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Yes, the pandemic created huge learning losses for millions of students, so what’s being done about it? “We work with many students who used to come to us as freshmen reading at a fifth-grade level,” explained Kathyrn Limata, literacy teacher. “Now, most of the students I see in my literacy classes are at a third-grade level and some are even at a first-grade level, having to learn basic phonics. It’s heartbreaking.”
Limata said that during COVID, many school districts in California did not hold students back because of social promotion policies, so there are thousands of kids who are entering high school without knowing how to read. Reading affects overall literacy, such as computer literacy, verbal skills and even time management and punctuality. The good news is that once students are put into Learn4Life’s intensive reading program, they do gain skills quickly.
“Most important is to identify those students who need help as soon as possible, before they are well into the school year,” she said. “When they can’t read, they start failing in all their classes and stop coming to school. We immediately put those struggling students into an English intensive class, typically for one year. In that time, we see them improve several grade levels and gain enough proficiency to return to standard Language Arts classes.”
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