Anonymous wrote:Were that many parents masking at home?

Anonymous wrote:I believed in masking and the COVID vaccine, so it isn't as if I am a kooky anti-science proponent. But as a school psychologist, I’ve noticed something striking in that the first- and second-graders at my school who were about one to two years old when the global lockdowns occurred are significantly behind in reading. Compared with the kindergarteners and the third- through fifth-graders, there seems to be a clear developmental gap.

Their phonological awareness also seems weaker. Many of them struggle more than expected with rhyming and blending sounds, and their ability to follow multi-step directions is often limited. Taken together, these patterns look different from what we typically see in early elementary development.
It makes me wonder whether researchers will eventually find that a combination of social isolation and widespread mask use during a critical period of early language development had lasting effects. Masks can reduce the clarity and volume of speech AND obscure mouth movements that young children rely on for visual cues when learning sounds. Muffled speech and the inability to see how sounds are formed (due to others wearing masks) may have made it harder for some children to develop early language and phonological skills.

Obviously, this could just be a fluke at the two schools I work at, but I just had this conversation with some other school psychologists a week ago who have noticed the same thing.

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Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech delays and attention issues in my kindergarten students the last few years. Definite deficits in non verbal communication too. I’ve had to do lessons on how to play with the blocks and other toys I have in my classroom. It’s sad that kids don’t know how to play because their parents hand over the devices to them.

I had a conference this week where the mom handed her 5 yr old his own phone and he swiped around for 15 minutes not spending more than a minute or two looking at any one video or game. Yep, that is their attention span these days.

Doubtful. Kids have delays all the time even before Covid. Even if parents do everything right they can still have delays. I’d hand my kid a device in that situation. From 2-5 they had daily speech therapy, sometimes twice a day. After that three times a week after school. School and teachers did nothing to help. Stop posting and ask for an evaluation and speech therapy for those kids. Devices can be helpful if used in the right way.

I’ve never had to refer 50% of my class for speech screenings before last year. This year is around 40%. Nobody is talking to the kids at home. Nobody talk to them even at pick up/drop off. Their parents are on the phone. Some parents hand their phone or another phone to the kid at pick up. Sometimes we have huge meltdowns in the morning when parents take their phones away from the kids when kids enter school. It’s insane.

You don’t understand speech issues. It has nothing to do with someone talking to them at home. It also could be hearing issues.

“Neglect or a lack of stimulation in a caring environment – Children who are not spoken to enough, and who do not receive adequate parental or attention from a guardian during their formative years may experience speech delay. This delay may be offset by support with speech and language learning.”

https://fdna.com/health/resource-center/the-causes-of-speech-delay/

So, I caused my kids speech issues, no.

I have no idea but not talking to your kids is going to cause problems. That’s a no brainer. Also the kids have to be taught about non-verbal communication. They don’t know what certain gestures mean like shrugging your shoulders, hand gesture meaning “come here” etc. They definitely don’t know “the look” either. I’ve never had to explain these before last year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech delays and attention issues in my kindergarten students the last few years. Definite deficits in non verbal communication too. I’ve had to do lessons on how to play with the blocks and other toys I have in my classroom. It’s sad that kids don’t know how to play because their parents hand over the devices to them.

I had a conference this week where the mom handed her 5 yr old his own phone and he swiped around for 15 minutes not spending more than a minute or two looking at any one video or game. Yep, that is their attention span these days.

Doubtful. Kids have delays all the time even before Covid. Even if parents do everything right they can still have delays. I’d hand my kid a device in that situation. From 2-5 they had daily speech therapy, sometimes twice a day. After that three times a week after school. School and teachers did nothing to help. Stop posting and ask for an evaluation and speech therapy for those kids. Devices can be helpful if used in the right way.

I’ve never had to refer 50% of my class for speech screenings before last year. This year is around 40%. Nobody is talking to the kids at home. Nobody talk to them even at pick up/drop off. Their parents are on the phone. Some parents hand their phone or another phone to the kid at pick up. Sometimes we have huge meltdowns in the morning when parents take their phones away from the kids when kids enter school. It’s insane.

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Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech delays and attention issues in my kindergarten students the last few years. Definite deficits in non verbal communication too. I’ve had to do lessons on how to play with the blocks and other toys I have in my classroom. It’s sad that kids don’t know how to play because their parents hand over the devices to them.

I had a conference this week where the mom handed her 5 yr old his own phone and he swiped around for 15 minutes not spending more than a minute or two looking at any one video or game. Yep, that is their attention span these days.

Doubtful. Kids have delays all the time even before Covid. Even if parents do everything right they can still have delays. I’d hand my kid a device in that situation. From 2-5 they had daily speech therapy, sometimes twice a day. After that three times a week after school. School and teachers did nothing to help. Stop posting and ask for an evaluation and speech therapy for those kids. Devices can be helpful if used in the right way.

I’ve never had to refer 50% of my class for speech screenings before last year. This year is around 40%. Nobody is talking to the kids at home. Nobody talk to them even at pick up/drop off. Their parents are on the phone. Some parents hand their phone or another phone to the kid at pick up. Sometimes we have huge meltdowns in the morning when parents take their phones away from the kids when kids enter school. It’s insane.

You don’t understand speech issues. It has nothing to do with someone talking to them at home. It also could be hearing issues.

“Neglect or a lack of stimulation in a caring environment – Children who are not spoken to enough, and who do not receive adequate parental or attention from a guardian during their formative years may experience speech delay. This delay may be offset by support with speech and language learning.”

https://fdna.com/health/resource-center/the-causes-of-speech-delay/

So, I caused my kids speech issues, no.

Anonymous wrote:The culmination of a couple of generations of indoctrination by schools and participation trophy existence. No one puts in the effort to improve themselves or their kids and iPads and iPhones are shitty teachers.

Anonymous wrote:The culmination of a couple of generations of indoctrination by schools and participation trophy existence. No one puts in the effort to improve themselves or their kids and iPads and iPhones are shitty teachers.

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Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech delays and attention issues in my kindergarten students the last few years. Definite deficits in non verbal communication too. I’ve had to do lessons on how to play with the blocks and other toys I have in my classroom. It’s sad that kids don’t know how to play because their parents hand over the devices to them.

I had a conference this week where the mom handed her 5 yr old his own phone and he swiped around for 15 minutes not spending more than a minute or two looking at any one video or game. Yep, that is their attention span these days.

Doubtful. Kids have delays all the time even before Covid. Even if parents do everything right they can still have delays. I’d hand my kid a device in that situation. From 2-5 they had daily speech therapy, sometimes twice a day. After that three times a week after school. School and teachers did nothing to help. Stop posting and ask for an evaluation and speech therapy for those kids. Devices can be helpful if used in the right way.

I’ve never had to refer 50% of my class for speech screenings before last year. This year is around 40%. Nobody is talking to the kids at home. Nobody talk to them even at pick up/drop off. Their parents are on the phone. Some parents hand their phone or another phone to the kid at pick up. Sometimes we have huge meltdowns in the morning when parents take their phones away from the kids when kids enter school. It’s insane.

You don’t understand speech issues. It has nothing to do with someone talking to them at home. It also could be hearing issues.

“Neglect or a lack of stimulation in a caring environment – Children who are not spoken to enough, and who do not receive adequate parental or attention from a guardian during their formative years may experience speech delay. This delay may be offset by support with speech and language learning.”

https://fdna.com/health/resource-center/the-causes-of-speech-delay/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech delays and attention issues in my kindergarten students the last few years. Definite deficits in non verbal communication too. I’ve had to do lessons on how to play with the blocks and other toys I have in my classroom. It’s sad that kids don’t know how to play because their parents hand over the devices to them.

I had a conference this week where the mom handed her 5 yr old his own phone and he swiped around for 15 minutes not spending more than a minute or two looking at any one video or game. Yep, that is their attention span these days.

Doubtful. Kids have delays all the time even before Covid. Even if parents do everything right they can still have delays. I’d hand my kid a device in that situation. From 2-5 they had daily speech therapy, sometimes twice a day. After that three times a week after school. School and teachers did nothing to help. Stop posting and ask for an evaluation and speech therapy for those kids. Devices can be helpful if used in the right way.

I’ve never had to refer 50% of my class for speech screenings before last year. This year is around 40%. Nobody is talking to the kids at home. Nobody talk to them even at pick up/drop off. Their parents are on the phone. Some parents hand their phone or another phone to the kid at pick up. Sometimes we have huge meltdowns in the morning when parents take their phones away from the kids when kids enter school. It’s insane.

You don’t understand speech issues. It has nothing to do with someone talking to them at home. It also could be hearing issues.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is related to Covid at all. People need to learn how to read on paper and not on e-tablets.

Me too. I also think parents could have filled in the gaps at home. Some kids actually dud much better with reading and math because they had time at home to study with parents and other resources.

This. My kids were in 2nd and 4th during the shutdown and then 3rd and 5th during the following year when we homeschooled instead of doing virtual school. They got so far ahead. I would say they were above average students to start, but not geniuses. With daily direct instruction and consistent work, they flourished.

Kids are falling farther and farther behind because they aren’t doing much at school. It’s wasted time and apps. They aren’t reading books in school, and are not reading them at home either.