Teachers are experienced in dealing with the annual learning loss that happens every year over summer break. When the new school year begins in the fall, it takes a while to get students back to the level they were at when summer break began, and teachers have methods to achieve that.
This school year, teachers and students are not only facing the normal slump after summer, but many students have fallen much further behind due to distance learning, school closures, technical challenges, and other disruptions due to the pandemic. The normal catch-up activity that most teachers use during the first few weeks of school is not going to bridge this gap and bring all students up to grade level.
What Researchers are Reporting
The Institute of Education Sciences Regional Educational Laboratory Program (IES/REL) recently published the results of research on K-12 learning loss during COVID-19. “Taking into account research on summer learning loss, Kuhfeld and Tarasawa (2020) project that as a result of recent school closures and an array of contributing stresses and trauma caused by the coronavirus pandemic, student academic achievement will decline in greater proportions than the average trajectory from summer learning loss. They also conclude that when some students return to in-person instruction, they will be particularly behind in mathematics. Among several recommendations, Kuhfeld and Tarasawa suggest providing resources and support to families and students, especially around mathematics, where the steepest declines often occur over summers and with interrupted school time.”
Intensive Support and Multiple Years of Individualized Attention is Needed
A brief by Allensworth and Schwartz (2020) “is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the pandemic.” Allensworth and Schwartz stress the effectiveness of what is known as “high-dosage tutoring”, which is up to two hours daily, directly tied to classroom content.
When education was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina, school and academic leaders in New Orleans observed that losses in mathematics were the most dramatic. Students returned to school more than two years below grade level on average. They found that it often took multiple years of individualized attention to make up those learning losses.
It’s difficult to predict how long it will take for students to recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but it is certain that providing individualized support in the form of tutoring will be a major factor. Not every student needs that high-dosage tutoring for multiple hours every day. For many, a couple of sessions a week in a one-on-one environment with a teacher is sufficient to regain lost ground and reinforce new content.
What Can Parents Do?
One of the most effective learning activities parents can do at home with their children is to read. Reading aloud to your child, helping them read aloud, discussing what they read are all ways to help. Professor Gail Nelson from Cleveland State University points out that with younger students, the emphasis is on learning to read and with older students it’s reading to learn. She also points out that finding ways to engage your kids in activities in the home can help turn things like cooking or setting the table into teachable moments. Essential skills like measuring, counting, fractions, quantities, following instructions, and telling time are just some of the basic components that can be incorporated into home activities.
Staying positive and keeping in touch with your child’s teacher(s) is key in supporting their progress. While it’s become the popular description for how the pandemic has affected education, the term “learning loss” is itself a negative. Increasing your child’s confidence and helping them feel calm, safe, and secure helps them focus on academics. Some teachers recommend playing educational games as a break from additional schoolwork. What’s important is to help nurture the positive and fun aspects of school and learning, and not make it feel like punishment or somehow the child’s fault if they need some additional academic help.
TutorUp Provides 1-on-1 Online Tutoring with Certified Teachers
We believe that the best tutoring experience is one where a student and teacher spend time one-on-one, focused on the individual challenges and solutions that are specific to that student. For that reason, all of our tutoring sessions are individualized, and all of our tutors are certified, experienced classroom teachers. It’s not enough to be a subject matter expert to be a tutor. You also need to know how kids learn, and how to teach.
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Pandemic disruptions caused significant learning loss
A recently published study by McKinsey & Company reveals that after a year in remote and hybrid learning, students in the United States have fallen behind significantly. Assessment tests showed the biggest loss is in math, averaging 5 months behind, and English following at 4 months behind.
Keeping in mind that this is an average across the whole country, there are many school districts and populations that have actually seen far greater losses in learning. These studies also showed that Black and Hispanic students ended the 2020/2021 school year 6 months behind.
If you have a school-age child, you know that academic loss isn’t the only harm our students have suffered during the pandemic. Thirty-five percent of 16,370 parents surveyed across every state in America said they were “very or extremely concerned” about their child’s mental health. Roughly 80 percent of parents had “some level of concern” about their child’s mental health or social and emotional health and development since the pandemic began.
Chronic absenteeism and a sharply increased dropout rate have contributed to the learning loss crisis. Further, the survey suggested that 17 percent of high school seniors who had previously planned on attending postsecondary school have now abandoned those plans. Most have joined or are planning to join the workforce, and many state that the cost of postsecondary education is the main reason.
While remedies are already in place in some areas, and programs and plans are being developed to help address learning loss, attendance, and the dropout rate, the cumulative effects of the pandemic can have a long-term impact on this generation of students.
What can parents do?
The McKinsey & Company research “suggests that parents underestimate the unfinished learning caused by the pandemic.” Forty percent of the parents surveyed thought their child was on track academically. More than half of parents “think their child is doing just fine.” Statistics from assessment tests tell a different story.
Parents who recognize their child’s dilemma, and are committed to doing something about it, are choosing a variety of remedies and innovations: tutoring, summer school, enrichment programs, homeschooling, district-sponsored “recovery programs”, hybrid models of in-person plus remote learning, homeschooling, learning hubs, and even holding their child back a year.
The case for tutoring
Though not the answer for every child, personalized one-on-one tutoring is one way parents are choosing to get their kids re-engaged, on-track, and academically successful. At TutorUp, all of our tutors are certified teachers with classroom experience. It’s not enough to have a tutor who is a subject matter expert if they don’t also have training and experience in how to assess, adapt, innovate, motivate, measure, and provide the individual and personalized instruction each child needs.
Following a chaotic year-and-a-half of a mixed bag of school experiences, teachers will not only have their hands full trying to reach each student at their level of ability, but they are all dealing with quarantine restrictions, an uptick in positive COVID-19 cases, and worry about their own health.
Will teachers – even the most well-meaning – be able to help their students in the classroom make up for all of the learning loss?
Tutoring is often a choice parents make as a reaction to finding out that their child is struggling in school, or possibly even failing a subject. As parents realize that even the most conscientious students are suffering learning loss through no fault of their own, they are choosing to enlist tutoring support to help bridge the gap.
Students are 5 months behind in Math and 4 months behind in Reading
A recently published study by McKinsey & Company reveals that after a year in remote and hybrid learning, students in the United States have fallen behind significantly. Assessment tests showed the biggest loss is in math, averaging 5 months behind, and English following at 4 months behind.
Learning loss isn’t the only side effect
Roughly 80 percent of 16,870 parents surveyed had “some level of concern” about their child’s mental health or social and emotional health and development since the pandemic began read more…
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 3.3% of students in the U.S. were homeschooled before the pandemic. That number is now at 11.1% or 5 million.
By the end of 2018 (the last available figures) more than 3.3 million students in the U.S. attended charter schools.
There are almost 35,000 private schools in the United States, serving 5.7 million PK-12 students. 78% of these are religiously-affiliated schools.
Enrollment in community colleges, other two-year college programs, and four-year colleges is down while the dropout rate in high schools is up.
Just when you thought you and your family could return to “normal” for the new school year starting this month, the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus has become a major disruptor. This will be the THIRD school year that is affected by the pandemic in one way or another.
While most school districts across the country are still planning to start back to school with in-person classes, teacher’s union leaders in many states are backing away from that commitment and are talking about returning to remote learning in light of increasing numbers of positive cases, especially among children. Children under the age of 12 are still not cleared to receive the vaccination, and the spike in cases is worrisome. While it’s not likely that in-person school plans will get scrapped, as COVID-19 cases rise, some parents are having second thoughts about in-person learning and there is increased interest in virtual school options and homeschooling.
The CDC encourages all K-12 staff and students to wear masks inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status, however enforcement of this recommendation is decided on a district by district basis. Some states are mandating mask-wearing indoors while other states are banning such mandates, leaving the option to the individual. While many are reluctant to mandate a return to mask-wearing in school, the controversy over the issue is becoming more heated.
The White House has weighed in and released a Fact Sheet about Reopening Schools and Rebuilding with Equity. They claim that “almost 90 percent of educators and school staff are now vaccinated” and they are calling on school districts and pharmacies in the federal pharmacy program to prioritize vaccinations for students age 12 and older. They are also providing federal money to support COVID-19 testing in schools. It will be months, though, before the FDA might approve the vaccine for children under 12.
It’s a rapidly changing situation, and is likely to continue to cause some confusion about what to do. As parents struggle with the conflicting news reports and recommendations, they are also weighing the risk factors of returning to in-person school against the known benefits.
How Learning Loss Figures In to the Situation
We know that many students have fallen behind academically and will almost certainly have anxiety about that and how they’re going to get caught up. The Washington Policy Center reports that a new study from McKinsey and Co “shows students are four to six months behind in reading and math.” The report further states that “unless students can recover these losses, the impact on their lives could be permanent.” High school dropout rates are up, and enrollment in public schools has dropped.
One of the driving motivations to return to in-person learning is the academic loss students have suffered as a result of inconsistent and often inadequate remote learning options. Added to that is the tremendous loss suffered due to the lack of socialization and the lack of extracurricular programs and sports activities. There’s just no question that students learn better in school, and it is critical to their emotional and psychological well-being to be able to return to normal school programs.
But what’s it going to be like for them to return to school after the last year and a half of upheaval?
With many thousands of school districts in the US, and a variety of local and state rules that govern them, students across the country will have vastly different “back to school” experiences. For the many students who are going to struggle to get back to “normal” and recover from the learning loss, they’re going to need some extra help, support, and patience.
How Tutoring Can Help
More than ever, teachers are going to be overwhelmed with the new school year starting. Not only do they have to cope with the regular “summer slide” and the effort to get kids acclimated to sitting in a classroom again, but they also have a whole host of new responsibilities related to the pandemic and health and safety issues.
Added to that, they will have students at greatly varied levels of competence in every subject. Some students did well with remote learning and stayed pretty current with their grade level. Many, many students did not do as well and have a lot of remedial ground to make up.
Given that teachers will have 20-30 students or more, it will be difficult to provide any kind of one-on-one attention to students who really need it.
Personalized, one-on-one tutoring can make the difference for many students. It is a safe environment for a student to ask questions and get individualized help without being embarrassed in front of classmates. A tutor who works with one student at a time can provide undivided attention and get more accomplished in one tutoring session than in a week’s worth of classes with a roomful of students.
Would Your Child Benefit from One-on-One Tutoring Help?
TutorUp tutors are all certified, experienced, background-checked classroom teachers. They know how to teach. And all of our sessions are one-on-one, personalized for your child’s specific needs. We currently offer all online tutoring sessions, so there is no concern about contagion or social distancing. Talk to a matching specialist today to help you connect with the right tutor. We’ll help your child excel.
