COVIDs Continuing Impact on Reading Scores

[Anonymous]

No, some of my friends are very intelligent, hands on parents. But the lack of socialization of the parents during the new mom stage led to them being more isolated after the new mom stage as well. Their lack of socialization meant babies and toddlers didn’t socialize when the moms thought it wasn’t important. Not socializing meant the children had delays. Moms can’t be their everything. Sometimes babies copy each other. Sometimes moms copy each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a different take: I think we need to look at the parents.

My sister-in-law and close friend both had babies during Covid. Before Covid, I think parents realized pretty fast parenting alone was miserable and made mom friends. My SIL and friend didn’t. They were just alone.

Babies couldn’t have heard the same kind of pre-pandemic interaction. They didn’t do tummy time next to each other while their moms laughed.

We talk about the mommy wars? One way of noticing a child was delayed was by seeing other kids reach their milestones. My friend’s baby was eight months old before she texted me asking when babies started using sippy cups or straws. Then she had no idea how to get her baby to use a straw.

Mommies know how to make babies perfectly comfortable. As toddlers these babies didn’t take to other kids the way pre-Covid babies did. It was uncomfortable. One of the kids doesn’t get any screen time. But he would rather have Mommy read him a story than play blocks with a kid who might knock it down.

I think mom social behavior led to the kids’ delayed development.

I believe in science and isolation. I think these moms should have bubbled with other moms.

This is interesting, and has some merit. I don’t like the mom blaming, but I do agree that there must be some impact from a decrease in parents/babies interacting with other parents/babies during those early years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a different take: I think we need to look at the parents.

My sister-in-law and close friend both had babies during Covid. Before Covid, I think parents realized pretty fast parenting alone was miserable and made mom friends. My SIL and friend didn’t. They were just alone.

Babies couldn’t have heard the same kind of pre-pandemic interaction. They didn’t do tummy time next to each other while their moms laughed.

We talk about the mommy wars? One way of noticing a child was delayed was by seeing other kids reach their milestones. My friend’s baby was eight months old before she texted me asking when babies started using sippy cups or straws. Then she had no idea how to get her baby to use a straw.

Mommies know how to make babies perfectly comfortable. As toddlers these babies didn’t take to other kids the way pre-Covid babies did. It was uncomfortable. One of the kids doesn’t get any screen time. But he would rather have Mommy read him a story than play blocks with a kid who might knock it down.

I think mom social behavior led to the kids’ delayed development.

I believe in science and isolation. I think these moms should have bubbled with other moms.

Uh. This isn’t the superiority you think it is. EBF babies don't take sippy cups at eight months and lots of COVID-era mothers EBF’d for antibody protection. This is a weird weird mother shaming post and I hope your “SIL” and “friend” distance themselves from your expertise…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a different take: I think we need to look at the parents.

My sister-in-law and close friend both had babies during Covid. Before Covid, I think parents realized pretty fast parenting alone was miserable and made mom friends. My SIL and friend didn’t. They were just alone.

Babies couldn’t have heard the same kind of pre-pandemic interaction. They didn’t do tummy time next to each other while their moms laughed.

We talk about the mommy wars? One way of noticing a child was delayed was by seeing other kids reach their milestones. My friend’s baby was eight months old before she texted me asking when babies started using sippy cups or straws. Then she had no idea how to get her baby to use a straw.

Mommies know how to make babies perfectly comfortable. As toddlers these babies didn’t take to other kids the way pre-Covid babies did. It was uncomfortable. One of the kids doesn’t get any screen time. But he would rather have Mommy read him a story than play blocks with a kid who might knock it down.

I think mom social behavior led to the kids’ delayed development.

I believe in science and isolation. I think these moms should have bubbled with other moms.

Uh. This isn’t the superiority you think it is. EBF babies don't take sippy cups at eight months and lots of COVID-era mothers EBF’d for antibody protection. This is a weird weird mother shaming post and I hope your “SIL” and “friend” distance themselves from your expertise…

Your argument would be better if the baby had been EBF. Formula fed baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of children, even children of highly educated, high SES parents, are coming to school without foundational skills—age appropriate self-regulation, fine motor skills that support writing, the ability to engage in productive struggle. It seems like parents are living higher stress lives and less able to engage with their children. We’re also seeing a LOT more anxiety in kids, which is affecting attention and memory in the classroom.

It may have to do with shifting social norms and trauma from the pandemic, but it has nothing to do with schools having been closed.

This is not the pandemic. This is the bad preschools who parented to do play based learning and the kids don’t learn the foundations there. Kids need academic based at least at age four.

That is a crazy take - kids need healthy play at that age. The academic-oriented preschools are a new phenomenon. Things that used to be taught in 1st grade are now trickling down to being taught in pre-K, at the expense of appropriate development.

+1

Kids need unstructured outdoor time— hours of it— language exposure, books, and proper socialization. Our daughter was in forest school and was reading fluently before K.

Don’t pay yourself on the back. Like walking, there is a wide range of when kids learn to read. It’s largely developmental, not academic. Of
course up to a point. By 9 all kids should be reading fluently, but whether a kid can read fluently by 3-5 or 6-8 indicates nothing about their intelligence.

I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m disputing the idea that children need “academic” pre-K in order to succeed, which is the post I was responding to. That is developmentally inappropriate for most children.

It's not developmentally inappropriate. And, you cannot complain that your kids aren't prepared and not consider the type of preparation they had. Kids can still play and have fun and learn at preschool. This anti-education stance is why kids struggle. The lack of homework for reenforcement, lack of reading at home and expecting schools to do it all.

This is the REASON public schools exist. To educate children, regardless of their parents ability to do so. The idea was to give every child a roughly equal playing field whether their parents were illiterate, non-English speaking, or educated and reading to them at home.
We seem to have shifted and now parents are expected to do the nitty-gritty of educating at home while school is a holding pen where kids watch YouTube, take mindfulness breaks and play math games. This isn’t what I want my tax dollars to pay for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of children, even children of highly educated, high SES parents, are coming to school without foundational skills—age appropriate self-regulation, fine motor skills that support writing, the ability to engage in productive struggle. It seems like parents are living higher stress lives and less able to engage with their children. We’re also seeing a LOT more anxiety in kids, which is affecting attention and memory in the classroom.

It may have to do with shifting social norms and trauma from the pandemic, but it has nothing to do with schools having been closed.

This is not the pandemic. This is the bad preschools who parented to do play based learning and the kids don’t learn the foundations there. Kids need academic based at least at age four.

That is a crazy take - kids need healthy play at that age. The academic-oriented preschools are a new phenomenon. Things that used to be taught in 1st grade are now trickling down to being taught in pre-K, at the expense of appropriate development.

+1

Kids need unstructured outdoor time— hours of it— language exposure, books, and proper socialization. Our daughter was in forest school and was reading fluently before K.

Don’t pay yourself on the back. Like walking, there is a wide range of when kids learn to read. It’s largely developmental, not academic. Of
course up to a point. By 9 all kids should be reading fluently, but whether a kid can read fluently by 3-5 or 6-8 indicates nothing about their intelligence.

I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m disputing the idea that children need “academic” pre-K in order to succeed, which is the post I was responding to. That is developmentally inappropriate for most children.

It's not developmentally inappropriate. And, you cannot complain that your kids aren't prepared and not consider the type of preparation they had. Kids can still play and have fun and learn at preschool. This anti-education stance is why kids struggle. The lack of homework for reenforcement, lack of reading at home and expecting schools to do it all.

This is the REASON public schools exist. To educate children, regardless of their parents ability to do so. The idea was to give every child a roughly equal playing field whether their parents were illiterate, non-English speaking, or educated and reading to them at home.
We seem to have shifted and now parents are expected to do the nitty-gritty of educating at home while school is a holding pen where kids watch YouTube, take mindfulness breaks and play math games. This isn’t what I want my tax dollars to pay for.

It's because many kids can't, won't, don't learn that all this tech was introduced haphazardly into the classroom. All the programs they install on these devices are gamified low IQ nonsense, basically handholding electronic babysitters that have bells and whistles. An actual 12 year old babysitter could probably teach better than the apps.

If parents were doing their jobs or... if schools were more traditional in their teaching and tracking, the majority of kids at every level would have learned better and there would be less complaining about teacher lesson plans or the heavy reliance on devices.

Unfortunately, so many clueless parents shouldn’t be having kids and the schools have become social experiment centers where everybody loses together but nobody fails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were that many parents masking at home?

Of course not. Something else is going on but people want an easy scapegoat.

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of children, even children of highly educated, high SES parents, are coming to school without foundational skills—age appropriate self-regulation, fine motor skills that support writing, the ability to engage in productive struggle. It seems like parents are living higher stress lives and less able to engage with their children. We’re also seeing a LOT more anxiety in kids, which is affecting attention and memory in the classroom.

It may have to do with shifting social norms and trauma from the pandemic, but it has nothing to do with schools having been closed.

This is not the pandemic. This is the bad preschools who parented to do play based learning and the kids don’t learn the foundations there. Kids need academic based at least at age four.

That is a crazy take - kids need healthy play at that age. The academic-oriented preschools are a new phenomenon. Things that used to be taught in 1st grade are now trickling down to being taught in pre-K, at the expense of appropriate development.

+1

Kids need unstructured outdoor time— hours of it— language exposure, books, and proper socialization. Our daughter was in forest school and was reading fluently before K.

Don’t pay yourself on the back. Like walking, there is a wide range of when kids learn to read. It’s largely developmental, not academic. Of
course up to a point. By 9 all kids should be reading fluently, but whether a kid can read fluently by 3-5 or 6-8 indicates nothing about their intelligence.

I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m disputing the idea that children need “academic” pre-K in order to succeed, which is the post I was responding to. That is developmentally inappropriate for most children.

It's not developmentally inappropriate. And, you cannot complain that your kids aren't prepared and not consider the type of preparation they had. Kids can still play and have fun and learn at preschool. This anti-education stance is why kids struggle. The lack of homework for reenforcement, lack of reading at home and expecting schools to do it all.

This is the REASON public schools exist. To educate children, regardless of their parents ability to do so. The idea was to give every child a roughly equal playing field whether their parents were illiterate, non-English speaking, or educated and reading to them at home.
We seem to have shifted and now parents are expected to do the nitty-gritty of educating at home while school is a holding pen where kids watch YouTube, take mindfulness breaks and play math games. This isn’t what I want my tax dollars to pay for.

It's because many kids can't, won't, don't learn that all this tech was introduced haphazardly into the classroom. All the programs they install on these devices are gamified low IQ nonsense, basically handholding electronic babysitters that have bells and whistles. An actual 12 year old babysitter could probably teach better than the apps.

If parents were doing their jobs or... if schools were more traditional in their teaching and tracking, the majority of kids at every level would have learned better and there would be less complaining about teacher lesson plans or the heavy reliance on devices.

Unfortunately, so many clueless parents shouldn’t be having kids and the schools have become social experiment centers where everybody loses together but nobody fails.

+1

In 2019 were teachers showing kindergarteners youtube videos instead of reading books to kids and putting them on Starfall to keep them quiet? Because that is what they are doing now.

[Anonymous]

Many schools are still STILL not using a strong phonics based curriculum and either using piecemeal programs or still using old queuing/whole language programs that have been long debunked, like 20 years ago.

LCPS only started using phonics around 2023. Prior to that they were still using LLI/Fountas&Pinnell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, some of my friends are very intelligent, hands on parents. But the lack of socialization of the parents during the new mom stage led to them being more isolated after the new mom stage as well. Their lack of socialization meant babies and toddlers didn’t socialize when the moms thought it wasn’t important. Not socializing meant the children had delays. Moms can’t be their everything. Sometimes babies copy each other. Sometimes moms copy each other.

That's not how delays work. Nor, socialization as babies and that has nothing to do with reading scores. If anything they have more time to read to their kids and teach them to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a different take: I think we need to look at the parents.

My sister-in-law and close friend both had babies during Covid. Before Covid, I think parents realized pretty fast parenting alone was miserable and made mom friends. My SIL and friend didn’t. They were just alone.

Babies couldn’t have heard the same kind of pre-pandemic interaction. They didn’t do tummy time next to each other while their moms laughed.

We talk about the mommy wars? One way of noticing a child was delayed was by seeing other kids reach their milestones. My friend’s baby was eight months old before she texted me asking when babies started using sippy cups or straws. Then she had no idea how to get her baby to use a straw.

Mommies know how to make babies perfectly comfortable. As toddlers these babies didn’t take to other kids the way pre-Covid babies did. It was uncomfortable. One of the kids doesn’t get any screen time. But he would rather have Mommy read him a story than play blocks with a kid who might knock it down.

I think mom social behavior led to the kids’ delayed development.

I believe in science and isolation. I think these moms should have bubbled with other moms.

This is interesting, and has some merit. I don’t like the mom blaming, but I do agree that there must be some impact from a decrease in parents/babies interacting with other parents/babies during those early years.

This has nothing to do with reading scores as they would learn to read in school if not taught at home. Some screen time is fine. And, delays don't happen because of parents, it just happens. My child was severely delayed. We had them in daily therapies, preschools, and all that. It wasn't my fault in any way and this is offensive. But, said child was reading by age three, so how do you explain that? And, the screens helped with some things. Screens aren't an issue, its how you use them and what you put on them (we waited till age three but in hindsight I wouldn't have).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many schools are still STILL not using a strong phonics based curriculum and either using piecemeal programs or still using old queuing/whole language programs that have been long debunked, like 20 years ago.

LCPS only started using phonics around 2023. Prior to that they were still using LLI/Fountas&Pinnell.

Phonics works for some kids, not all. Mine was a sight reader. What has also changed is that they don't teach spelling, vocabulary, grammar, or any foundation. If a kid cannot spell, they are told to sound it out or use a dictionary (hard for kids who cannot read). Scores are declining because of the bad curriculum and the refusal to catch and remediate any learning disabilities early. They play the wait and see game and tell parents to do the same, and by the time it becomes an issue its too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of children, even children of highly educated, high SES parents, are coming to school without foundational skills—age appropriate self-regulation, fine motor skills that support writing, the ability to engage in productive struggle. It seems like parents are living higher stress lives and less able to engage with their children. We’re also seeing a LOT more anxiety in kids, which is affecting attention and memory in the classroom.

It may have to do with shifting social norms and trauma from the pandemic, but it has nothing to do with schools having been closed.

This is not the pandemic. This is the bad preschools who parented to do play based learning and the kids don’t learn the foundations there. Kids need academic based at least at age four.

That is a crazy take - kids need healthy play at that age. The academic-oriented preschools are a new phenomenon. Things that used to be taught in 1st grade are now trickling down to being taught in pre-K, at the expense of appropriate development.

+1

Kids need unstructured outdoor time— hours of it— language exposure, books, and proper socialization. Our daughter was in forest school and was reading fluently before K.

Don’t pay yourself on the back. Like walking, there is a wide range of when kids learn to read. It’s largely developmental, not academic. Of
course up to a point. By 9 all kids should be reading fluently, but whether a kid can read fluently by 3-5 or 6-8 indicates nothing about their intelligence.

I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m disputing the idea that children need “academic” pre-K in order to succeed, which is the post I was responding to. That is developmentally inappropriate for most children.

It's not developmentally inappropriate. And, you cannot complain that your kids aren't prepared and not consider the type of preparation they had. Kids can still play and have fun and learn at preschool. This anti-education stance is why kids struggle. The lack of homework for reenforcement, lack of reading at home and expecting schools to do it all.

This is the REASON public schools exist. To educate children, regardless of their parents ability to do so. The idea was to give every child a roughly equal playing field whether their parents were illiterate, non-English speaking, or educated and reading to them at home.
We seem to have shifted and now parents are expected to do the nitty-gritty of educating at home while school is a holding pen where kids watch YouTube, take mindfulness breaks and play math games. This isn’t what I want my tax dollars to pay for.

It's because many kids can't, won't, don't learn that all this tech was introduced haphazardly into the classroom. All the programs they install on these devices are gamified low IQ nonsense, basically handholding electronic babysitters that have bells and whistles. An actual 12 year old babysitter could probably teach better than the apps.

If parents were doing their jobs or... if schools were more traditional in their teaching and tracking, the majority of kids at every level would have learned better and there would be less complaining about teacher lesson plans or the heavy reliance on devices.

Unfortunately, so many clueless parents shouldn’t be having kids and the schools have become social experiment centers where everybody loses together but nobody fails.

It's not one or the other. Some great educational apps make learning fun. Its the curriculum, no homework and parents and teachers wanting kids not to be stressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am baffled by this. I have a 2nd grader. She's a terrific reader. She missed the school closures of Covid so got to have normal PK and K even. She was reading on her own by the summer before K (just sounding out words) and then got good, phonics-based reading instruction in K and 1st and it really took off. Her preschool was play based and that was great for her. She was actually in a Title 1 for PK-1st (we're in DC with universal PK so she did PK at at a public elementary) and now is at a non-T1.

My perception is that her cohort is full of strong readers. We live in a MC/UMC neighborhood. There are plenty of bookstores and libraries here. Most people are college educated and the adults read (both to kids and on their own). Literacy is definitely valued as part of the culture here. There are also kids who struggle but the schools and parents are getting them support they need for LDs and other issues.

I do think Covid had some lasting effects on this cohort of kids, because I think Covid and other forces changed our culture permanently -- we never really returned to a pre-Covid existence. But I don't see it in the academic performance. The kids I know seem fine.

Not saying the studies are wrong, it's just not reflected in my experience at all. And we aren't wealthy outliers -- no tutors, most families can't afford nannies or a SAHP, pretty standard in terms of childcare and extracurriculars for kids, schools are good but not considered the best in the area or anything. They are "good enough" schools for people at our SES level who can't afford private or to live in very expensive school boundaries.

So I don't get it, but I don't think it's just Covid. Because if it was, you'd see the effects everywhere and I don't see them here.

Its an excuse.

[Anonymous]

I don't think this has to do with COVID anymore. Scores have been on a steady decline since 2012 or so. It's EdTech and schools not giving kids actual books -- textbooks and novels made from wood pulp -- anymore.