Personally, I think that this can be a bigger crisis as time goes by, causing the literacy crisis to grow since many children aren’t on par with where they should be; although kids are required to attend school by the government, is it really effective if the student is unable to read?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/us/pandemic-schools-reading-crisis.html
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=69
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state
- Do you think these children should be held back a year/have to review kindergarten lessons in order to get on the curve?
- What effects do you think this could have on the literacy crisis and America's future?
- Do you think this is something the government should intervene with or do you believe that this will only affect a few grades?
5 comments:
I think that making children retake kindergarten would create large amounts of kids who are 1 year behind everyone and that it would not make sense to have their biological development be 1 year behind their academic progression for the rest of their education. Each grade is meant for children of a certain age, and having a relatively large amount of children who are at the wrong age would upset this timing. For example, I would think that children who are 1 year older would score better on standardized tests simply because their brains are more developed and they can perform more complex math calculations or have better reading comprehension. (Or maybe we should do this so that our literacy skyrockets for the 1st grade because the children are older than they usually are and we no longer fall behind on international statistics...jk).
The best way to address this is to have more intense reading classes in the grades after kindergarten to catch them up. Only one year of upset learning can be mitigated over the 12 years of total schooling so that the difference is negligible at the end. Less time could be spend on other subjects to account for this, such as history or science (but not math because that is as important to stay on tempo for and they should not fall behind).
As for the disappointing international statistics, I think this is most likely the result of the US being a relatively agricultural nation compared to others like Finland and in Europe. There are many people living in states in tornado valley that work in farms or in factories and in very rural communities that hinder access to education. Finland, on the other hand, has very urbanized communities because the climate prevents agriculture. In addition, the US has much more immigration than Finland, so it would be logical that the immigrants would not be as literate in English, or even in general if they come from a poor country with poor education.
I agree with Julien that kids shouldn’t be held back to review kindergarten. However, to help them develop their reading skills, schools can do things such as implement summer reading programs or have after school reading help. If teachers and schools gave kids options on what fun books they could read and maybe gave them a series of book suggestions that would help them “level up” in their reading skills, that could help them catch up over the summer and expose them to more books. Also, perhaps elementary schools could start mini book clubs for kids or after school reading programs so that kids can interact with other students while still being exposed to more books and developing their literacy skills. Basically, any of these programs would help supplement what students are learning in the classroom and help them expand their learning environment outside the classroom. I hope that this literacy crisis won’t affect America’s future very much as teachers in future years can definitely help students make up for lost time. Kids will catch up eventually as they’re fast learners and I think the major problem will eventually fade.
I do think these kids should be held back for extra education but I feel that it would be to costly for parrents and state. An alternative could be a culture shift, emphazizing values like concentration and sitting and waiting. Which I feel would help kids retain reading more, but I feel like kids would not have fun doing that. Fortunately for me this literacy crisis should increase my human capital and therefore increase oprotunities for me in the economy to thrive. I do think the gov't should intervene and just shame the kids into learning to read to inspire them to learn how to read and not be illiterate. One final solution would be that instead of increasing our literacy rate, we lower other country's literacy so the average bard is lower. Than it would look like America is more educated. I dont know how America could do that without violating some kind of international law but that is a third option I thought of. I would have probably said something more profound and thought provoking, but I cant read like those kids. Sorry.
While it might be beneficial for these kids to be held back, I think that this is unlikely. What should probably happen is an effort by the schools to implement things that Elizabeth talked about, such as summer reading programs or extra activities in school. While this might be a big problem now, I agree these kids will be able to catch up to the expected curve even if it might take a few years. It also demonstrates the importance of in person connection when it comes to learning. While zoom was painful for us, it was probably 1000x worse for the elementary school age kids.
I think from a psychological perspective that the long term effects of the pandemic on social and cognitive development are both concerning and interesting from a scientific perspective. Being isolated from all their peers at such a young age is sure to have an effect, and although it's hopefully nothing major, I think that more studies and research on the psychology of young children living through the pandemic are going to be something to keep an eye on in the future. We likely won't know the full effects until these kids become adults, and I wonder if they will be affected in other ways, outside of the literacy rate discussed in the blog post.
* In addition, it wouldn't really make sense to hold so many of these kids back, as the grades would have to be double the size, and it would just be a logistical nightmare (do kids meeting standards need to be held back as well? what about the incoming class of kindergarteners?) It would be too expensive and too difficult, in my opinion.
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