Today’s Literacy Headlines

According to the National Literacy Institute, more than 50 percent of adults in America read at lower than a sixth grade reading level. Children’s literacy seems even more dire, with the lowest scores being recorded in standardized tests in reading for fourth and eighth graders since 1992.But I am still hopeful. And I believe verse novels can be key in unlocking a love of reading. Verse novels offer so much in terms of creating excitement in young readers—beginning with a lower word count. Kids just do not have the attention span of the past, and I am a firm believer that we must meet kids where they are now.

When students record themselves reading aloud using an app—and then listen back to reflect on their own pacing and expression—their fluency improves over time.

Most kindergartners today attend school for a full day. And the focus of most kindergarten classes has shifted from play and exploration to reading readiness. In her new book, American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School, developmental psychologist Susan Engel shared features common to all kindergarten classrooms and unveiled some stark distinctions and surprises. Her observations lend eye-opening insights into how kindergarten shapes the educational trajectory of today’s K-12 students.

The tide has turned on reading instruction. Nearly all states have passed “science of reading” laws, and most researchers and educators now agree students need to learn letters and sounds explicitly and systematically to become proficient readers. And yet a look inside K–3 classrooms reveals surprising variation in exactly how these letters and sounds are taught. Along with the many research-based methods in use, there’s another practice taking hold, and at great cost to students: over-teaching. Mark Seidenberg, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies reading science, helped persuade the public of the need for science-based instruction—and now he’s among those sounding the alarm on over-instruction. Reading teachers need not aim to teach every single pattern students will encounter in text, he says; they simply need to teach enough that students can achieve “escape velocity,” or the ability to start cracking the code on their own.

Research by library consultant Keith Curry Lance has shown for decades that schools with librarians on campus have better test scores, on average, than schools without trained library staff. Not only that, but schools with a full-time librarian perform better than schools with only part-time library staff. Librarians can help improve student reading scores by co-teaching literacy skills and incentivizing reading for fun. “(Librarians) can co-teach with language arts teachers. They can help design lessons and inquiry-based projects that will help those students hit the standards, like reading for information.”

A thoughtfully designed classroom—and lesson—should always take into account the known limits of the student brain, says developmental psychologist Karrie Godwin. Educators can make relatively simple adjustments to achieve better outcomes.

This year marks the centennial anniversary of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), arguably the premier professional organization for the early care and education workforce in America. NAEYC’s centennial presents an opportunity for longtime early childhood educators and leaders to recognize the progress the field has made, and to consider why, 100 years later, some systemic issues remain unchanged. 

At the recent inaugural National Committee for Effective Literacy (NCEL) Summit, the closing panel—former secretary of education Miguel Cardona, Dr. Nell Duke, Amelia Larson, and Jody Slavick—offered a clear message: multilingual learners must be centered in the nation’s literacy systems, not treated as an add-on.

It’s easy to get swept up in the hype about artificial intelligence tutors. But the evidence so far suggests caution. Even when AI tutors are designed not to give away answers, they haven’t consistently produced better results than learning the old-fashioned way without AI. Still, researchers who have produced these skeptical studies haven’t given up hope. Some are still experimenting, trying to build better AI tutors and gave made progress with an older ed tech idea: personalized practice.
 

The Reading Reimagined program funds teams of researchers to study how to support struggling readers in grades 3-8. In 2024, it published research with the testing organization ETS that confirmed the idea of a “decoding threshold”—a mastery of sounding of words that students needed to achieve in order to continue making progress in reading in upper elementary school and beyond. But that threshold isn’t static—the decoding skills that students need grow and change as kids start to read more complex texts, Kockler and her colleagues argue in a new report from AERDF. The report makes the case that all students could benefit from instruction that helps them decode multisyllabic words, the longer, more complicated words that often bear much of a text’s meaning in upper grades’ classrooms. This instruction is so central to reading comprehension, the report argues, that states should include advanced foundational literacy skills in their academic standards for grades 3-8.

Passing dyslexia legislation is not the finish line. It is the starting point. Without intentional systems, sustained teacher training, and clear accountability developed in partnership with educators and families, these laws will not reach classrooms in meaningful ways. Policy alone does not change outcomes. If dyslexia legislation is going to truly improve students’ reading results, leaders must act by training every teacher in Structured Literacy, building accountability systems that measure impact rather than compliance, and creating authentic opportunities to listen to and partner with parents. Our students cannot afford a delay. The laws are in place. Now it’s time to make them real.

While teacher professional development is linked with higher student test scores, identifying which elements of training lead to those positive outcomes is still a mixed bag, according to a report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Out of five meta-analyses that measured the effectiveness of teacher professional development reviewed by the GAO, researchers found the following elements of PD were each positively correlated in at least one study with student outcomes: coaching, collaboration, a focus on how to use curriculum materials, and pedagogical content knowledge. 

At this year’s American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards there was a new inaugural award announced: The Outstanding Comics Award. Divided into three divisions (Adult, YA, and Children’s) and then, from there, into three categories (Fiction, Nonfiction, and Series) this is the first official award to acknowledge the contributions of comics and comic/graphic novel creators by the ALA. But how much does the average library joe know about this award? With that thought in mind, I decided to go straight to the top. And the top, in this particular case, is none other than Jennie Law, Chair of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) Outstanding Comics Award for Children committee. 

The country is in the midst of an extraordinary literacy crisis. Today, 70% of kids who are graduating aren’t reading proficiently. Let that sink in for a moment. This isn’t a small group of kids; it’s the majority. Experts have raised a variety of factors contributing to this reality: learning loss due to the pandemic, increased screen time, the dissolution of long-form reading and teacher burnout. While each of these points are critical, there’s an even deeper, more fundamental issue facing students that a flurry of educational reforms haven’t fixed and may have worsened: They are simply not spending enough time actually reading in school.

We can welcome multilinguals into our classrooms through translanguaging. In translanguaging, students use both English and their home language to make meaning of content. They are not doing the work in each language (meaning doing the work twice), but using two or more languages to do the work. The teacher doesn’t need to know or be able to assess the student’s home language—the goal is for students to use their home language as a tool to acquire the academic and content vocabulary they need to express themselves clearly in English.

In June 2025, Jason Reynolds released Soundtrack, an audio-book original that went on to win an Odyssey Award Honor. In April 2026, Soundtrack will become available in a printed format. The man of many talents sat down with SLJ to talk about taking an audio-only story to a print version, advice for young people who are interested in poetry, and a wish for more whimsy in picture books.

For the past four years, teachers across Rogers’ home state of Pennsylvania have come together with local higher education institutions and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, a nonprofit based at Saint Vincent College in Rogers’ hometown Latrobe, for “FrED Camp,” based on his instructional approach. The project introduces teachers to the science underpinning Rogers’ famously calm, empathic approach to teaching children, and highlights decades of evidence and practice linking academic learning to students’ identity and social development, a hallmark of the idea of social-emotional learning. Teachers at the camp explore what Rogers considered six “fundamentals” needed for children to learn and grow: curiosity; capacity to look and listen carefully; ability to play; sense of self-worth; capacity to see solitude not as loneliness, but for reflection and growth; and a sense of trust in the adults, peers, and world around them.

In April 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul made a bold promise: The state would revamp its approach to literacy and boost state reading scores by double digits. She’d just signed budget legislation, branded “Back to Basics,” that was supposed to ensure that every school district adopts a strategy of teaching dubbed the “science of reading.” The law set aside $10 million to retrain 20,000 teachers on that evidence-based instruction. Literacy experts say new teacher training course could move the state backward.

One way to support neurodivergent students is by providing them with access to books centered on neurodivergent characters like them, which can be powerful tools for reducing stigma, opening up dialogue, promoting empathy and understanding, and demonstrating resilience. These books can serve as both mirrors and windows: as mirrors for individuals with neurodivergent characteristics, which help them know they are not alone and can provide a road map for overcoming challenges; and as windows for neurotypical readers, allowing them to view life from a different perspective.

States need to revise academic standards so they include advanced foundational literacy skills specifically for grades 3–8, according to a new report from the Advanced Education Research & Development Fund. The study was designed to identify where older readers struggled and how to support them, and also said that school districts should look to incorporate technology that would allow educators to scale advanced literacy instruction and deliver individualized instruction on advanced foundational skills. The report suggested that until longer-term policy and technology changes are implemented, teachers could use existing school modules that cover advanced foundational literacy skills to help bridge the gap.

The 250th anniversary of independence from England for the United States is quickly approaching, which means it is a perfect time to reflect on the many people and moments that have transformed the US into the country it is today. From immigration to civil rights and from history to contemporary life, the dynamic and multifaceted nature of this country and its inhabitants continues to grow and change. As teachers and caregivers prepare to mark this historic occasion, the following collection of books can help connect today’s youth to the fledgling US and the moments that defined the country.

After years of search and experimentation, this teacher finally hit on a room layout that allowed for efficient shifting between whole class, small group, and independent work. The idea started developing when [the teacher] stumbled across an article about an Australian classroom arrangement based on three “archetypal learning spaces”: campfires, caves, and watering holes. Essentially, the idea is that students need a physical space to work independently (a cave), spaces to gather informally (campfires), and a space to gather as a whole to learn from an expert (the watering hole).

The practice of red-shirting — having students start kindergarten a year late — appears to have returned to historically normal levels after a post-pandemic bump. And the students who started kindergarten late in the aftermath of COVID now perform similarly to their slightly younger classmates on standardized tests, according to a new analysis from the testing company NWEA. The analysis released Tuesday comes amid ongoing concerns about the academic preparedness and progress of young students. Separate studies by NWEA and other testing companies have found that students who weren’t even in school yet during the pandemic are struggling academically compared with their pre-COVID counterparts. The reasons are not well understood, and theories range from parental stress to missing preschool learning experiences to increased screen time.

Language access, cultural understanding and parent partnership are foundational, not supplemental, for special education systems. For many Latino families, entering special education means navigating two unfamiliar systems at once: disability services and English. Parents in our study described four stages in their journey: recognizing developmental differences, securing evaluations and diagnoses, accessing services and navigating schools, and managing communication challenges that created delays, confusion and stress.

Knowledge is having a moment in education fashion. All of today’s best-selling reading curricula describe themselves as “knowledge-rich” or trumpet that they “build knowledge intentionally.” In hopes that we can help knowledge transition from fad to mainstay, we offer this article as a primer on how knowledge indispensably supports reading comprehension and critical thinking. First, we will review the empirical evidence for the importance of knowledge to comprehension. Second, we will examine the faulty assumptions that hampered reading instruction for nearly a century. Third, we will look to the future and offer what we believe are reasonable predictions for improved student outcomes and even restored national comity if districts stick with knowledge-rich, carefully sequenced curricula.

The Rural Schools Early Literacy Collaborative is helping teachers build stronger reading foundations for young students. Coordinated locally through the Phelps County Community Foundation, coaches visit classrooms regularly throughout the school year. They observe instruction, model lessons and provide feedback, strengthening foundational reading instruction for kindergarten and early elementary students. The effort is taking place at a time when reading proficiency remains a challenge across Missouri and the nation.

A few years ago, I found myself asking a simple but important question: How can I be more intentional with my time with students while also creating meaningful schoolwide connections? The answer came through a practice that was both simple and surprisingly powerful: scheduled read-alouds. One classroom at a time, one story at a time, I began reclaiming moments that matter. Sometimes, impact shows up in small, ordinary moments. For me, one of the clearest signs comes when a student stops me in the hallway and asks, “When are you coming to read to our class?” That question carries more meaning than any formal metric ever could.

A new study indicates that the popular assumption that watching TV with subtitles will help children to become better readers doesn’t hold true. The problem is not that subtitles are harmful for children. The problem with edu-myths is that they distract attention from approaches proven to work. Learning to read is a painstaking process for most children, and there are no shortcuts — there is no magic button for turning on literacy. Children don’t “learn to read without even realising it”. They learn to read because teachers translate evidence into high-quality instruction, scaffolded reading practice, guided discussion of carefully-selected texts and so much more.

For years, pundits and education wonks have been abuzz about what’s been termed the “Mississippi Miracle” or the “Southern surge” in education: literacy scores in Mississippi and surrounding states have skyrocketed, outpacing counterparts in better-resourced regions and providing a positive story amid America’s generally lackluster educational performance. Yet the Southern surge narrative has, so far, largely ignored another commonality among those states: tremendous improvements in early childhood education. These states offer important lessons for both early childhood and K-12 stakeholders around the importance of tightly and thoughtfully aligning both systems — in both directions — and ensuring there are enough resources present to support educators. 

Walking into Windsor Park elementary in Corpus Christi, Texas, it’s hard to miss the mass of bright, colorful paper balloons taped on the wall, displaying photos of dozens of children who have read at least 1 million words this school year. “It’s something that the students are very, very proud of,” said librarian Annelise Rodriguez, who created and manages the Millionaires Club. “We’ve had kids come in when they take tours and say, ‘I’m going to be up there some day.’ Some kids get it in 45 books, and for others, it’s taken 360 books.” The project was created three years ago to motivate and recognize young avid readers in the school of roughly 600 students. Just a few weeks ago, a grandmother who didn’t speak English bowed her head to thank Rodriguez after her grandchild’s photo finally made the display. 

More than 100 programs run by the U.S. Department of Education are shifting to other agencies, and that number could grow in the coming months. What exactly does it mean to move a program? Where is the institutional knowledge going? Will funding be delayed or unaffected? And will these shifts cause long-lasting substantive changes or merely cosmetic ones that can be easily undone? Education Week posed these questions and more to current and former Education Department staffers, as well as education advocates. Here’s what they said.

Early literacy has risen to the top of state lawmakers’ priorities for their 2026 legislative session, generating discussions and disagreement across the state about what policy changes and resources are necessary to improve children’s reading levels. Legislators have discussed making hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments in literacy programs, but the single most dramatic change — and the most concrete reading policy idea that has emerged at the state Capitol — would be retaining struggling readers in third grade. Republican leaders have pointed to third-grade retention as a clear solution for Oklahoma’s bottom-tier literacy rankings, but educators and parents said they’re less convinced.

Lawmakers in Lansing are moving aggressively to address Michigan’s K-12 literacy crisis with multiple pieces of legislation that target training for teachers, retention for struggling third graders, and consequences for teacher preparation programs. The legislative action comes as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made addressing literacy a priority for 2026, her last year in office. During her State of the State address last month, Whitmer detailed steps already underway to improve literacy and recommendations in her budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. Among them is additional money she wants to invest in high-impact literacy tutoring, high-quality curriculum, literacy training for teachers, and hiring of literacy coaches.

Cursive handwriting is back in many classrooms across the country. Teachers and legislators credit the resurgence to nostalgia and some evidence of educational benefits. But surprisingly, the curves and swoops are contentious among experts, and some argue that cursive does not add any real value for students, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. Much of the cursive debate centers around time in the classroom. Should educators spend precious minutes teaching another way to write on paper when technology is so prevalent? Shawn Datchuk, a professor of special education at the University of Iowa, said the answer does not have to be one or the other. In his college classroom, he sees students increasingly using tablets and a stylus to take notes.

If you asked me what most elementary students struggle with when it comes to writing, surprisingly, I wouldn’t say grammar or spelling. I would say noticing. For me, teaching students poetry became one of the most effective ways to build that missing skill. In my upper elementary classroom, poetry wasn’t reserved for a special unit. It became a thinking routine we returned to on a regular basis. Short, flexible poetry experiences helped students sharpen observation across subjects. They used them while watching a science experiment unfold, studying an object in nature, or making sense of a strong emotion.

When it comes to the crowded field of children’s series, in my opinion as a professional book pusher, there is one that reigns supreme: The Baby-Sitters Club, by Ann M. Martin. The cherished paperback series, which was published from 1986 to 2000 and features four amiable seventh-grade girls who operate a neighborhood babysitting business, is one of the few pop culture touchstones that are venerated by Gen X/millennial moms and their daughters. The 10 titles listed below should satisfy B.C. fans seeking more of that winning mix of friendship drama and pragmatic problem-solving.

Although dyslexia is often depicted as words leaping off the page and getting mixed around, many people with the condition say reading takes more time and effort, as though every sentence has to be manually decoded rather than easily understood. The condition affects as many as 20 percent of people in the United States and is often diagnosed during childhood. Early treatment can help re-pattern the brain and improve reading skills, said Dr. Jeffrey Brosco, a developmental pediatrician at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, although dyslexia is a lifelong condition. Research has shown that dyslexia isn’t associated with lower intelligence, and many people with dyslexia are creative and quick thinkers, said Thomas Preston, director of neuropsychology at Stony Brook Medicine.

More than two-thirds of parents think specific signs of learning disabilities* are something a 2-to-4 year-old will “grow out of” and are therefore more likely to delay seeking professional help, according to poll results released this week. At the same time, 78 percent of respondents recognize that early intervention is important. These were two key findings in a poll released by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and GfK Roper earlier this week. At a Capitol Hill briefing releasing the results of the poll, presenters highlighted the importance of early intervention and pointed to Response to Intervention (RTI) in pre-k programs as a promising practice.

Get kids reading fluently. As much as you can. Have them read and write about books.   That, more or less, is the key to translating the science of reading into classroom practice, according to a new book by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs and Erica Woolway called The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading. The authors work together at Teach Like a Champion, an organization built on Lemov’s bestselling books by the same name. The new volume is meant to be a practical guide for classroom teachers.

States receiving federal literacy grants would have to follow the science of reading, under a bill the House education committee passed Tuesday. Members unanimously approved the legislation, another sign that improving reading outcomes is a goal shared by both Republicans and Democrats. The bill defines the science of reading as instruction that teaches phonics and phonemic awareness, and also builds vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and writing skills. The legislation would prohibit grantees from allowing three-cueing, the practice of prompting students to identify words based on pictures or other clues in a sentence.

Although most of them were still in diapers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, today’s early elementary students didn’t make it through the global catastrophe unscathed. A new analysis from NWEA, an assessment company, suggests that these children are experiencing learning disruptions even now. While kindergarten achievement levels in math and reading largely held steady during and since the pandemic, by first and second grade, students are performing below pre-pandemic averages, according to an analysis of NWEA’s Map Growth assessment data from spring 2017 to spring 2025.

The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, frequent breaks, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to Tim Walker, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about teaching in Finland. Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.

When Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland made the decision to implement the science of learning across their 48,000-student district, school leaders knew the process would take a lot of time—and a monumental effort. But school leaders saw the potential for impact on student learning, and they were curious if the shift could alleviate the ever-growing burden placed on classroom teachers. ​​By focusing districtwide efforts on training educators on how the brain processes, stores, and retrieves information, Frederick County set out to equip teachers to better recognize which instructional practices support learning—and which may be less impactful. 

Proper diagnostics create a foundation to help close the literacy gap and drive measurable outcomes for all students. Implementation support focused on building teacher capacity and confidence. Professional learning was embedded and ongoing, helping teachers understand not only the routines they were expected to use, but the instructional purpose behind them. Coaching was positioned as support rather than compliance, with coaches and leaders using classroom observations and student data to guide instructional conversations. Instructional routines, diagnostics, and progress-monitoring tools were tightly aligned, allowing educators to see how daily instruction connected to student growth. This alignment made the data usable rather than abstract. Teachers could identify specific skill gaps and respond in real time, rather than waiting for end-of-year results. 

The effort to revise, update and standardize the way Wyoming teaches K-12 students to read has been nearly a decade in the making. On March 13, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed Senate File 59, “K-12 language and literacy program,” into law. The bill aims to ensure that every K-12 Wyoming student develops strong language and literacy skills and that struggling readers do not fall through the cracks. It will establish an evidence-based system of instruction, intervention and professional development to provide teachers, families and students with comprehensive and effective tools for teaching reading. The bill also addresses deficiencies and aims to bring all Wyoming districts in line.

From 1940 to 1973, Ursula Nordstrom transformed kids’ books into real art and big business. A new middle grade biography attempts to capture her magic. “Books Good Enough for You” mines Nordstrom’s career for action items and teachable moments, but it fails to capture the lively genius of one of children’s literature’s standout personalities. We get a sense of what an editor does but no meaningful understanding of what made Nordstrom great — some rare combination of literary taste, intellectual pugnacity, corporate savvy and a knack for cajoling artists toward their best work. 

“Mississippi moved a mountain in fourth grade,” said Dan McGrath, a retired federal education official who oversaw the NAEP assessments. High- and low-achieving students both made gains. But when these fourth graders reached eighth grade, their progress stalled. By 2019, more eighth graders were scoring at the bottom than in 2013. Scores dipped further during the pandemic, and by 2024, only higher achieving eighth graders recovered a bit. “When should we see the Mississippi miracle reach eighth grade? Why haven’t we seen it yet?” McGrath asked. Researchers and literacy advocates point to a common answer: Early reading reforms focused on phonics, which helped students decode words, but decoding alone is not enough for proficient middle school reading, where the words are longer and the sentences are more complicated.

While social-emotional learning has become a fixture in many of the nation’s schools, there’s still debate in some communities about whether students should pick up those skills in classrooms, or at home. Teachers should focus on academic content, so the argument goes, and character development should remain the purview of the family. A new survey of teachers, principals, and district administrators shows that more than 3 out of 4 educators believe that students should be taught self-management, cooperation, problem-solving, and effective communication, respectively—all typically described as core components of SEL—as part of their K-12 education.

The science of reading is having a moment. Pundits are trumpeting the Southern Surge and celebrating academic outcomes in (gasp!) Mississippi and Louisiana. Outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post are rife with stories advising blue-state officials in New York and California to look south for educational inspiration. Congressional Republicans are holding hearings on what Washington should do to support the science of reading. Here’s a rule of thumb: You know school reforms have made it big when they’re discovered by those who don’t normally have much to say about education. Well, if folks are going to hop on an education bandwagon, phonics-based early literacy may be the sturdiest vehicle around. As edu-fads go, this is a good one. It’s also something of a reprise.

Daniel Willingham, the UVA psychologist and Brittanica blogger, flags an interesting and important new study from Hong Kong that analyzed the relationship between 39 teacher characteristics and instructional practices and 4th grade students’ reading scores on the PIRLS international reading assessment. Of the 39 teacher factors, Willingham notes, four were found to play a significant role in predicting fourth graders’ reading scores. By far the strongest predictor of the four was the extent to which teachers integrate readings from other content areas — such as science, social studies, and the arts — into their reading instruction. This fits with previous evidence showing that, once children learn the basic skills of how to decode, their ability to read well and to comprehend what they read depends in large part on the amount of content and general knowledge children have about the world, which enables them to connect what they read to existing knowledge and better undersand what they are reading.

Gov. Mike DeWine announced he’s sending additional reading experts into K-8 schools to assist in executing the “science of reading” approach to literacy instruction. “Even with a requirement in the law that the science of reading be taught in all Ohio classrooms, we are finding too many instances where our high-quality science of reading instructional materials are still on the shelf – in the wrapper, unopened,” DeWine said during Tuesday’s State of the State address. “Or, that intervention materials are not being used correctly – if at all.”

Research points definitively to phonics as a key part of learning to read—but not how much phonics instruction, or for how long, students should ideally receive. One of the most influential names in the “science of reading” movement has issued a surprising warning: After years of neglecting to systematically teach students foundational reading skills, he says, some schools may now have moved too far in the other direction. Phonics—how letters represent sounds—is critical to reading. But once students have mastered its rules, the bulk of their time should be spent working with authentic texts, experts say. “There are indications, circumstantial indications, that what’s happening is a lot of overteaching,” said Mark Seidenberg, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Studies have found that students have higher test scores after they’re held back. This practice may also have played a role in helping Mississippi make remarkable improvements in recent years. A chorus of policymakers and journalists have insisted with growing confidence that others should replicate the state’s model. But a new study offers a warning about the downside risks of retention. Third graders who had to repeat a grade in Texas were far less likely to graduate from high school or earn a good living as young adults, nearly two decades later. The harmful effects were quite large and came despite initial improvements in test scores.

Getting students up and active with learning tasks is an easy way to keep them motivated and engaged. Here are three activities that can be used at almost any grade level to bring energy back into the room. These activities can be used in any core subject. The key is to create task cards that kids can collaboratively solve relatively quickly. 

When COVID-19 wrought havoc on society in early 2020, today’s youngest schoolchildren were infants or yet to be born. Now in their early school years, researchers are beginning to see how the pandemic years have shaped their education, even though many had yet to set foot in a classroom when it began. First and second graders continue to perform worse than their pre-pandemic counterparts on math and reading tests, according to a report published Tuesday by the education assessment and research group NWEA. But while math scores have inched up every year, reading scores remain stagnant, the report shows. The data suggests the slump in academic performance is not rooted only in instructional disruption. Broader societal shifts might be at play.

High-quality out-of-school programs bolster academic learning and social and emotional development for students, and make it easier for parents to participate in the workforce by providing enriching child care. Summer programs, in particular, can play a critical role in preventing learning loss and expanding access to enrichment that many students would otherwise miss. When costs are out of reach, the kids who could benefit the most are the least likely to attend. With federal funding less secure, providers, policymakers and philanthropies can help kids gain access to high-quality, enriching options.

There’s mounting evidence that excessive screen time can harm young children — contributing to anxiety and depression, delaying social and emotional skills, increasing the likelihood of obesity, straining eyes and decreasing attention spans. In response, many parents are reassessing device use and cutting back at home. But some are encountering an unexpected challenge as they try to rein in screen time — their kids’ schools. Elementary schools and districts that ramped up their use of technology during the pandemic have largely maintained those practices. 

Parents are looking more critically at their children’s use of screens and consumption of digital content, which is leading to debates about edtech. While research is sparse on the overall effects of personal devices like laptops and iPads in school, they are becoming a proven distraction in the classroom. Angela Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and leader in the educational psychology sector, served as the lead investigator for a newly released study that found teachers estimate 1 in 3 students used laptops during class for non-academic purposes, including texting and social media scrolling.

A recent report on pandemic learning loss from NWEA, an assessment company, captured the combination of frustration and hope over the state of academic recovery. About a third of schools have reached pre-COVID performance levels in reading or math, and just 14% have recovered in both subjects. But even some that were hit the hardest, like high-poverty schools, have made impressive gains. The report was just the latest collection of results pointing to a long road ahead for most schools.

Struggling readers in Missouri’s Kansas City Public Schools showed statistically significant gains in literacy outcomes when virtual high-impact tutoring was used within a multi-tiered system of support framework, a study from Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator found. Students who were the furthest behind and received the virtual tutoring outperformed their peers and gained weeks or months of learning. Another promising study on virtual tutoring and student outcomes was released in January by the Center for Research and Reform on Education at Johns Hopkins University.