Literacy Scores Show a Growing Achievement Gap in Washington During the Pandemic –

In the fall 2021 exam, 28% of black students and 30% of Hispanic students were considered qualified. Seventy percent of white students meet these criteria. In the fall of 2019, 44% of black students and 42% of Hispanic students obtained these grades, compared with 73% of white students.

At the start of the 2020 school year, when all students study distance learning, about 30% of black and Hispanic students achieved these grades, compared with 66% of white students.

The data is based on virtual assessments by kindergarten up to sophomores by their teachers this fall in a test known as DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Dynamic Literacy Skills).

The assessment is done over short periods of time and measures the child’s skills such as phonics, reading accuracy and vocabulary.

“Our sophomores didn’t go to kindergarten in a regular school,” said Alison Williams, vice president of content and curriculum for DC Public Schools. “We know that personal education is key and the results can be seen in some data.”

The findings reflect a national decline in early literacy scores over the long school year of last school year as students across the country struggle to learn to read practically.

The whole DC sophomore class was late in reading. ᲐWhat is it now?

During virtual learning, students had different learning environments, some with full-time parental assistance during the school day and others with little supervision as their parents and guardians applied for personal jobs. Learning losses were more prevalent among black students and low-income families.

Literacy scores were released as a big data dump ahead of the DC Board’s surveillance hearing last month. The council questioned the DC School Chancellor for more than two hours about issues such as school nurses, teacher recruitment, and extracurricular programming, but never questioned the literacy scores. The data did not include math test results that school officials said the students had also failed.

DC school officials, who follow national trends, said reading delays are more significant in smaller classes, where students are still learning the basics of reading. Students who knew how to read before the pandemic performed better in assessments that assessed comprehension.

Anita S. McGinty, who worked until July 2021 as the director of the Early Literacy Assessment at PALS, Virginia, said DC isn’t alone in lowering literacy scores. A University of Virginia study researching PALS scores found that about 35% of children in kindergarten before reaching second grade fail to meet the question marks, up from 21% in the fall of 2019.

McGint, also an associate professor at the University of Virginia, says school districts must ensure reading skills are accessible to demanding readers. DCs and counties across the country say they use federal aid to recruit more reading teachers and instructors, although hiring is difficult due to staff shortages.

“The published data is worrying, but it’s also predictable when you look at the science,” McGinty said. “Science indicates what can be done to facilitate the development of early reading. “Supporting these early readers is essential to prevent the problem from getting worse.”

despite the abyss In overall reading scores, DC students made significant progress in reading this school year, Williams said. 41% of the students reached the first levels of literacy earlier this year. By the middle of the year, more than 50 percent had met these criteria, an increase of around 10 percent. In the 2019-2020 academic year, the number of students who met their initial literacy goals increased by 13 points at the beginning and middle of the year.

Students often suffer summer tuition losses and make big gains in the first half of the school year. However, the learning losses incurred during the virtual learning period were much higher than the typical summer learning losses.

Data shows that the gap in achievement widens in DC, early literacy development decreases during a pandemic

The school system presented the distribution of school reading scores across all school levels to the DC Council. In the final year, students test their reading comprehension skills. In some classes there were no literate students in some schools. In other schools, over 90% of the students were considered experts.

In the upper grades, schools that cater primarily to low-income populations have made more progress in reading comprehension than younger primary schools.

But the overall results showed that richer schools performed better on these exams.

Emily Hemmet, director of the DC School System Elementary English Language Arts Department, said class teachers learn three steps when teaching students to read. The first level is the education that all students receive. The teacher will then identify students who need additional help in small groups as part of the second level teaching. The third level is for students who need an even more individualized education.

This school year, more students are identified who need a second or third level education, Hammett said. The pandemic-funded federal school system has hired more external teachers to assist students, but Hemmet said schools could use additional teachers.

“Meat and potatoes “The acceleration comes from class instructions,” Hemmet said. “Students also receive more targeted support.”

In October 2020, DC Schools Chancellor Louis D. Ferbei and Mayor Muriel e. Bowser (D) indicated a sharp decline in initial literacy scores as she plans to reopen school buildings.

“While it is typical (for us and other districts) for students to see ‘summer slides’ for students, it does not lead to a large-scale decline as we have seen this year,” the school system said in a statement.

Source: Washington Post

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