Today’s Literacy Headlines

When food banks work with schools to send children home with a backpack full of food over the weekend, they do better on reading and math tests, I found in a recent study. These effects are strongest for younger and low-performing students. Adoption of a BackPack Program appears to shrink the gap in test scores between economically disadvantaged and advantaged students by about 15%. We also show the program is more effective for the youngest students in our study – third graders – and for students with the lowest test scores.

Laura Bilbro-Berry stepped into her first classroom as a teacher in 1992. She realized both the weight and the depth of her responsibility almost immediately. About a third of her elementary school students struggled with reading, and the “whole language” instructional approach that her college taught her to use wasn’t working. “I realized pretty early on that I needed more information,” she said. “And so I found those things that I knew were really important. I didn’t have a name for that information. We didn’t call it the ‘science of reading.’ But I knew that’s what my kids needed in my classroom.” Nearly 30 years later, Bilbro-Berry leads the UNC System’s educator preparation program (EPP), which produces about 40% of the state’s teachers. Now, Bilbro-Berry is in position to make sure those future teachers get the information that she didn’t in college.

A new study by researchers at the Yale Child Study Center demonstrates that puppets can attract and hold the attention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), raising the potential for developing more engaging therapies that strengthen social engagement and facilitate learning. The study, published in the journal Autism Research, is the first to test anecdotal evidence that children with ASD, like most youngsters, pay attention to puppets.

Last year’s COVID-19 lockdown disrupted the idea of school as we know it and it forced educators to think outside of the box. For one elementary school principal in North Carolina, thinking outside of the box had him heading outside — literally. Nicholas L. Dixon, principal of Foust Elementary School in Greensboro, had long been a supporter of outdoor learning, so when his school won a grant of $13,000 from the North Carolina Outdoor Heritage Advisory Council last year, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the windfall: build an outdoor classroom that would inspire not only students but teachers as well. The school was able to debut the outdoor space in December, right around the time students first began returning for in-person lessons and were adjusting to a new normal. First-graders were among the first to try out the space and luckily, Dixon told NPR, it was an instant hit — and it still is today.

Working memory is crucial to learning—providing both the cognitive space and the cognitive tools to process new thinking. Research shows that distractions, confusing material, or an overwhelming amount of information can tax a student’s working memory. Here’s how to better support this essential executive function.

A 2021 study reveals the ways in which new and experienced teachers think about discipline — plus 6 takeaways for managing your classroom effectively this year. Understandably, there’s a significant gap between how novice and expert teachers approach classroom management—one that can take years of experience and training to fill, according to the new study. And while there’s no replacement for spending time in the classroom, an awareness of the right strategies, and the right mindsets, can put new teachers on the fast track to adopting tactics that work but might feel counterintuitive or risky. Meanwhile, more experienced teachers can benefit from insights that may help them sharpen or extend their existing playbook.

Just when schools were getting ready to reopen for the new school year, cases of COVID-19 started surging in the United States, driven in large part by the more contagious delta variant. School administrators around the country are working to bring students back into the classroom safely, while still providing kids an enriching learning environment. As an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Washington, I have spent the past year and a half working with a group of epidemiologists and health professionals to collect, review and evaluate the scientific evidence about COVID-19 for state and local public health agencies. Our group concluded that vaccines and masking work well for preventing COVID-19 outbreaks in schools, but other strategies like plexiglass barriers and temperature checks are probably not worth the effort.

All schools throughout Alabama can now boost literacy instruction via LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) professional learning. This professional learning experience provides the knowledge and tools for successfully applying the science of reading in classrooms. The Alabama State Department of Education funding is to support kindergarten through third grade teachers, in addition to Pre-K, administrators, and other support positions that impact K-3 literacy in the state. The Alabama State Department of Education adopted use of LETRS as part of the Alabama Literacy Act, which in addition to providing foundational literacy support, also provides intensive support for the state’s lowest performing elementary schools.

As a novice teacher, Timothy Shanahan recalls doing round robin reading with his third-grade students—even though his professors in graduate school strongly advised against it, and he vividly remembered his own negative feelings about the practice, he confesses in a 2019 blog post. It’s not uncommon for classroom literacy practices to stick around in spite of, as in the case of round robin, well-established research and readily available resources offering a variety of research-based alternatives for improving reading fluency and deepening comprehension and engagement. As students return to school and educators begin to plan for instruction that adequately challenges kids but also catches them up after a year of uneven pandemic learning, there’s a valuable opportunity to reconsider—and ultimately retire—some of the stale literacy practices that research suggests aren’t the best use of limited instructional time. We combed through our Edutopia archives to find practices that shouldn’t make the cut and selected more effective alternatives that come recommended by literacy experts and experienced educators.

Despite years of research and practice, there is still no definitive blueprint for teaching grammar. The only thing that remains clear and uncontested is that grammar is most likely to be understood within the context of authentic reading and writing activities. However, without knowledge of what meaningful contextualization looks like in practice, many teachers, particularly new teachers, are bound to continue teaching the rules of English in an isolated, drill-like manner. Looking at writing in meaningful contexts, including cartoons, helps students see how they can apply the rules of English. Here are some practical suggestions to help you support your students.

When school resumes in the fall, even if education returns to pre-pandemic “normal” – with students attending classes all day and in person – teachers are likely to use more online tools and virtual resources than they did pre-COVID. That means parents need to be prepared to continue the role of facilitator of learning and technology specialist for their school-aged children. As teacher educators who are reevaluating how to prepare teachers for future learning disruptions, we’d like to offer parents and caregivers some tips for the upcoming back-to-school season.

If you read in English, chances are that there are a few countries that take up the vast majority of your reading. Only 2–4% of books published in English are translated, and even books published in English in countries other than the U.S. and UK often don’t get picked up and publicized in the same way that U.S. American works do. This is even more pronounced when it comes to children’s books, where the same books top the charts year after year. Parents tend to buy and read to their kids the same books their parents bought and read to them. If you want to branch out, though, and discover children’s books published all across the world, here’s a great place to start! TheToyZone has gathered up the most popular children’s books from each country and put them into these gorgeous graphics.

In the past 10 years, the education field has discovered a lot about the science of learning. Contributors share ways to use that in school.

As the pandemic upended life in the United States, more than one million children who had been expected to enroll in these schools did not show up, either in person or online. The missing students were concentrated in the younger grades, with the steepest drop in kindergarten — more than 340,000 students, according to government data. Now, the first analysis of enrollment at 70,000 public schools across 33 states offers a detailed portrait of these kindergartners. It shows that just as the pandemic lay bare vast disparities in health care and income, it also hardened inequities in education, setting back some of the most vulnerable students before they spent even one day in a classroom.

In the days since Eloise Greenfield died, the remembrances and stories of her impact on individuals and children’s publishing have been pouring in for the poet and author, who passed August 5 at age 92. Greenfield, whose first book, Bubbles, was published in 1972, wrote more than 40 books for children, including poetry, biography, picture books, and chapter books. Her most famous work was Honey, I Love, which was published in 1978. She received the 2018 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, along with the 1997 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, given for a body of work to a living American poet. In 2016, Greenfield received the Teaching for Change Education for Liberation Award. “Not only did she revolutionize children’s literature, she also (in big and small ways) supported generations of African American children’s books authors who followed her,” a post on Teaching for Change’s website said about Greenfield.

Learning disruptions have been an unfortunate but all-too-frequent sight during the pandemic. But not every student felt those effects evenly as schools shifted between remote and in-person options. Even under typical circumstances, learners with autism or other neurological differences are often more sensitive to changes in their environments. So given the lingering uncertainties about COVID-19’s impact on schooling this fall—and the trajectory of the fast-spreading delta variant—perhaps it’s no surprise that many families with neurodivergent children are opting to continue with remote learning. “We’ve had about 50 families stay online. And with that request, it prompted us to officially apply for our online schools here in the state of Arizona,” says Dana Van Deinse, director of partnership and online programming at Arizona Autism Charter Schools, which serves more than 400 students. “So really, it came about from demand.”

Take the 8 question quiz! Once you complete the quiz, you can see how your score compares to your peers, get the correct answers with detailed explanations, and be provided with additional readings and resources on the topic.

During the summer, I am sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past 10 years. Today’s theme is on the inclusive classroom. You can see the list of posts here.

Danielle Young coined the term “Black Boy Joy” in 2016 after watching Chance the Rapper exude happiness at MTV’s Video Music Awards. A welcome contrast to how young Black men are often portrayed in the media, it soon became a hashtag. In the introduction to his anthology of the same name, Kwame Mbalia (author of the Tristan Strong series) confesses that he doesn’t like watching the news, because growing up it was “always reporting on some local shooting or some death or some other tragedy that made my mother shake her head and my father scowl … because nine times out of 10, a face like mine was on the screen.” That’s why Mbalia invited 16 Black author friends to help him highlight “the revelry, the excitement, the sheer fun of growing up as boys in and out of the hood.” From stories (by the likes of Jason Reynolds, Varian Johnson and Tochi Onyebuchi) to poetry (Dean Atta) and comics (Jerry Craft), “Black Boy Joy” has something for every type of reader.

For millions of students, this is a summer like no other in the history of American public education. The last day of the school year was followed by just a brief pause before classes started again for a wide range of programs financed by more than a billion dollars in federal funds under the American Rescue Plan. That windfall sent educators scrambling this spring to find the best ways to spend it. Many districts are trying to focus on students who have lost the most during months of remote learning. Educators say they are especially concerned about students living in poverty, English-language learners and students with disabilities. But kids of all ages — from kindergarten to high school — suffered academically and emotionally during months of isolation. There’s no definitive count yet of how many students are enrolled this summer in a wide range of new options, from a push to close early learning gaps in Texas to a summer program in Oregon that helps kids learning English. A recent survey by the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that most large urban districts are offering an average of five weeks of summer learning, with many combining academics and activities like field trips or sports.

As we prepare to welcome our youngest learners to classrooms this fall, preschool and early childhood teachers are likely wondering how to best prepare children with the skills necessary to be kindergarten ready. Given that many preschool-aged children weren’t in formal in-person learning programs last year, building the academic and executive functioning skills they need for kindergarten is especially important for this incoming cohort of students. Executive functioning skills include organizing and prioritizing, staying focused on tasks, and regulating emotions. Children begin developing executive functioning skills rapidly between the ages of 3 and 5. Preschool and early childhood teachers play an important role in helping young learners develop academic skills (such as recognizing letters, colors, and numbers) and developing the executive functioning skills they need to be prepared for kindergarten.

Is your classroom bookshelf all that it can be, for every kid in your class? Here’s how to bring it up to speed. Providing “windows and mirrors” so that students can both see themselves and be exposed to new realities isn’t a novel concept for teachers. But as we grow increasingly aware of the many people whose stories remain untold一and the ripple effect our collective ignorance has on shaping our discourse and our cultural priorities—it’s worth revisiting what’s been sitting on classroom bookshelves.

The return of in-person learning last spring led to a boost in young children’s reading skills, but performance hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels and racial gaps have grown wider, according to new data from curriculum provider Amplify. Compared to winter results, the end-of-year data on the widely used Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, or DIBELS, shows that fewer students were at risk of not learning to read — a decline to 38 percent from 47 percent in kindergarten and a drop to 32 percent from 43 percent at first grade. But the scores at third grade, a critical year for developing more advanced reading skills, haven’t bounced back in the same way. The results provide some hope that a full in-person return to school this fall could see young children quickly regain the early literacy skills they missed while learning from home.

When disabilities and developmental delays are caught early, it can significantly impact a child’s ability to learn new skills and overcome challenges. Parents also learn strategies to support and advocate for their child. Librarians should never diagnose. However, as information professionals, we can let families know about EI, a community program providing services, including speech therapy, physical therapy, and special instruction, to qualifying children up to age three. The first step is making sure they know that EI exists and is free, voluntary, and confidential; a doctor’s referral isn’t necessary. Keep brochures at your children’s information desk. Libraries can also help address inequities and racial disparities in how EI services are accessed and provided.

They’re getting their hands dirty growing organic veggies. They’re cracking jokes while gaming on the Wii. They’re sporting medieval armor and waving foam weapons on a grassy battlefield. Just your typical summer vacation shenanigans, but with a twist: It’s all at school. This July, over 11,000 students in Tulsa, Oklahoma — about a third of the district’s total enrollment — have returned to academic buildings for fun-filled programming that explodes the typical conception of summer school. As national leaders including U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona underscore the importance of re-engaging young people this summer on the heels of a year marred by the pandemic, and with billions in federal relief dollars earmarked for summer enrichment activities, Tulsa Public Schools has seized the moment, delivering learning opportunities to students in tandem with community building and joy.

Floyd Cooper, a celebrated children’s book illustrator who explored the African American experience in stories rooted in history, like one about a boy in Alabama in 1955 trying to comprehend why a Black woman on his bus refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, died on July 15 in Bethlehem, Pa. He was 65. Over 30 years and some 100 titles, Mr. Cooper illustrated children’s stories that not only carried his earthy and golden pastel impressions of Black life, but that also strived to recount chapters of African American history that he felt weren’t taught enough in classrooms — if they were taught at all.

Dip into these picture books about pools and beaches, swimming and sailing, calm waters and stormy seas.

The American Academy of Pediatrics released updated guidance for schools Monday, recommending that all students over 2 years old, along with staff, wear masks, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The new AAP guidance comes less than two weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its own recommendations, calling for indoor mask-wearing for unvaccinated students ages 2 and up, as well as staff. (Children under 12 are not yet eligible for vaccination.) The CDC notes, however, that schools might find universal masking necessary in areas with low vaccination rates, increasing community transmission or a number of other factors. Both sets of guidance focus on getting students back into classrooms.

During the pandemic, all kinds of technologies helped save K-12 education from completely collapsing. Zoom and Microsoft Teams empowered educators to deliver live instruction and talk with students face to face virtually, many teachers who previously saw no need to use their learning management systems became regular users of them, and digital devices were distributed in record numbers to students all over the country. The result is that teachers’ and students’ technology skills have leapfrogged to the next level and the tech infrastructure in schools is now far more robust than it ever was before the pandemic. But with the crisis easing and most schools planning to return to full-time in-person instruction in the fall, educators now have to make some very important technology decisions. These stories examine all those questions and provide a roadmap for how schools should approach the use of technology for the 2021-22 school year and beyond.

Even as students are sorting through information online more than ever, the number of school librarians who could help them learn the fundamentals of research and media literacy have been quietly disappearing. A report published today from the School Librarian Investigation: Decline or Evolution? (SLIDE), a research project through Antioch University Seattle and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, highlights an ongoing decline in the number of districts nationwide with school librarians. According to the findings, there were about 20 percent fewer librarians during the 2018-2019 school year in the 13,000 districts examined than a decade prior. But the absence of these educators isn’t equally distributed; Smaller, rural districts, and those with higher proportions of English-language learners, Hispanic students, and low-income students were more likely to lack a librarian.

Despite gains at many Early Literacy Grant schools and enthusiasm from school leaders, the program has been a minor player in Colorado’s bid to help children read better. The program has doled out $5 million to $7.5 million annually and accepts a new crop of 20 to 30 schools every other year on average. It’s touched only about 10% of Colorado elementary schools over its eight-year history. In contrast, Colorado’s primary effort to help struggling readers, which awards every district and charter school money based on their number of struggling K-3 readers, typically distributes $26 million to $33 million a year. Until last year, districts had wide latitude on spending those dollars — with some using the funding to buy discredited reading programs or items that have little to do with reading instruction, such as tote bags or lip balm. Of a dozen educators and administrators Chalkbeat interviewed about Early Literacy Grants, most said scaling up the program could make a big difference.