by Canadians, seems almost alien in its upbeat perspective. With amiable authority, Tanya Lloyd Kyi explains how natural it is for humans to “sort and label the world around us,” and what dire consequences can occur when we put people into categories that weaken their social standing, as witnessed by the horrors of Nazi Germany.

We know that reading is an act of constructing meaning, so whenever we give students materials to read, we need to provide them with the necessary tools to understand those texts. Distance learning requires us to provide these tools in new ways—and with a greater degree of intentionality—so that we support students as they become increasingly independent. Just as a builder can’t succeed without the correct blueprints, students need to see the blueprint for how they can succeed in our classes. In distance learning, that means we need to carefully communicate the purpose for reading each text before students begin the assignment, and this purpose needs to align directly with any assessment given.

To maximize time with students, the titles we use must meet high standard: They must serve as instructional resources, they must be accurate and authentic, and they must be engaging enough to return to time and again as mentor texts. These featured picture books, board books, and graphic novel are for all ages. These titles showcase beautiful language and a higher vocabulary, and can be used with multiple levels of readers. They also explore prevalent themes and important concepts, which can be used across subject areas. Additionally, these books transcend standards for pre-K–12 learning. They can be used in reading, writing, and language instruction. Some are appropriate for social studies and even science. They can also serve as mentor texts and touchstones, which provide continuity for students while saving instructional time by using familiar books.

TESOL International Association’s 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners provides an intuitive framework, based on well-established guidelines of language teaching and second-language acquisition research; this framework has been vetted by experts and teachers from TESOL’s international community of practice. Taken together, they form a comprehensive approach, which is in no way experimental. The principles and their key practices are universal enough to apply to a broad range of teaching contexts where students are learning English. “The 6 Principles Quick Guide: Remote Teaching of K–12 English Learners” is the application of TESOL’s six principles for a sporadically charted context that has challenged us educators to our limit. My hope is that I provide a clear pathway that will help us regain a true sense of self-efficacy. The guide is a quick read, and when you are finished, you will feel, “This is a lot of work, but I do know how to do this because I can draw on what I already know about teaching K–12 English learners.

As schools wrestle with how to hold classes in the middle of a pandemic, Kelly Mrozik is among the hundreds of teachers and more than 11,000 students back in classrooms at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. She teaches at Dena’ina Elementary School, near the city of Wasilla, about an hour north of Anchorage. Mat-Su, as the district is commonly called, is Alaska’s largest school system to resume in-person learning this fall. And now, more than a month in, students and adults say school is going surprisingly well.

The successes of those districts that make the leap to in-person schooling are likely to encourage neighboring ones to follow suit, even as some others—most recently the Boston district—flip back into remote learning following increases in local COVID-19 cases. Interviews with leaders in four school districts, all in different phases of in-person learning, elucidate the successes and challenges district leaders face in returning to brick-and-mortar schooling. Enforcing mask-wearing? Much less of a concern than many of them originally feared. Instruction? Still a major challenge, the superintendents said, pointing in particular to the pedagogical burden on teachers who must juggle both in-person and online formats. They also point to the ways in which “normal” schooling, if a vaccine is developed in coming months, will probably look different from the era before COVID-19.

On the Point, we discuss diversity in children’s literature. There is wide agreement amongst educators that children benefit from books portraying diverse characters. Despite this, very few children’s books featuring protagonists of color are published each year. We talk about why diversity in books is important for children, and the efforts of authors, educators and booksellers to bring diversity to bookshelves.

Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming, Harbor Me, and The Day You Begin, has been named a MacArthur Fellow for “redefining children’s and young adult literature to encompass more complex issues and reflect the lives of Black children, teenagers, and families.” The MacArthur Foundation announced the 21 members of its MacArthur Fellows Class of 2020 today. On her dedicated page of the MacArthur site, Woodson said, “I don’t want it to be overlooked that for me, it’s been about creating a road where, as a young reader, there wasn’t one. I wanted to see myself in books because I couldn’t believe the audacity of a “canon” of young people’s literature conjuring me invisible. I wanted to say to my young self ‘You’re loved. You’re beautiful. You’re complicated. You matter.’ I know that by saying this to myself with each book I write, I am saying it to every reader who has ever felt otherwise.”

Remote learning has been a struggle for teachers and is expected to set back the learning gains of a generation of students. But a small number of students have done unexpectedly well. In some cases, those students struggled with distractions in the classroom during in-person learning. In others, they had social challenges at school: They were anxious, easily drawn into conflicts with other students, or embarrassed to engage in front of their peers. Some educators are now wondering how the experiences of kids who have done better during remote learning can be applied to improve in-person learning in the future. Takeaways might include having more social and emotional check-ins with students, increased inclusion of students with disabilities in general education class activities, wider use of technology, and accommodating unconventional techniques that individual students have found helpful.

Louis Jansen Jr. is an eighth-grader at Monhagen Middle School; Jordan Jansen is a seventh-grader at Twin Towers Middle School; Leighann Jansen is a fourth-grader at Presidential Park Elementary School; and London Jansen is a second-grader at Maple Hill Elementary School. They all are learning from home five days a week. Antoinette Jansen is a stay-at-home mom who focuses on taking care of Luca (and keeping him out of the way sometimes) and helping each of her kids learn from home amid COVID-19. When the kids go back to in-person learning, she hopes to start a party-planning business. Louis Jansen Jr. is a landscaper, with help from Louis Jr. and Jordan, and bids on abandoned storage units on his off time, which becomes a whole-family activity.

Three prominent Black female authors in science fiction, young adult literature and essay writing are among the 21 winners of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” N.K. Jemisin, the speculative fiction writer of the “Broken Earth” trilogy; Jacqueline Woodson, the author of children’s and young adult books including “Brown Girl Dreaming” and “The Other Side”; and Tressie McMillan Cottom, the author of the essay collection “Thick” were all named as 2020 MacArthur fellows. Woodson, 57, has published nearly 30 works, including picture books, young adult novels and poetry, featuring the experiences of Black people, the foundation said. “I write books that I hope young people can see themselves inside of and see their experiences inside of,” Woodson said. “And if they can’t, hopefully they’ll see other experiences.” The MacArthur Foundation said they named her a fellow for “redefining children’s and young adult literature to encompass more complex issues and reflect the lives of Black children, teenagers, and families.”

When the pandemic has shuttered many school buildings, children are adding dozens of hours of screen time each week as they learn remotely. While some experts urge teachers to pay special attention to creating assignments that take children away from their computer screens, others are urging compassion and flexibility. Active engagement matters, too. Experts urge teachers to choose lively games or discussions rather than lecture, for instance. And in these times of isolation, screen time that lets students make good connections with their teachers and peers is important, too. See all 10 tips.

If schools across the United States return to “normal” in January, the average student will have lost nearly seven months of learning. But the low-income students among them will have lost more than a year. Parents must be part of the solution. But the yawning gap between rich and poor that existed even before the pandemic also affects parental involvement. The conventional wisdom in schools is that low-income parents don’t get involved. Now, they need to be super-involved. Here, we’ll look at two approaches to engaging parents — one used here in the United States by Springboard and one used in Botswana — that can help children learn in a few weeks what normally takes months or years of schooling.

Online education can be daunting. As many of us struggle to find a way to exist safely while returning to a version of working life, many children are learning virtually for the first time.Luckily, there is a lot of quality reading and writing–themed content being created to support families and keep kids interested and engaged. While there are many more options than just these five, most of these are new and my personal top choices.

It’s been more than six months since the coronavirus forced many schools to halt in-person classes. The immediate consequences of that disruption are obvious. Many parents can’t work. The typical social patterns for school kids have gone kaput. But what about long-term consequences? What could six months of disrupted education do to a kid six years from now? How about 16? Experts predict this absence will widen the achievement gap between high- and low-income students. The ripple effects, they warn, could last a lifetime for some children. A skill like reading helps explain how this unprecedented interruption of face-to-face instruction could cascade through the years and decades to come.

Among the many challenges of remote instruction is the lack of access some students have to supports they previously received in school, particularly accessibility tools and features that help them to overcome a variety of barriers. Many commonly used devices and software applications already have built-in features that students can use to mitigate any number of challenges, from dyslexia to hearing impairment—it’s just a matter of knowing which product offers what accessibility feature and how you and your students can make use of them. Note as well that these universal supports aren’t just for students with disabilities and learning differences—they can be helpful to any student as a support in distance learning. The following list includes popular accommodations and the Apple (iOS), Chrome, and Microsoft accessibility features that support them.

The Coalition for English Learner Equity (CELE), a group of national education leaders and organizations, working together to improve educational outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse students, has launched a new national effort to help address the education disparities faced by English Learners across the nation. The COVID 19 pandemic exposed long-standing inequities and school systems are ill-equipped to meet the needs of EL students. This initiative addresses these challenges by providing guidance to district and state leaders as well as educator

Teaching the foundational skills of reading is often a lively and physical task: students clapping out the syllables in words and practicing letter sounds in chorus and teachers demonstrating the way that the mouth forms different shapes for different sounds. This year, though, it will likely look very different. According to Education Week’s database of more than 900 districts, which is not nationally representative, 48 percent are doing all of their instruction remotely. Young students at these schools as well as those doing a mix of in-person and virtual instruction will be learning to read through screens—in virtual classrooms with their teachers, working on computer programs and apps, or through some combination of the two.

Nell Duke, a professor of literacy, language, and culture at the University of Michigan School of Education, has been examining the literature and developing new instructional practices to meet the ever-shifting challenges of the pandemic and its effect on schools. Education Week asked her how teachers should adjust their practices and recalibrate their priorities to ensure students are gaining fundamental reading skills. “The synchronous context, I have a lot more optimism about. There are a lot of research-tested instructional techniques that can be used through videoconferencing. They need to be modified somewhat to make sense for that context, but versions of them are similar enough that they would still work. 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. It’s a little more awkward, it’s a little clunkier [than in-person instruction].”

Even though kids learn to read in school, many hate it. In this TED Talk, Educator Alvin Irby shares insights on inspiring children—especially Black boys—to discover books they enjoy and begin identifying as readers. Alvin Irby is an educator, author, comedian, and the founder of Barbershop Books, a nonprofit organization that creates child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops and provides early literacy training to barbers.

Pen-and-paper pop quizzes are no more: thumbs-up/thumbs-down, hand signals, online polls, discussion boards, and chat boxes have become the new mainstays of formative assessments in virtual classrooms. These quick pulse checks help teachers make sure that students are grasping key concepts—and identify holes in their understanding. Teachers don’t need to completely reinvent their traditional formative assessments, however, according to Mike Anderson, an educational consultant in Durham, New Hampshire. He recommends that teachers modify familiar practices—like exit tickets and think-pair-shares—so they work virtually. “Formative assessments might feel harder now in virtual classrooms—you can’t just walk around class and look over a kid’s shoulders—but I’m not sure they have to be harder.” In fact, many of the popular digital apps and sites like Nearpod, Flipgrid, Padlet, and Seesaw, can actually work in tandem with the tried-and-true assessments that teachers honed in their classes pre-pandemic.

Claudia Margaroli teaches 1st grade English, reading, and social studies to a mix of English-language learners and native speakers at Charlotte East Language Academy, a public bilingual school in Charlotte, N.C. In a typical school year, she will have one group of students one day, and another the next. But this is not a typical school year. All of Margaroli’s classes have moved online, due to COVID-19. Education Week talked to Margaroli about what it is like to teach reading to early-elementary students in a virtual environment.