The pandemic widened gaps in reading. Can one teacher 'do something about that'?

Richard Evans makes his way through rows of his students in his third grade classroom, stooping to pick up an errant pencil and answering questions above the din of chairs sliding on hardwood floors.

The desks, once spread apart to fight COVID-19, are back together. But the pandemic maintains an unmistakable presence.

Look no further than the blue horseshoe-shaped table in the back of the room where Evans calls a handful of students back for extra help in reading — a pivotal subject for third grade — at the end of each day.

Here is where time lost to pandemic shutdowns and quarantines shows itself: in the students who are repeating this grade. In the little fingers slowly sliding beneath words sounded out one syllable at a time and in the teacher’s patient coaching through concepts usually mastered in first grade.

It is here, too, where Evans jots pluses and minuses and numbers on charts he’s made to track each child’s comprehension and fluency, and notes words that trip up a student a second or third time.

In a year that is a high-stakes experiment on making up for missed learning, this strategy — assessing individual students’ knowledge and tailoring instruction to them — is among the most widely adopted in American elementary schools. In his classroom of 24 students, each affected differently by the pandemic, Evans faces the urgent challenge of having them all read well enough to succeed in the grades ahead.

Here is how he has tackled it.

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GOING FROM PANDEMIC TO ‘NORMAL’ IS HARD

It is a Thursday in October, early in the school year. Six students surround Evans at the blue table, each staring down at a first-grade-level book about baseball great Willie Mays.

“What sound does ‘-er’ make?’” Evans asks 9-year-old Ke’Arrah Jessie, who focuses through glasses on the page. She puts “hit” and “ter” together to make “hitter.”

Most of these students were sent home as kindergartners in March 2020. Many spent all of first grade learning remotely from home full- or part-time.

Challenges didn't end when schools reopened full time for second grade. The young children were by then unaccustomed to — and unhappy about — full weeks of school rules.

“All year long," Evans said, "I had kids ask me, `Why do I have to be in school for five days?’”

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MOVING FROM ‘LEARNING TO READ’ TO ‘READING TO LEARN’

At the start of this school year, assessments showed that 15 of Evans’ initial 23 students were reading below grade level. Of those, nine were considered severely behind.

There was no time to waste. Studies show those who don’t read fluently by the end of third grade are more likely to drop out or finish high school late.

Ke’Arrah spent more than a year learning remotely early in the pandemic. Her mother, Ashley Martin, wanted to keep her young family safe but could see the toll on her daughter’s drive to learn. So when Ke’Arrah was assigned to a new elementary school for this year, her mother re-enrolled her in third grade.

Midway through her second stint in third grade, the decision is paying off — in measurable progress and Ke'Arrah's interest in reading books from the Junie B. Jones series with her mother at bedtime.

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DOUBLING UP ON KIDS WHO NEED IT MOST

While many students are behind, Evans also referred more candidates than ever — five — for the school’s honors program because of their advanced scores on early assessments. Those students sometimes work independently or with each other to give Evans extra time with the others.

The range highlights the varied experiences during the pandemic.

Districts like Atlanta have sought to address learning losses by adding time to the school day. Others, like Washington, D.C., have pursued “high-impact” tutoring. Niagara Falls has put reading specialists in each elementary school while emphasizing differentiated learning to move students forward, Superintendent Mark Laurrie said.

Using assessments to identify students' individual needs is the top post-pandemic strategy, followed closely by remedial instruction, according to a federal survey.

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WITH THIS STUDENT, IT WORKED — FOR A WHILE

Evans invested his own time in one of his neediest students, a boy who is repeating third grade at Evans' urging. He started keeping him after school once a week for an hour of intensive reading intervention.

“He’s like my little experiment,” Evans said after one tutoring session in November. “With intense intervention, can you turn this around?”

In a matter of weeks, the boy had mastered dozens of instantly recognizable sight words, like “because” and “about,” that new readers must learn.

But the tutoring stopped when the boy apparently lost interest, and stopped staying after school.

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SHOWING LEARNERS ‘THERE'S A CONCERN FOR YOU'

Halfway through the school year, a new set of assessments suggests Evans' strategy is working. Fifteen of his students had met or exceeded their scoring goals for this round of tests.

Ke’Arrah leapfrogged from a bottom level to the upper middle — to the relief of her mother.

Despite the students’ progress, even some who see another big jump by year's end could finish behind, but they will be far enough along to move on to fourth grade.

Having so many students behind may have made everyone in the building more invested in catching them up, Evans said: "Making them aware, `You know what? There’s a concern for you.’”

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.