Today’s Literacy Headlines

The COVID-19 pandemic has many parents scrambling over summer break as several children’s camps have been cancelled. Instead, lots of parents are turning to online learning options for their kids this summer. “We wanted to provide a resource families can do at home that’s really fun and engaging that would still work on that reading comprehension, vocabulary skills, building background knowledge,” said John MacLeod of the National Center for Families Learning. MacLeod says their free virtual camp, Camp Wonderopolis uses the kids’ curiosity as a springboard to work on literacy. In addition to camp Wonderopolis, Parents Magazine lists several virtual camps.

Lindale Park’s Loida Casares, an account manager for Houston Public Media, was listening to NPR one day when she heard about an initiative in Milwaukee to put children’s books in laundromats. Inspired by what she heard, Casares got the go-ahead to put some Little Free Libraries in laundromats – or washaterias, as they are called in Houston. A little less than a year later, she has four set up.The children’s books are the focus. And they are especially important right now. “School is sometimes the only place these kids see books,” she said. “If parents are busy working, they are not (able to) take kids to the library.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics once again plunged into the growing debate over school reopening with a strong new statement Friday, making clear that while in-person school provides crucial benefits to children, “Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics.” The statement also said that “science and community circumstances must guide decision-making.” The AAP is changing tone from the guidance it issued just over two weeks ago. Then, the organization made a national splash by recommending that education leaders and policymakers “should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.” The previous guidance was criticized for saying little about the safety of educators and other school personnel. Friday’s statement, cosigned by the two national teacher unions and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, calls for putting educators as well as other stakeholders at the center of decision-making.

Former CDC Director Thomas Frieden, and former secretaries of education Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings, lay out eight steps that could help schools find ways to reopen in the coming year. They write, “If we move too fast, ignore science, or reopen without careful planning, this will backfire. We can reopen if we follow commonsense guidelines…The single most important thing we can do to keep our schools safe has nothing to do with what happens in schools. It’s how well communities control the coronavirus throughout the community.”

I had heard about the summer slide, or the way children can academically regress over the summer break, and I wondered what this would mean for our education-deprived children this year. The pandemic will likely have a negative impact on the education of millions of children throughout the United States and around the world, particularly those families without internet access or a caregiver who can oversee their education. Whether this means that I need to push math problems on my kid this summer is another question. Newer research on summer learning loss shows that taking a summer-length break from academics isn’t an inevitable setback for kids, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Also, the break from prescriptive academics could give families a chance to focus on social and emotional learning, teaching our kids much-needed coping skills in these scary and unpredictable times.

Dozens of teachers, parents and district leaders around the country told NPR that the back-to-school season — that beloved annual ritual — has fogged over with confusion. States, districts and the federal government are pushing and pulling in different directions. Scientists are updating their advice to reflect emerging research and the changing course of the pandemic. And parents and educators are finding it hard to make decisions in the murk. What’s at stake: An unknown number of lives, the futures of tens of millions of children, the livelihoods of their caregivers, the working conditions of millions of educators, and people’s trust in a fundamental American institution.

If up to 20% of our learners are suffering from some level of dyslexia or reading disability and many others are emerging language learners in English, the world language classroom can be an oasis for them and a platform for further success. For me as an educator who has a passion for equity in the classroom, it has become increasingly important to continue to differentiate and to uncover potential success stories among the special education population. If you want to learn to differentiate, start with the special education department at your school and recruit some bright young people to give your world language classroom a chance. And then, give them the chance to shine.

These journeys of the imagination explore what it means to be human. The New York Times reviews eight new picture books for children aged three and up.

Parents across the U.S. are wondering what the next school year will hold for their children. While reopening decisions will ultimately be up to state and local officials, President Trump said Tuesday he’ll pressure governors to resume in-person classes. Judy Woodruff talks to Noel Candelaria of the Texas State Teachers Association and Elliot Haspel, an education policy expert and former teacher.

Prior to the pandemic, he EdWeek Research Center surveyed 965 principals and teachers on a host of questions related to the use of digital devices by K-12 students in, and outside of, school. The nationally representative survey shows, for instance, that more than half of educators said their students are less skilled at in-person interactions than they and their peers were at the same age, because they are so accustomed to interacting via devices. And about 40 percent said students need explicit instruction on how to interact with others in person because so much of their experience with human interaction comes from devices. Those findings are arguably even more relevant today, as schools have scrambled this spring to equip more and more students with Chromebooks, iPads, and other digital devices they can use to learn at home. Students will be bringing those devices back to school buildings once they reopen to use in their classrooms. Education Week followed up with interviews of several principals who responded to the survey, such as Tom Denning, the principal of Riley Elementary School in Gold Beach, Ore., for a big-picture view of how the proliferation of digital devices are affecting students, teachers, and school life in general. Here’s what the principals had to say.

The first-grade teacher held up the box that represented her highest hopes for the summer. Facing a sleepy-eyed Zoom gathering of 5- and 6- and 7-year-olds, squirming slightly before computer screens at 9 a.m. Monday morning, Christina Bohringer asked the class if they’d received boxes, too. Everyone nodded: Alexandria City Public Schools had mailed learning kits to every one of the 14,500 students who agreed to participate in the Northern Virginia district’s special edition of summer school, which is free and meant to make up for coronavirus learning loss. Administrators and teachers had worked long hours to prepare a comprehensive month-long curriculum, a mammoth initiative launched in late April that ultimately involved the services of nearly 500 teachers, tech specialists and mental health counselors, required three dozen new hires and cost the district $1.7 million. It represents one strategy being pursued by school districts to repair the educational damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, which shuttered campuses across the United States in March.

In March as schools began to close due to COVID-19, public libraries also began to close, and while some have reopened with new guidelines to help protect patrons from the coronavirus, in most cases typical summer programming for kids has been scrapped in favor of online offerings. Libraries’ efforts during the summer of 2020 range from offering myriad virtual programs, including simplified summer reading programs and loosely structured book clubs, to creating a place to talk and meeting children’s fundamental needs: providing Wi-Fi and any reading material. At the Normal (IL) Public Library, the main goal is making sure young patrons keep reading this summer. This year, the library is simplifying its summer reading challenge. Instead of three or four different options based on age or grade, the 2020 challenge is the same for everyone. Readers are asked to log online either the number of books or pages read or the time spent reading. The prizes that are usually awarded are being replaced with virtual badges and tickets that will be put into a drawing for various rewards that will be given out at the end of the summer.

DaSean Jones is a D.C. father who got through the first part of the pandemic by carefully and successfully choreographing his children’s daily activities. “[I’m] trying not to let every day look exactly the same and go exactly the same way. … It’s a challenge.” Jones, 47, whose main worry is keeping his kids on track despite projected nationwide learning loss from COVID-19, has given them books to read and the occasional essay prompts to answer. But he also reminds himself it’s summer, and the kids need a break. It’s a tough balance to strike. “I’m just trying to keep everybody busy and also just trying to give them the freedom I know they would have” otherwise, he said. Spend a day with the Jones family.

The idea that creating equitable and flexible design can benefit all members of society undergirds universal design, a concept developed by architect Ronald Mace. Rooted in the disability rights movement, universal design is typically applied to products and the built environment, but the principles offer a valuable way to reimagine educational spaces, particularly during the coronavirus crisis. With the rapid switch to distance learning this spring, schools struggled to serve students who are at the margins for a variety of reasons, from disabilities to homelessness to poverty. Recently, as schools planned for reopening, educators attending a design challenge hosted by University of California Berkeley’s Professional Development Providers used universal design principles to think creatively about how schools might function in the fall.

Writing can be an awesome escape. Kids can write about the past and the future and skip the present entirely. Whether they are creating a piece that is mainly fantasy, historical fiction, or science fiction, they can build a new world leaving COVID-19 behind—or address the pandemic head-on and go deep into their emotions and experiences. They can lean on genres such as realistic fiction and romance, or lighten the mood with comedy to explore thoughts and feelings. But how does one teach kids to write for enjoyment? Some dynamite podcasts out there can help them become inspired, skilled writers.

The uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic has upended the daily lives of children across the globe, leaving parents and caregivers struggling to explain the changes. Two medical students in California say their desire to help bridge that gap in understanding inspired them to write a free children’s book, titled “Why We Stay Home.” Authors Samantha Harris and Devon Scott share their story.