Kattie Hogan spends two 56-minute periods each day helping small groups of 6th and 7th graders at a suburban middle school in Detroit with reading, writing, speaking, and listening. She鈥檚 having more trouble than ever this year keeping students engaged and on task.
Six staffers at the school, including teachers and a social worker, have left since the start of the school year. Hogan has had to serve as a substitute for some of those openings and for teachers who are out sick or in quarantine at home. Those duties eat up much of the time Hogan, the part-time reading intervention teacher, would spend planning lessons.
Some days, she has to shift her students into another class of 25 to 30 students.
鈥淚t鈥檚 challenging at best because you鈥檙e trying to take what somebody else has done, your plans for the day, and try to combine them in this weird mishmash,鈥� Hogan said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to attempt writing, but you鈥檙e teaching social studies, so we鈥檙e going to do writing about social studies. I hope everyone gets something.鈥�
Hogan is hardly alone in her experience. As schools try to provide support this year to older students who need extra help getting their language arts skills on track, they鈥檙e bumping up against the limitations of pandemic-era schooling. The ongoing spread of the disease, coupled with nationwide shortages of qualified employees willing or able to work in schools under the current conditions, have observers worried about providing enough reading support to students who need it.
鈥淥ne person in a class of 25, they can only do so much,鈥� said Kesa Summers, a reading specialist who teaches English at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Md. 鈥淓ven with the planning time, you can鈥檛 ask a person to be three different people.鈥�
69传媒 need extra attention and reassurance, but they aren鈥檛 always getting it.
Experts on reading instruction say students struggling with reading in upper grades need reading teachers who integrate supplemental reading exercises around comprehension and decoding into their regular whole-class lessons. Some also need supplemental intervention in a classroom environment separate from their regular courses.
One person in a class of 25, they can only do so much. Even with the planning time, you can鈥檛 ask a person to be three different people.
Skills they should be practicing regularly in those environments include summarizing and discussing texts, systematically studying new words, and showing students how to find the main idea, said Jade Wexler, an associate professor of special education at the University of Maryland. 69传媒 may need a lot of help and support navigating those tasks, particularly if they鈥檙e also struggling with motivation.
鈥淭hey need coaches鈥攖hat鈥檚 the first thing that gets cut,鈥� Wexler said. 鈥淭hey need instructional leaders, people who are supporting them. There need to be more bodies.鈥�
Many schools use standardized assessments like NWEA鈥檚 Measure of Academic Progress, or MAP test, to determine whether students need extra reading support. In theory, those could cut down on the amount of work that鈥檚 necessary for a teacher or specialist to do. But it doesn鈥檛 always work that way.
The test result 鈥渒ind of breaks it down for you, but maybe they鈥檙e not a good test-taker, maybe they didn鈥檛 feel well that day. You read with them and you think, 鈥楬mm, that doesn鈥檛 really match up with your test,鈥欌�� said Stephanie Northway, who teaches high school English at My Virtual Academy, an online provider that serves students across Michigan.
She鈥檚 seen students with low scores in reading proficiency immediately become more confident when she helps them sound out confusing words in biology test questions. 鈥淭he challenge is to really find out where they鈥檙e at鈥濃�攁nd that takes more intensive involvement from staff.
- Raise wages and benefits to attract workers. The labor market is competitive right now as workers seek better conditions and more-robust compensation for their efforts. Many schools are finding value in offering more money to acknowledge the challenges teachers and instructional aides face on a daily basis.
- Get creative with federal money. Districts that received substantial allocations from three rounds of federal emergency aid since March 2020 can use some of that money to create new positions, transform part-time positions into full-time ones, and purchase new curriculum materials and instructional software.
- Plan for multiple contingencies. Some schools are worried about having to cut investments they鈥檝e made with federal dollars once the money runs out in three years. Developing a long-term plan for alternate sources of funding for popular or effective investments鈥攊ncluding raising taxes, securing grants, or lobbying for more state support鈥攃an help ensure that what鈥檚 working doesn鈥檛 fall victim to the whims of funding.
- Get students reading. Teachers who think regularly about supporting students who need extra help with reading told Education Week they believe the priority should always be on giving students more opportunities to practice essential skills. The easiest way to offer practice opportunities is simply to get students reading, even in classwork that isn鈥檛 specifically centered around language arts instruction.
Older students need reassurance that they鈥檙e capable of doing the work that interventionists are asking of them, said Tricia Proffitt, a dual-language teacher at Belvidere Central Middle School in Illinois. Proffitt served for seven years as a full-time reading interventionist until 2018.
鈥淛ust because they鈥檙e in an intervention, it doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檙e incapable. They can do it,鈥� Proffitt said. 鈥淏ut sometimes, they just need someone to believe in them.鈥�
Providing that assurance in a meaningful way is even trickier this year than usual because students had such varied experiences with learning during the pandemic, Northway said. Some students have been learning in person since September 2020, while others only broke away from remote learning this fall. Some students are struggling mightily with the mental-health strain the pandemic has brought on, while others aren鈥檛 feeling it as acutely. Instructors can鈥檛 approach these challenges with easy one-size-fits-all solutions, but they also sometimes lack the time and resources to differentiate instruction.
Taking advantage of a rare opportunity for more resources
Some schools are taking advantage of federal COVID-relief funds to put more resources toward robust reading instruction for older students.
At Torrington High School in Wyoming鈥檚 Goshen district, administrators are using federal money to pay for an interventionist whose only job is to help students improve their reading ability, said Chase Christensen, the school鈥檚 principal.
For the last few years, the school has offered a 鈥淪tay in School鈥� English class designed to support students who need more help with reading than they鈥檙e getting in their regular classes. That course didn鈥檛 have an assigned teacher, however, and sometimes was covered by a substitute or a staff member who typically teaches something unrelated.
Now, the course is covered by someone who specializes in reading instruction. And not a moment too soon鈥攎ore so than before the pandemic, Christensen said, students in reading-intervention courses are struggling with motivation.
Just because they鈥檙e in an intervention, it doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檙e incapable. They can do it. But sometimes, they just need someone to believe in them.
鈥淪ometimes, we鈥檝e got students that aren鈥檛 feeling the necessity of school,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 carried forward last year and into this year with real attendance battles.鈥�
Some students got full-time jobs during the pandemic to help their families out. Others simply 鈥渓ost the value that they saw in school,鈥� Christensen said.
Rebuilding those relationships will take time. But time isn鈥檛 on the school鈥檚 side. Funding for the reading-interventionist position will run out in 2024. With the district鈥檚 enrollment and state-level budgets on a downward slope, finding another source of cash to keep the interventionist likely won鈥檛 be possible.
Instead, the district hopes to use the interventionist鈥檚 current efforts to plant seeds at the elementary level for some of that work to continue among existing employees once the high school interventionist鈥檚 role drops off.
鈥淎fter two years, we may have less of a need, because we鈥檝e got that instruction from the bottom up,鈥� Christensen said.
Others are less optimistic about the future. Summers, the District of Columbia teacher, said she and colleagues feel overburdened by expectations of teaching students at grade level even if they come in struggling to read proficiently.
鈥淚t makes differentiation harder when the classes are bigger and you don鈥檛 have as many resources,鈥� she said. At times, co-teachers haven鈥檛 been in her classrooms when they鈥檙e needed the most because they鈥檝e been covering for other people who are absent.
These challenges aren鈥檛 likely to recede immediately. Slightly more than half of principals and district leaders who responded to a recent EdWeek Research Center survey said their staffing-shortage challenges have become more severe since the start of the school year鈥攖he opposite of what usually happens when hiring is slow or positions aren鈥檛 filled in August or September.
Summers believes students benefit most from instruction that鈥檚 centered around giving them ample time to experience reading. She prefers to think of students as possessing different literacy-based skills depending on their background and experiences, rather than adopting a 鈥渄eficit mindset.鈥�
Shifting that thinking won鈥檛 be possible, though, without overcoming the challenges around staffing.
鈥淚deally, you would be giving as much access to the students where they are as possible, but you鈥檙e supporting them with scaffolds and modifications in order to access the higher-level standards that they鈥檙e wanting to reach,鈥� Summers said. 鈥淏ut that takes a lot of planning and a lot of time and a lot of energy.鈥�
