The Pandemic Has Worsened the Reading Crisis in Schools
Dana Goldstein of the New York Times reported this week on the alarming “reading emergency” caused by the Covid pandemic and its severe impact on education in the United States.
Multiple studies are reporting that reading skills of younger students were at a 20-year low at the beginning of this school year. “Children in every demographic group have been affected, but Black and Hispanic children, as well as those from low-income families, those with disabilities and those who are not fluent in English have fallen the furthest behind.”
While it’s true that national tests have shown a stagnant or declining performance in reading for U.S. students since 2019, there is no denying that the pandemic has made all of this worse. Children spent months out of the classroom, and when they did return, they found less help than before the pandemic. A federal survey has shown that nearly half of all public schools have teaching vacancies, especially in special education and elementary grades.
Schools are now under pressure to boost literacy quickly to try to make up for the ground that has been lost. Billions in stimulus funds are going to schools for tutoring and other academic supports, but schools are still having trouble hiring quality staff.
Early on in the pandemic, research suggested that reading skills were holding steady while there was more concern about learning loss in math. Today the research is showing the opposite. Among the youngest students, many of whom spent their entire kindergarten year outside of school, the basics of reading have been lost.
As a result, some states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Massachusetts have begun retraining teachers in phonics. Individual and small-group tutoring is being funded by federal grants, however many educators are leaving the classroom for the more lucrative private reading and speech therapy industry. So even with the budget, schools are finding it difficult to hire experienced educators.
A new Stanford study finds that “reading fluency among second and third graders in the U.S. is roughly 30 percent behind what would be expected in a typical year.” While students are beginning to recoup the losses suffered when schools closed in 2020, it hasn’t been enough to make up for the gaps.
Many states paused academic assessment testing during the pandemic, so definitive numbers aren’t readily available but the evidence is compelling. Children who struggle with reading will be facing lifelong hurdles. What this means is that the critical time to address the problem is now, before more learning is lost.
When struggling students are paired with experienced, trained, certified educators in a one-on-one private tutoring arrangement, reading improvement can be dramatic. Due to the shortage of experienced teachers in the schools, and the fact that teachers in the classroom have to divide their attention among dozens of students, the concentrated attention that students need in order to catch up is best achieved with quality tutoring.
The best way to help your student study is to share some tips, help them get started on implementing them, and then let them take it from there. Resist the inclination to step in and handle it every day when they come home from school with assignments or they need to study for a test. In the long run, the more you take over and direct, the less your student will actually learn how to study and get organized.
Setting Up for Success
Regardless of age, here are some basics that will help any student with studying and completing homework assignments.
Don’t try to jump right in to homework after school. Allow for a break and a snack first.
Designate a specific place as the study/homework station. And make sure it’s not on their bed, or in the same room as a TV that is on, or where people gather to socialize.
Institute a “no social media” policy during study time. Your student may need their phone, tablet, or computer to do their homework, so the temptation to check on social media will be harder to control, but it’s a huge time-waster and breaks concentration.
Take breaks. Your student can set specific break times (like every 30 minutes or once an hour) or just take a break at a natural stopping point, but using a timer will help keep the break short. 5-10 minutes is long enough. Longer than that could make your student lose their place and forget what they were working on.
Encourage some physical activity during break times, even if it’s just standing up and stretching.
Organizational Skills
Starting at about fourth or fifth grade, your student should have a day planner or assignment notebook they write in and keep track of every assignment, the date assigned, the due date, instructions and notes. Younger students may have handouts from the teacher with daily assignments or worksheets and don’t need the additional structure of keeping a calendar.
Train children at a young age to be sure to put all of their school papers, assignments, notes, worksheets, etc. in their backpack every day to bring home from school. Help them review and sort through these papers every day before starting homework. Don’t let the backpack become the Bermuda Triangle.
For schools that send homework, notices, schedules, etc. via email or posted online, be sure to check that right after school so you’re not surprised the next morning when your student says “I was supposed to do…” or “I’m supposed to bring…”
It might help (especially for older students) to have separate folders in different colors for each subject. And for note-taking, a matching spiral notebook for each subject. So if Math is blue, it’s easy to grab the blue folder and the blue spiral notebook to find all the info needed to complete assignments.
Another method of organizing would be a three-ring binder with pocket tabs for each subject, keeping everything in one notebook, organized by subject. This can get pretty big though, so your student might prefer the colored folder/notebook method.
Make sure that your student has all the necessary supplies in their backpack every day. Depending on age, pencils, pens, eraser, crayons, markers, highlighters, glue sticks, scissors, notebook, paper, index cards, calculator, tissues, wet wipes, hand sanitizer… you get the idea.
Study Tips
Success with homework and studying begins in school. It’s important that students learn early to pay attention, ask questions when they don’t understand something, take good notes, keep track of assignments and important dates, minimize distractions in class (like keeping their phones in their backpacks), and just take school seriously in general. This includes consistent attendance.
Goal setting –
Whether it’s a certain grade a student wants to achieve, or just mastering a single concept, it helps to have a goal to work toward. Maybe your third grader needs to memorize multiplication tables. Measure how long it takes to get one down, and then set goals accordingly. Breaking big goals into smaller, more easily achieved goals helps your student see how they are progressing.
Note taking –
It’s not possible (or recommended) to try to write down everything a teacher is saying. One way to help students learn how to jot down the important points, so they can review them later, is to have them watch a short video of someone lecturing on an interesting topic or explaining something or giving instructions. You watch the video with them and have them pick out the important things they might want to write down, while you take your own notes. Then you can compare notes and see if your student is on the right track. The best way to learn how to take good notes is to practice taking notes.
Demonstrating mastery –
A great way to help a student commit something to memory, and demonstrate that they have mastered a specific topic, or concept, is to have them teach/explain it to someone else. That could be you, or a sibling, or a classmate.
Study partner/study group –
Studying with a peer, or a group of peers, can be very useful as long as everyone takes it seriously. Of course, fun should also be had, but keep goals in mind when students work together. One way to help influence this is to host the studying at your house.
It’s okay to try different things to see what resonates with your student. And if you have more than one child you’re trying to help, keep in mind that everyone is different, and what works well for one child might not be helpful for another. Listen to your child and take their input into consideration when trying to help. Good study habits for students can last a lifetime, and translate into good work habits and help create responsible adults.
This seems obvious, but bears reminding: “When engaging in a hobby you enjoy, the brain releases endorphins, chemicals that are attributed to creating positive feelings. Over time, your hobby helps to train the brain to be active, happy, and healthy.”
Anybody had a stressful year or so? Could you use some extra endorphins right about now?
We’ve talked a lot about how the Covid pandemic and lockdowns, virtual school, social isolation, learning loss and uncertainty have affected all of us, but it may be hardest on our kids. Which is why it’s more important than ever to encourage kids – and all of us, really – to cultivate a hobby or two that have nothing at all to do with school, work, or anything else that is a stressor.
Emotional, Psychological, and Physical Benefits of Hobbying
Some resources say that healthy eating, exercising, meditating, and reading are “hobbies”, but those are really more accurately categorized as lifestyle choices. The kinds of hobbies we’re talking about are the more fun and creative ones like beading friendship bracelets, knitting, painting, learning how to play a musical instrument, collecting and trading things like stamps, coins, comic books, Funko Pop figures (or really anything). Of course many hobbies do involve physical activity, like dancing, rock climbing, or bicycle riding and the benefits there include feeling more physically fit without technically “exercising”.
The endorphins mentioned earlier are your body’s way of telling you that what you’re doing feels great, helps you de-stress and just generally improves your day and your life. In a digital world where our kids are staring at some kind of electronic screen for hours on end, it’s even more important to find a fun activity that allows them to unplug.
Getting involved in a hobby is also a way to introduce your child to a new social network and group of friends with shared interests, which is another beneficial result.
Don’t Just Encourage – Participate!
It’s great for parents to encourage their children’s hobbies, but it can be even more fun if you participate in the activity with your child. Even if all you do is help with the research for your kid who wants to get into stargazing or bird-watching, your involvement helps reinforce the validity of their choice and is an opportunity to bond. Certainly if your child has an interest in something you already like to do – like going to classic car shows and learning about old cars – it makes it that much more fun to share the activity.
Just Don’t Nag
Interest in hobbies will wax and wane, and something that delighted your child last summer may not interest her right now. That’s why it’s great to help encourage multiple kinds of hobbies that your child can move in and out of as the muse strikes. If that rock collecting kit or custom bowling ball is sitting and collecting dust, resist the urge to complain about it and make your child feel guilty. That’s the best way to insure that they never pick it back up again.
The objective is to introduce and encourage activities that are fun, relaxing, rewarding, distracting, or even just amusing. Remember the endorphins! It can be as simple as setting up a card table in the corner of your family room with a jigsaw puzzle that everyone can spend a few minutes on when they feel like it. Or a dedicated hobbyist can end up spending serious time and money on specialized tools or equipment, traveling to conventions, or taking lessons. Hobbies can take many forms and are as varied as the people who love them.
Some Popular Hobby Ideas for All Ages in 2022
Astronomy
Baking
Birding
Blogging
Calligraphy
Candle Making
Chess
Collecting anything
Coloring books (for every age, even adults!)
Cooking
Cosplaying
Fiber Arts (knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, needlepoint, etc.)
At a time when many parents and students are weary of “online school” and virtual learning, some are questioning the effectiveness of online tutoring. After nearly two years of remote learning, why would we think it’s a good idea to sign up our kids for an online tutor? After all, aren’t kids tired of staring at a screen, trying to focus and concentrate enough to learn?
The answer is yes and no.
In a recent New York Times article, they point out that “Spending on virtual tutoring is explicitly allowed under federal stimulus guidelines, and the Education Department said quality remote tutoring can be a ‘great option for many students, as long as the tutoring addresses individual students’ needs and produces strong educational outcomes.’”
The Key Ingredients for Quality Remote Tutoring
Individualized tutoring –
A canned lesson or curriculum may serve as an adequate guideline for a classroom situation, but when a student is having challenges and needs tutoring, the learning should be personalized for the specific material that student needs help with. The student’s unique problems should be the determining factor for what the tutor wants to focus on, not a one-size-fits-all solution.
One-on-one attention –
Classroom teachers have to divide their attention among many students, all with varying levels of comprehension and success. Group lessons–even small groups–don’t fix the problem for students who are falling behind. For tutoring to actually be effective, sessions need to be just one student matched with one tutor, face to face.
Qualified, experienced tutors –
There’s a difference between a subject matter expert and a trained educator. Many tutoring companies hire college students or other tutors who may be very well-versed in a certain subject but this doesn’t mean that they know how to help a struggling student. Teachers are trained to be able to identify learning issues and how to address them, adapting their approach to the student’s unique learning style and individual needs.
Tutor/Student connection –
When a student has regular, personalized, one-on-one tutoring sessions with the same tutor, even if these sessions are “virtual”, student and teacher are able to develop a real connection. They get to know each other and develop their own pace for learning. Sticking with the same tutor helps a student develop trust and confidence in the help they receive.
Frequent sessions –
Tutoring isn’t the same as homework help. Sometimes a student is stuck on a single concept, problem, or assignment and just needs one short session to help with that. However a student who is struggling, or trying to get caught up with tutoring, gets the biggest boost with two to three sessions per week. Some concentrated tutoring support has been shown to be very helpful in learning, reinforcing, and improving in any grade and subject.
How TutorUp Measures Up
All of our tutoring sessions are individualized. Designed by that specific teacher for that specific student.
We only provide one-on-one tutoring support. No groups.
TutorUp’s tutoring staff is 100% comprised of certified, experienced classroom teachers.
Once a student is matched with a tutor, they stay connected. Unless the parent requests a change.
We strongly recommend two or three tutoring sessions per week. The frequency and length of the sessions varies based on age of the student, type of help needed, and compatibility of schedules. And at TutorUp, the more sessions you purchase, the lower the per-session price.
School districts are quietly discussing student performance results for this school year, and the news is what you might expect. While many districts are operating under federal and state waivers regarding academic performance tests, the unofficial results show a drop.
Ken Zeff, a former superintendent for Fulton County Schools in Georgia, said every bit of data is helpful. So even though the results are unofficial this year, Zeff said “We should look at it and just recognize that we’ve had a dip in learning”.
The iReady test, administered nationally by Curriculum Associates, shows that performance “plummeted for all students compared to the last time it was given before the health crisis began. Nearly three million students took the test both times.” This decline in student performance is mirrored in the standardized test results that various states are reporting.
“This is a disaster. The bottom has fallen out, and the results are as bad as you can imagine,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “We haven’t seen this kind of academic achievement crisis in living memory.”
What can parents do?
Parents do have options when it comes to helping students recover academic loss and improve test scores and grades.
Charter Schools
44 states and the District of Columbia now offer a charter school option to students in public schools, at no cost to parents. Charter schools give parents the option of moving their child out of a school where they may not be thriving, to a school that has higher quality programs and teachers. By 2018 (the latest year for which data is available) 7% of all public school students were in charter schools.
Magnet Schools
These are free public schools that concentrate on specific skill areas and usually deliver a higher quality educational experience. Students interested in STEM or the arts, for example, can find programs that work for them in magnet schools. The downside is, since they are free public schools, there is often a waiting list to get in.
Private Schools
There are many different types of private schools, including traditional private schools, boarding schools, Montessori and Waldorf schools, and parochial or religious private schools. For families who can afford it, private schooling offers the most parental influence and freedom of choice. These tuition-based schools do sometimes offer scholarships.
Homeschooling
Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, and because it offers flexibility, innovation, and customization, is becoming more popular. Due to Covid and parents working from home, more families are opting to homeschool their children. According to Focus on the Family, homeschooling is “a flexible learning format where parents can weave learning preferences, curriculum, lifestyle, home responsibilities, career, and family needs into a holistic picture of what it means to learn together.”
Private Tutoring
Regardless of the type of school a student is in, all students can take advantage of private tutoring support. Having the undivided attention of a highly qualified teacher/tutor who spends one-on-one time focusing on an individual student gives a student a great advantage. Whether a student is falling behind, finds it challenging to learn new material in a group setting, or is just having difficulty with a specific subject, project, or concept, tutoring can help them overcome. No matter what type of classroom situation a student has day-to-day, getting one-on-one attention and support is extremely difficult. Teachers have to divide their time among multiple students while tutors can personalize lessons to suit the individual.
Recovering
It will take some time for our public schools and students to make up the losses they have suffered due to the Covid pandemic, closing of in-person schools, and the focus on remote group learning. McKinsey & Company published the results of their research into recovering from the pandemic, and one of the things they found was “Disruptions to learning are not over, and student attendance rates lag significantly behind pre-pandemic levels. While actual closures of whole schools or districts have affected just 9 percent of students, quarantines and other disruptions have affected 17 percent of in-person students. On top of school closures, absenteeism rates have risen, with 2.7 times as many students on a path to be chronically absent from school this year compared with before the pandemic.”
While school districts have access to funds to support educational programs, including academic and mental-health recovery programs, they don’t seem to be allocating the funding to the programs parents want. For example, they are allocating 34 percent of funding to summer school and after-school programs, and only 7 percent of funding for tutoring. But parents are four times more interested in tutoring services for academic recovery than summer school.
Start 2022 off right – get tutoring help
This means that in many instances, parents are on their own to pay for tutoring support to help their child recover academically. For more information on the high-quality personalized tutoring services we offer, at affordable prices, please fill out the form below.
