For example, the students at my Reading Orienteering Club become excited when we make a Saturn V rocket.  They enter the room and immediately glue 2 two-liter pop bottles together.  While the glue is drying, the students go to eight workstations where they do Read and Spell activities to search for 100 new words that the students cannot read or spell. Each student then uses 4 steps to learn the words “captured.” We capture a word in order to learn the word. No, we do not simply point to a word and tell the student what the word is. Instead, we break the word down into syllables, pronounce each letter sound or sound cluster, and then put the syllables back together and pronounce the word.  Next, we go to the dictionary and look up a definition for the word.  Then, the student uses the word correctly in a sentence.  Finally, the student sits down with manuscript paper and writes the word correctly using manuscript style printing.  Therefore, the student has learned how to read, pronounce, spell, write, and give a definition for 100 new words. No, we do not do all 100 words at one time.  Instead, we learn 5 words at a time. Then, go and glue those five words onto the rocket. After that, we go to the next workstation and learn five more words.  We continue until the rocket contains 100 new words and is ready to be launched. ​
​
The rocket project uses a hands-on teaching approach. The hands-on project combines learning (teaching the short ă vowel sound) and counseling (rebuilding self-efficacy, creating a motivational environment where students tackle challenging learning tasks, and helping students develop completion skills).  The excitement of completing the rocket encourages even reluctant students to push a little harder to finish a challenging task.  Everyone, naturally, wants to see their rocket soar through the air. 
 
One young student was sent to my Reading Orienteering Club after-school program because he was failing in reading.  He never did his homework, scribbled all over his worksheets in class, and rarely finished his in-class assignments— instead, he put his head down and slept.  He repeatedly caused other inappropriate behaviors in the classroom.  The list was long.  Yet, he said to me, “Can't I finish?  My dad's not here yet.  I know I can finish.  Please.”  The student was pleading for extra time to finish his rocket, to finish capturing 10 more words.  I never offer shortcuts. He had to complete all four steps for all 10 words that he captured. He knew this, and he was still motivated to do the work. See what a difference changing the teaching method can make?

What makes this project intrinsic rather than extrinsic?
 
First, making a rocket is not a reward.  Every single student makes a rocket, even if they’ve misbehaved in class.  Making a rocket is the assignment, not the reward.  The students do not need to earn points or complete any other assignments in order to be able to make a rocket. They simply walk in and begin making a rocket. The rocket is the teaching tool being used to teach students new words. 

How can I increase intrinsic motivation in my classroom?

• Build a motivational learning environment in your classroom.  Design classroom assignments to incorporate topics that students are interested in.  This does not need to change the requirements of an assignment.  Offer choices, as with the 3rd grade class example above. Remember, you cannot motivate a student, but you can help them motivate themselves.
• Make sure your classroom assignments are positive, absolutely no competitions.  Competition and conflict destroy intrinsic motivation.

Help students rebuild self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy is not the same as self-esteem.  Self-esteem means I feel good about what I'm doing.  I can feel good about getting in trouble. A student getting in trouble for misbehavior may in fact have a very high positive self -esteem.  Some students delight in causing trouble in the classroom.  Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is having the confidence to know that you can work a math problem, read out loud when requested, or knowing that you can write a paragraph when asked to in class.  Self-efficacy requires skill building.  Students who lack skills will not be intrinsically motivated, even if you offer choices or have a positive classroom atmosphere.  

Reduce negativity in the classroom. Control teasing, bullying, and making fun of other students in any form or fashion.  Intrinsic motivation is not possible in a negative classroom.

Design intrinsic motivational strategies that help students change poor behavior or poor academic results.  Use a method that will help students learn to read rather than one that has failed, such as the rocket building activity described above. 

Teach critical thinking.  Critical thinking enables children to analyze why something worked or why it did not.  By analyzing the success or failure of their actions, students will develop a more positive approach to learning. 

Remove memorization from the classroom. Memorization becomes boring; boredom keeps students from learning.  It is also not an effective teaching method.

Be creative. Do not use worksheets.

Whenever possible, allow choices.  Allow your students to choose writing topics or books to read.  As mentioned earlier, you may provide a selection of topics to choose from or you may supply a collection of books to choose from.  Choosing from a designated group still allows children to have a sense of control and choice.

Incorporate hands-on learning projects whenever possible.  Do not just sit down and learn a list of spelling words.  Turn a list of spelling words into a hands-on project—a rocket or a puppet. 

How can I increase intrinsic motivation with online instruction?
Each of these 10 ideas mentioned above can be transferred to online instruction.  Yes, they really can.  The difference is that you are creating a special kind of environment when you teach online.  You are not in the same room with the student; therefore, you must build a connection between you and the student.  You must create a positive learning atmosphere online.  I'll devote a later blog to talking about how to create intrinsically motivating learning environments online.  It is possible, but it is different than working in a classroom. 

I’ve heard all of the arguments about good and bad stress, but, in the classroom, good stress doesn’t exist.  Oh, it’s true, if stress were just a reaction, then, maybe, you could justify the label “good stress,” but stress is more than just a mere reaction or response.  If for example, I am driving down the street in my car and another driver changes lanes without looking, my reaction to avoid an accident is good.  What if I am still upset hours after the near accident, is that still good?  Also, what happens later if I continue to worry about that near miss or if I encounter more traffic problems?  Let’s say that I travel on down the road and on this particular day have 10 more “almost accidents”—one car almost rear ends me, another car almost takes off the front bumper, and you can imagine other such scenarios.  Is such stress good? 
 
I contend that my reactions are good because I avoided having any accidents, but the stress from worrying about my first near accident to my last was not good.  In other words, I do not believe there is any such thing as “good stress.”  It is important for us to look at this concept of good or bad stress because some people are saying that stress in the classroom is good.  Instead, I want to show why stress in the classroom contributes to academic failure, especially reading failure.
 

What is stress?

Let’s stop and define the word stress.  There are almost as many definitions for stress as there are situations that cause stress. One definition speaks directly to the school classroom.  This is a classic definition from a well-established psychologist, Wayne Weiten, whose book, Psychology Applied to Modern Life, I used for many years when teaching college psychology courses:
 
Stress is “. . . circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and thereby tax ones coping abilities.”   
 
Notice that the definition includes perceptions.  Many people overlook the influence of perceptions on stress.  Perceptions are a key factor in understanding and coping with stress, especially for students in the classroom.  Yes, I can perceive that there is a problem, even when there is not one, but my perception that a problem exists creates stress and thereby creates a problem.
 
If I am sitting all week in class trying to read a passage that I simply do not understand, I become frustrated and stressed.  If I have a test coming up on Friday, then, my stress is multiplied.  My perceived fear of failure blocks my ability to read and learn.  I am panicking, not studying.  The more I try to study, the more I panic.  No, anxiety over the exam does not improve my comprehension, especially if I perceive that I will fail the test.  No, fear of failure does not encourage me or motivate me to work harder.  In reality, it has the opposite effect.  Stress often leads to failure, particularly reading failure.  Yet, many educators actually believe that stress in the classroom improves attention, motivates students to work harder, and improves performance.  Wrong.  Stress does not help students learn.  Stress blocks or destroys learning, especially if students perceive that it is not likely or even possible to pass the test on Friday. 
 
“Cutting edge neuroimaging research reveals significant disturbances in the brain’s information processing circuits in stressful learning environments. Information communication is blocked in the stress states and new learning cannot pass into memory storage.”  
 
This is why I contend that one of our major reasons for reading failure in 2019 was stress and our inability to understand stress in the classroom.  There is no motivation from stress; there is only failure.  Yes, stress is causing failure in the classroom. 

 
What are the major sources of stress in the classroom?
 
Testing.  Stress from trying to figure out the answers to multiple-choice questions.  Yes, some multiple-choice test questions are so poorly written that they actually create stress for students taking the test.  Many multiple-choice tests do not actually measure how well students know the subject matter; instead, they only measure how successful students are at taking multiple-choice tests.  Research also shows that 25% of the variation between test scores is associated with the type of test being given—multiple-choice or constructed format (open ended).  So, tests definitely contribute to stress. 
 
Poor curriculum.  Worksheets do not teach.  Yet, many students spend the majority of their classroom time filling out worksheets.  The quality of the worksheet is also important.  Some worksheets are confusing and badly written; this contributes to student stress.  Students must learn skills to succeed in the classroom.  Worksheets do not teach skills; they merely practice what the student has already learned.  If the student has not learned the concept or skill being taught, then the student cannot practice something they have not learned.

 
Read more: Worksheets Cause Reading Failure  
 

Ineffective teaching methods.  As I explained when I started this blog series describing 20 reasons for reading failure, the major reason so many children fail in reading in school is the method that we use to teach reading in the classroom.  As long as we continue to teach children using whole language, phonics, and balanced literacy methods, children will continue to fail in reading.  Failure definitely causes stress in the classroom.


​Read More: Reason #1 That Reading Scores Have Dropped:  Wrong Teaching Methods Are Being Used in the Classroom

Read More: Should We Pretend It's Okay to Go Ahead and Open the Schools?

 
Learning environment.  Bullying and teasing contribute heavily to academic failure.  Fear contributes to academic failure, particularly fear of social interactions.  COVID-19 is certainly going to be a factor in this school year.  Also, fear of failure is part of a learning environment that leads to stress.  The classroom environment as well as the learning environment at home is going to be very important this year.  As Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician and surgeon general for the state of California, stated:
 
“… the Covid-19 pandemic is a ‘perfect storm’ for this stress to negatively impact children’s mental and physical health and behavior…. the same stressor won’t elicit the same response in everyone….  We might assume our kids miss their friends, but they may appreciate having more time with us. And some who were dealing with bullying or social challenges at school may be relieved not to have to see other kids.”
 
Perceived failure.  Perceptions can create stress.  If I believe that I am going to fail, my perception that I cannot succeed will in effect keep me from succeeding.  Why is perception so important when talking about stress?  Let’s examine this concept of perception.

 
What is perception? 
 
Perception is, according to Robert Feldman, the “sorting out, interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimuli involving the sense organs and brain.” 
 
The student’s perception of their ability to pass a test directly influences their analysis of whether or not they can pass the test.  A test on Friday may not be a major stress event for you, while a test on Friday, may be a major stress event for me as a student.  Such stress does not encourage me to study harder because I perceive that I will fail and that nothing can be done to prevent my failure.  No two students, not even identical twins, perceive or interpret situations or events that happen in the classroom in the same way.  That is why perceptions play a major role in how we combat stress. 
 
Yes, students bring stress from home and their neighborhood with them to school, but some of the most prevalent stressors that students face come from the school classroom.  You might say that stress over the test on Friday is nothing more than a minor stressor or problem that causes stress, but minor stress is more directly related to mental health problems than major stressful events.  Research shows that it is the minor difficulties, the routine problems, and the daily hassles that cause the most stress. Also, as Willis explains:
 
“Despite many changes in our education system over the past century, a significant disconnect remains between the comprehensive cognitive and emotional needs of students and what they actually learn and experience in school. Student levels of stress and depression have been climbing at an alarming rate, and science shows the negative effects of such states of mind and emotions on learning.”
 
To change a student’s perception, a teacher must rebuild the student’s self-efficacy or belief that he/she can pass the test.  You can only rebuild self-efficacy by teaching skills.  Positive words and positive interactions will not change self-efficacy.
​
 
What actually happens in the classroom?
 
Each time a student learns something new in the classroom, the process of learning changes the student’s brain.  This is true for adults as well as children.  The brain is constantly changing as we learn.  Scientists call this neuroplasticity. 
 
The ability to change the brain’s gray matter is critical in reading.  Studies show that the brain’s gray matter changes when children learn to read successfully.  Timothy Keller and Marcel Just from the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated through their research that 100 hours of remedial phonemic decoding training could turn poor readers into good readers.
 
This change is possible even for children who live in poverty. Poverty is not reading failure’s cause.  As I have stated many times before, the method that we use to teach is the primary cause of reading failure, and the belief that stress in the classroom is “good” is part of that failed teaching method.
 
A nine-year-old student came to my reading clinic who had been retained a grade in school, was failing in reading, and read at the pre-kindergarten level even though he was in 3rd grade.  The school said that he was not trying and decided to give him 2nd grade reading material to motivate him to work harder.  What do you think happened in the classroom?  He became a major discipline problem in class and was sent to the alternative school.
 
After joining my reading clinic, however, he began to read.  Through vowel clustering, the teaching method that I use in my programs, I taught the student to read. Nevertheless, First I had to reduce his stress and change his perception that he would never be able to learn to read.  I had to rebuild his self-efficacy, his belief that he could in fact learn to read. Or, as he told me, “I can’t read and never will.”
 
This is what stress in the classroom is doing to our students.  Stress, combined with the lack of an effective teaching method, has created schoolrooms full of failure.  As a matter of fact, the Nation’s Report Card shows that 65% of fourth graders could not read at the fourth-grade level by the end of fourth grade.  Reading failure is a lifelong problem, that unless corrected, will change and alter the lives of those students across their lifespan.
 
Oh, you say, they’ll learn later; they’re just a little slow picking it up.  The Nation’s Report Card also shows that 66% of eighth graders could not read at the eighth-grade level by the end of eighth grade.  The National Center for Educational Statistics has documented that 78% of students who cannot read at grade level by the end of fourth grade never catch up to their grade level.
 
No, students are not learning to read later.  They are failing, dropping out of school, and finding their way into crime and other problems.  Approximately 85% of adolescents and youth in the juvenile court system are classified as “functionally illiterate.”

 
Yes, reading failure is a major problem in the United States today.  So, what should we be doing about it?
 
First, we must realize that the students who are failing in reading can in fact be taught to read. 

Data from my own research shows that:

• A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
• A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
• A failing student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one phonics tutoring, learned to read and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
• Six children who entered the program reading at the pre-K level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
• One student started at the pre-primer level (pre-K) and ended the year at the third-grade reading level while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
• Three students moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading in one year. 
• Two students moved up two grade levels in reading after only 48 hours of instruction.

Some people have said this past week that students must return to school because they are bored at home.  Of course, children and teens get bored at home and at school.  One research survey shows that 75% of students say they are bored in school.  The study was conducted before the coronavirus pandemic.  
 
Boredom is not a problem that came into existence only because of coronavirus and the stay-at-home order.  Boredom in school is a well-known educational problem.  I contend that boredom is also one of the reasons that reading scores were worse in 2019.  Yes, boredom.
 
So, if we are sending students back to school for in-class instruction to counteract boredom, we are making a huge mistake. 
 
Another study surveyed 110 schools and found that 2 out of every 3 students claimed to be bored in class.   They also cited lack of interaction with the teacher as the reason for their boredom.  
 
Students are bored.  Why?
 
Amanda Morin, a former teacher who now works as a parent advocate, gives the following reasons for boredom in the schools:  
 
Lack of challenge—It is common for gifted students to feel bored in a traditional classroom because they are not being encouraged to work to the best of their ability.
Lack of interaction or connectedness--Remember, in one of the studies that we mentioned earlier, one of the reasons that students listed for their boredom in the classroom was lack of interaction, especially with the teacher.  When we rely on worksheets as our primary teaching method, boredom results.  If we turn to lecture, boredom results.  It should also be noted that worksheets and lecture are considered to be two of the worst teaching methods presently being used in any school classroom.
 
Read more:  Worksheets Contribute to Academic Failure  
 
Lack of skills—Students often say, “I’m bored” when they do not know how to work a problem or read a story.  If you have weak teaching methods in the classroom and parents are not able to help at home, where should students turn for help?
Lack of incentives or motivation—Rewards or prizes are not the same as motivation.  If you offer a bowl of candy for completing a worksheet, it’s a bribe—not motivation.  We’ll talk more about intrinsic motivation and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in a later blog.
 
Read more about Intrinsic Motivation in Chapter 6 in my book Group-Centered Prevention in Mental Health:  Theory, Training, and Practice. The publisher enables you to select and read just the one chapter if desired.
 
Did you notice that each of the reasons or causes for boredom resulted from something lacking in the teaching method used in the classroom?  Yes, boredom is a problem for gifted students as well as students who are failing.
 
Is boredom harmful?
 
No, as a psychologist, I can assure you that boredom by itself does not cause any mental concerns.  It is when boredom couples with anxiety that mental health problems arise.  It is anxiety that can lead to depression, not boredom. 
 
Boredom is a state of mind.  As Dr. Alex Lichterman M. D., primary care physician and former professor of medicine, stated: 
 
“There are two important things to note about boredom. First, if something bores us, it’s not because that something is intrinsically uninteresting. Nothing is intrinsically uninteresting…. even without significant external stimulation, internal stimulation can serve as an effective substitute. That is, there definitely exists a mindset in which all experience becomes interesting.  Second, what essentially makes an activity boring is our inability to see a purpose in it.”
 
Gail Macklem, certified school psychologist, builds upon this idea by stating that it is the environment that causes boredom.  If your classroom environment is not conducive to learning, then students are bored and do not learn.  

The real problem is curriculum and how it is used.  Regardless of whether we return children to the classroom or teach online until it is safe for students to return, curriculum will determine each student's success or failure.  
 
Yes, the battle continues as the start date for school draws near.  Is it physically sitting in a classroom, or, instead, curriculum and how curriculum is used that determines instructional effectiveness?
 
Education is failing across the nation.  The spring attempt at online classes was, for the most part, a failure, but will simply putting children back in the classroom solve the problem?  No, because just having students physically sitting in a classroom is not the answer.  Schools are arguing, as usual, over what should be taught, but this year they are also arguing over where students should be taught.
 
Some schools are going with totally online classes until it is safe to send children back to school.  Other schools are using an alternate day plan—some students will go one day; others will go the next day.  While still other schools are offering parents choices.  Parents may choose in-class instruction by sending their children to school or parents may choose online instruction and assist with class assignments from home until they feel it is safe for children to return to school. 
 
President Trump demands that students return to school.  Department of Education, Secretary DeVos, says that it’s safe, but is it? 
 
Can anyone truly promise that it is safe to send children back to school?
 
Dr. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for over 35 years and identified as one of the world’s leading authorities on infectious diseases, spoke recently with Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer at WebMD on the program entitled Coronavirus in Context.  This was an excellent interview, and I encourage you to read it in its entirety.  

As Dr. Fauci warned,
 
“…people’s opinions are a fact of life.  What gets, um, I think troublesome, is when people develop their own set of facts.  Facts don’t change.  So you have a different opinion, but facts are consistent.  That’s the problem.”
 
When Dr. Fauci was asked if he thought it was safe for schools to reopen, he said,
 
“… It really is going to depend on what the viral activity is in the place …. There are some counties, … We have 3,007 counties in the United States.… some counties where there’s so little viral activity, you could just say, don’t worry about it. Go back to school. But there are others, … where there’s enough activity where you’ve got to make a choice.  And the choice can either be, don’t bring the kids back or, preferably, bring them back in a way that is very, very geared towards guaranteeing their safety, and their welfare, and the safety and the welfare of the teachers…. To say, we are going to open up schools in the United States or not. That doesn’t make any sense, because we’re such a big, big country, that things are going to be different in one region versus the other.”
 
The school reopening question has been taken over by politics.  Safety is being ignored.  Science is being ignored.  As coronavirus numbers soar, politics reigns, but there is also another problem overshadowing the reopening of schools this fall.  A problem that cannot and will not be solved by simply sending children and teachers back into the classroom.  We have a curriculum problem.  Reading scores were lower in fourth and eighth grade in 2019.  
 
Absolutely no one can guarantee that simply returning children to the classroom will enabled them to learn.  I am writing a series on 20 Reasons Why Reading Scores Were Lower in 2019 than 2017.  That means, we are looking at 20 reasons why more children could not read at grade level in 2019 than could read at grade level in 2017. 
 
Something went wrong in the classroom.  Scores should have been better in 2019, not worse. These test scores were before the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, these test scores come from children who were sitting in school classrooms.
 
Why were reading scores worse in 2019? One major reason is curriculum

Regardless of whether we teach in class or online, one of the main determinants for how much children and teens learn in school is curriculum and how it is used.

Read more: Reason #7 That Reading Scores Were Lower in 2019: The Three Cueing System

First, let’s define what we mean by curriculum:
 
“Curriculum … encompasses the program of instruction ... and related resources (like lessons, activities, units, and textbooks) – that school districts use to ensure students master the academic standards each year in their coursework.  While the standards lay out what students are expected to know in a given subject, curriculum provides an instructional guide for teachers so that their students meet those expectations. Curriculum includes teaching materials such as those that can be found in commercial textbooks and software applications; it also includes the pedagogy for delivering those materials when educators receive guidance on how to teach the curriculum, or when software manages the pacing, prompts, and feedback that students receive as they engage with the materials. Unlike the reading/language arts, mathematics, and science standards, which are created by states, curriculum choices are made at the local level, with varying degrees of state involvement or oversight. For example, some states create lists of approved textbooks that districts must choose from. Moreover, instructional decisions about what to do with that curriculum are made every day by classroom teachers.”  (p. 4)  
 
To clarify, state standards are the expectations of what students should know by the end of the school year.  Curriculum is the means by which children learn or accomplish those standards.  From this definition, we can immediately see several problems that could arise.
 
Why is curriculum a problem?
 
First, research shows that many adopted school textbooks and other curriculum material do not meet state standards. Publishers often advertise that they meet the standards, but when analyzed, the curriculum does not fulfill student needs.  
 
Let’s look at an example in reading.  In one review by Education Reports, only three out of five curriculum choices for foundation early reading and writing were found to be even partially in keeping with the standards.  Yet, these are programs being used by schools. 
 
Research shows that it does not cost schools more to provide high quality curriculum rather than poor quality instructional materials and using higher quality teaching materials can definitely improve learning.  As two different research studies stated:

“Textbooks are relatively inexpensive and tend to be similarly priced…. The marginal cost of choosing a more effective textbook over a less effective alternative is essentially zero.” 
 
“…switching to a high-quality curriculum may be a more cost-effective way to raise student achievement than several other school-level interventions.” 

If selecting more effective curriculum doesn’t cost more money and better-quality curriculum can produce higher student achievement, why are schools still selecting poor quality curriculum?
 
Curriculum selection is as politicized as the question on whether schools should reopen for in class instruction this fall.  No one is measuring accuracy, quality, or effectiveness.  It’s all about politics and money.
 
“…politics often dominate the discussion over the adoption of textbooks and other instructional material, and issues such as the teaching of evolution are often center stage. There is also a clear gap between the reality of which curricula are effective or aligned to state standards and the curricula that publishers advertise as such….  When hard evidence on curriculum quality is available, it should supersede the often vague impressions of stakeholder groups that frequently dominate the process.” 
 
Several years ago, I served on a curriculum selection committee.  I was in a university community and there were several of us from the University.  The only guidelines we were given for the textbook selection were to “look at these books and see which ones you like.”  Unfortunately, this is how many textbooks are selected. 
 
How can schools tell the difference between high-quality curriculum and low-quality or inaccurate curriculum material?
 
Independent testing is needed.  Most curriculum textbooks and/or teaching materials are never tested to make sure that they are effective; instead, schools just take the publishers word for it.  We need to test what makes one curriculum more effective than another.  We need longitudinal effectiveness studies covering 4 years of student progress or more.  We also need to know the effective of curriculum in different school settings.  Actual research comparing textbooks and other curriculum is very rare.  When we consider that the curriculum chosen by schools or states can determine the success or failure of students in the classroom, this is a major problem in our educational system today.
 
When schools select a textbook, they also select a teaching method
 
In reading, the battle over teaching method has often been referred to as the “Reading Wars.”  At present, the most common teaching methods being used in public school classrooms are whole language, phonics, and blended literacy. 
 
Whole language is a teaching method that emphasizes recognizing whole words, includes cueing, memorizing sight words, and guessing.  This method was proven to totally not work in 2015 through neuroimaging research by Yuliya Yoncheva’s research team as reported in the Brain and Language journal.  Yet, whole language and cueing are still being taught in classrooms today and on the Internet.  When schools buy textbooks that teach the whole language approach, they are buying and teaching a teaching method that has been proven ineffective.  This creates reading failure.
 
Phonics is a method of teaching reading that groups letter sounds together and teaches rules that predict when these sounds will appear in a word.  Unfortunately, these predictions are only accurate about half of the time.  This leads to major problems with students who struggle in reading.  I have several blogs citing research on why phonics fails, but probably the best summation on phonics comes from Dr. Sally Shaywitz. 
 
“Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list. Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules.”   (p. 78)

More: Reason #5 for Reading Scores Being Worse in 2019: Incorrect Phonics Rules and Explanations
 
Blended literacy is nothing more than a name for whole languagee with phonics tacked on.  No, it doesn’t work either.    
 
Will sending children back into the classroom guarantee quality education or that children will learn?
 
No, just sitting in a classroom is not what enables students to learn.  Research shows that the selection of curriculum can be one of the most important ways that schools can help students learn.  
 
When schools select a failed or disproven teaching method, they are contributing to reading failure.  Reading failure leads to academic failure.  If a student cannot read, they cannot excel in social studies, in science, or even in math.  Reading is essential; therefore, schools must select curriculum that will enable teachers to teach children to read, all children.
 
Textbooks are not the only problem
 
Quality standards are needed for online curriculum materials.  Teachers change or add materials to the adopted curriculum.  The Internet is often a primary source for additional classroom curriculum material.  The quality of the material found on the Internet is not guaranteed to be good or to meet state standards.  Some online sources provide quality educational materials; unfortunately, some online sources offer poor quality materials or in some cases inaccurate curriculum material.  Some teachers develop very high quality self-developed materials, some do not.  What should schools do?
 
At present, anyone can add anything to the Internet and call it curriculum.  We need to establish scientific testing for online curriculum materials.  We need to test the effectiveness of teacher selected and teacher created resources as well as school selected curriculum.
 
Independent research needs to be conducted and posted, grouping Internet curriculum materials into effective curriculum choices and poor choices so educators selecting curriculum from the Internet can incorporate high-quality teaching materials back into the classroom.
 
Even high-quality curriculum does not always guarantee effective education
 
“Curriculum plays an important role in how students are taught, and there is a strong body of evidence that shows that putting a high-quality curriculum in the hands of teachers can have significant positive impacts on student achievement.”
 
Is curriculum change enough?  First, we need high-quality curriculum.  Curriculum that has been tested and proven to be successful, but actual effectiveness is often measured by how curriculum is used.  So, we also need to train teachers to use curriculum correctly.  For even the best curriculum can be used incorrectly and thereby made to be ineffective.
 
In my reading clinic, I use vowel clustering.  I teach students to match letter sounds to the oral language system.  There are no rules to memorize, and students are never allowed to guess at a word.  Vowel clustering teaches students to break words down into individual letter sounds or clusters and then reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words. Vowel clustering also teaches spelling, handwriting, oral reading, fluency, comprehension, and story writing.  Vowel clustering has eight years of research data showing its effectiveness.  Vowel clustering works with struggling, at risk, and failing students.  A student, who had failed for nine years using balanced literacy and phonics, learned to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.  I have even had struggling students move up four grade levels in reading in one year using vowel clustering.  These were students who had failed multiple years in schools that used curriculum for whole language, balanced literacy, and phonics.  So yes, we can teach students to read, but to do so, we must change the curriculum and teaching methods that we use to teach reading.  Curriculum makes a difference in success or failure in reading.
​

My book After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation: Teaching at-Risk Students to Read presents the data showing how group-centered education, vowel clustering, and psychologically sound teaching methods can improve student learning. 

Yes, I know that we are still embroiled in a massive argument over whether schools should open in the fall, but at present, science is being ignored and foolish political decisions are ruling.  Therefore, I’ll set the debate aside till next week.  Yes, I’ll return to the argument, but for now, let’s look at a change that needs to be made in reading education.  This change is essential regardless whether we return to in-class instruction or online instruction.  If students are to learn to read, we must abolish the three-cueing system.  It is wrong and should never have been instituted in any school classroom.
  
What is the three-cueing system?
 
If your children are taught when they have trouble reading a word to (1) look at the picture, (2) reread the passage and see if they can figure out a word that might fit, or (3) to look at the first letter in the word and guess what the word might be, then your child has been taught the three cueing system or some derivative of that system.  Many reading programs include curriculum that specifically tries to teach students how to make better “guesses.” 
 
The idea originated from a descriptive study published by Kenneth Goodman in 1965. Notice that this was a descriptive study, not a research data-based study.  However, there isn’t scientific research to support the three-cueing system.  Yet, it continues to be taught and most likely will even be taught this fall, either in class or online. 
​

Why is the three-cueing system bad?
 
The three-cueing system is bad because guessing doesn’t work. Guessing teaches students to ignore letter sounds and concentrate on the word as a whole (more in keeping with whole language techniques).  Instead, of learning to break words down into sounds, students focus on guessing.
 
Children often come to my reading clinic completely and totally confused.  They cannot guess the correct word.  Oh yes, they guess, but 99.9% of the time they guess wrong.  That is why the first thing I teach students when they arrive at my reading clinic is:  “We never guess; we sound it out.”
 
Students should also not be taught to skip words.  In my after-school reading program, a student is never allowed to skip a word.  We say that the word is tricky; therefore, we “capture” the word and learn it.  We learn how to pronounce the word, what the word means, how to spell the word, and how to write it correctly, and we learn how to use the word in a sentence.  Then, we go back and return to our reading passage.  A student cannot comprehend a passage or story if they do not understand the meaning of the words in that passage or story.  Therefore, guessing and skipping do absolutely no good. 
 
So, how do we get rid of cueing?
 
I have no idea.  Publishers and curriculum writers make massive amounts of money by selling teaching material that focuses on cueing.  No, they don’t want to change.  Education has entered the world of politics and money; education is no longer just about learning. 
 
Prof. Kerry Hempenstall, a psychologist, from the University of Australia, explains that cueing is so popular because it allows teachers to avoid using phonics. 
 
“Perhaps the three-cueing system is ubiquitous in education training courses, and popular among teachers because it appears to reconcile the long-standing conflict between a phonics-emphasis curriculum and a literature-based curriculum [whole language approach].” 
 
Phonics enthusiasts are certainly very vocal about wanting to get rid of cueing.  Yes, they want to replace cueing with phonics.  The only problem with that is that phonics doesn’t work for every student.

Would phonics work as a replacement for cueing?

Cueing doesn’t work, but phonics doesn’t work for all students either.  Yes, we need change, but I do not see how dropping three-cueing system and adopting phonics will help.  Phonics is, at best, a mediocre teaching method that is plagued by problems.  Let’s look at some of the research.  
 
Phonics is not universally supported by scientific research
 
Even though the strongest critics of cueing suggests that phonics would be better, their claims of compatibility with the “science of reading” are not universally accepted, even by many phonics enthusiasts.

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967), an advocate for systematic phonics, visited over 300 classrooms.  While she concluded that systematic phonics was superior to “look say” whole language in 90% of the classrooms, she also clearly warned that a purely phonics approach would leave many students failing.   
• Linnea C. Ehri studied 66 phonics vs. whole language groups and again found systematic phonics to be superior to whole language but also found that systematic phonics “… did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations.” 
• As the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000)  clearly stated,  “…systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language]…. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades….” (p. 94).  Phonics simply does not work for many students.     
• In 2013, Tunmer and associates also stated from their research that Reading Recovery (often used to teach struggling students from the classroom) was also not effective with failing, struggling students.  As they stated, “Students with phonological difficulties did poorly [in Reading Recovery].” 
• Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study compared 71 phonemic and phonics intervention groups and found that “… phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect… phonics tended not to.”  

 
So, what are we left to conclude? 

Phonics is better than whole language, and phonics is better than cueing, but phonics is not the answer we need in the classroom. 
 
Remember, phonics was first introduced in 1690; so phonics is neither a new approach or a new teaching method.  Phonics uses a list of rules that predict when a letter of the alphabet will use a particular letter-sound.  As Sarah Forrest, reading specialist with the Easyread System, explains—such phonics rules are only successful 60% of the time. That means that, almost half of the time, phonics rules give an inaccurate prediction or the rule is simply wrong.  What are struggling and failing students supposed to do the rest of the time?
 
Read More:  When Phonics Fails
 
Forrest is not the only reading specialist pointing out problems with the phonics teaching method. Gerald Hughes, Director of the Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center and author of the book, Gifted—Not Broken:  Overcoming Dyslexia, ADD and Other Learning Challenges, states that long-standing research shows that
 
“… 20% of all children will show little or no lasting improvement in reading ability using phonics-based programs…. Using a phonics-based program on this particular group of children, is more than likely doomed to failure because it is focused on the very weaknesses of the child. Experience has repeatedly shown that when subjected to an extensive phonics-based program, many of these children will experience frustration, anger and ultimately continued failure.”    
 
So, why do the schools keep teaching phonics? 
 
 “Until recently, almost everyone thought that we store words by having some type of visual image of every word we know….  Many teaching approaches [like phonics and whole language] presume this. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true…. I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country…. The big discovery regarding orthographic mapping is that this oral “filing system” is the foundation of the “filing system” we use for reading words. We have no “visual dictionary” for reading that runs alongside our oral dictionary.”  (David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success,  pp. 27-43).
  
We must stop letting old worn-out ideas and theories stand in the way of teaching methods that improve learning in the classroom.  We need change, now.
 
Is there any hope for changing teaching methods used in the classroom?  I personally do not hold out much hope for change in the public-school educational system.  Public education is caught up in a quagmire of political haggling.
 
I’m a psychologist.  I must teach students how to read in order to help them correct the mental and psychological problems they are facing.  I can’t use a failing system.  In many instances, I am working with struggling and/or failing students.  Students come to my program because they have failed in the classroom using whole language, balanced literacy, and even phonics.  They have lost confidence; they no longer believe it’s possible for them to learn to read.  I need a teaching method that restores their self-efficacy (belief that they can learn again) by teaching them to read effectively.  I use vowel clustering.
 
Vowel clustering works with the brain and the way the brain processes phonemes or letter sounds.  Vowel clustering uses visual, auditory, and hands-on teaching techniques.  As you can see from the examples on my blog, I use art therapy to help heal the sense of failure.  
 
Vowel clustering teaches students to match vowel sounds with their corresponding letter symbols.  This emphasizes the oral letter-sound relationship.  Remember, we are training the brain, building “pathways” in the brain.  When these neural pathways are developed, reading can take less than half a second.   Therefore, it is important to organize how we teach so students can organize how they learn. We want to work with the brain, not against it. The vowel clustering teaching approach presents a visual and oral picture that struggling students can immediately identify with.  Visually, students match words by how they sound not by how they are spelled.  This teaches children that words can be pronounced one way but spelled another.  This visual-auditory learning technique allows students to both see and hear letter sounds (phonemes).   
 
Read More: Vowel Clustering Works Better Than Phonics
 
Vowel clustering also teaches handwriting because it is very important for students to write words correctly as they practice reading, spelling, and matching written letters to oral sounds.  For more information on how vowel clustering works, watch for my forthcoming book, “Why Can’t We Teach Children to Read?  Oh but Wait, We Can.”  ​

​

The battle lines have been drawn.  Some politicians are demanding that schools open.  Others are saying, let’s be reasonable.  We simply cannot open the schools right now.
 
The Coronavirus Is Spreading

Florida just recorded more than 15,000 new cases of the coronavirus and that, unfortunately, is a one-day high for the United States.   
 
A teacher died after returning to the classroom.  Three public school teachers who were working in a shared summer classroom in Arizona tested positive for coronavirus last month.  Two are still sick.  One has died.  Each of the teachers wore masks, gloves, followed all social distancing rules, used hand sanitizer, and took every precaution.  As Jeff Gregorich, the Superintendent of Hayden Winkelman Unified School District said,
 
“…the three teachers were careful and still got Covid-19…..I think that's really the message or the concern that our staff has is we can't even keep our staff safe by themselves ... how are we going to keep 20 kids in a classroom safe? I just don't see how that's possible…. Many grandparents, wind up being caretakers to kids when they get off school- mom and dad are working and a lot of grandparents are even raising their grandchildren. So, many of these grandparents fall into this high risk category of being older with more health issues…. They have no business opening the schools to try and get back to a traditional classroom ... let's get through this pandemic first before we try to get back to normal."
 
My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and all of the families who have suffered and lost loved ones, but I’m very grateful that this family shared their story.  Too many people are still saying that coronavirus is a hoax, that it is not dangerous, that it is just a political trick.  Wrong.
 
The coronavirus pandemic is very, very real, and it is killing real people 
 
There is absolutely no way we can safely open schools in the fall for the children or the teachers and staff.  We must stop playing political games.  Politicians can no longer sit in their white ivory towers and ignore the daily statistics or deny that there is a lethal virus attacking our country.  People are dying.  We can’t save the economy until we stop coronavirus.

Earlier Post: Should Schools Reopen in the Fall?
 
Yes, I know that the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a statement strongly saying that schools should reopen in the fall. They’ve now changed their story.  They now say only if it is safe and the coronavirus numbers are not surging.  There are very few places this week where the coronavirus numbers are not surging, so we obviously should ignore their advice.
 
Several schools have already announced that they plan to go against the recommendations coming out of the White House.
 
Florida first mandated opening.  Now, they say they’ll wait.
 
California is applying pressure, but the California Teachers Association is insisting on waiting until it is safe. David Fisher, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association said,  
 
“We hope we don’t have to go there, but if it comes to it, we do retain the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions…. The virus is raging, and the circumstances that we were thinking we might be dealing with in September only a few weeks ago seem to be changing by the day. It just is looking increasingly unlikely that we will be able to teach in person at any level when schools first open.”
 
A 61-year-old social studies teacher from Sarasota High School in Florida who is in her 27th year of teaching said, “I’m at an age where I am scared for my life…. What good is money if you are sick or dead?” 

Earlier Post: Helping Children Learn about Reading When the Schools Are Closed
 
Oh yes, the battle lines have definitely been drawn.  President. Trump has threatened to withhold funds to schools that do not do what he wants, but it doesn’t look like he actually has that power.  Betsy De Vos, Secretary of Education, has also made threats.  Vice President Pence is trying to bully the CDC, but fortunately they did not buckle under and rewrite the guidelines for the safe reopening of schools when the White House demanded that they do so.  
 
The New York Times also uncovered a document this week that says, 
 
“Since May, the C.D.C. website has cautioned that full reopening would be 'highest risk,' and that in both K-12 and higher education settings, the more people interact, 'and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of Covid-19 spread.' The 'lowest risk,' the guidelines say, would be for students and teachers to attend virtual-only classes — an option the administration this week began a full-court press against.”
 
Dr. Thomas File, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and Dr. Judith Feinberg, chair of HIV Medicine Association said in a joint statement,
 
"We will not gain control of this pandemic or successfully reopen the economy unless we protect people and public health first…. The safety of our children, their families, teachers and other school staff must be guiding factors in all school reopening decisions, and no school should be forced to open in a situation that presents unacceptable risks." 
 
Exactly how much evidence do we need that it would be unsafe to open schools in the fall? 

First and foremost, children need to relax, reduce their stress level, and simply have fun.  Actually, this is something we all need to do this summer.  This has been an extremely stressful spring, and the summer is not looking any better.  You may be asking, “How can we have fun? We can’t go anywhere.”
 
You can have fun at home. You just need to create your own fun.  No, not with computer games or by sitting in front of the TV.  Get active.  Use your creativity.

• If you’re able to get out in the yard, a backyard scavenger hunt can be a fun family activity.  Scavenger hunts can range from very simple—find something red….  Scavenger hunts can be fun as well as educational—find a plant that is green, identify the plant, and tell three things about it.  Each team can go around with a camera (phone), take pictures of each item they find, and then when it’s time to go into the shade or back inside the house, each team can look up items they found, identify and label each picture, and then read and learn something about the plant.  Learning really can be fun. You can finish off by planting some seeds or transplanting established plants in the garden to a new location.  The idea is to be active, outside, and working together as a family. 
• Even if we can’t go for a hike or to the gardening store this weekend for new plants, you might try growing a new plant from a cutting from one of your established yard plants.  The children will enjoy looking at the changes that occur each day.  Sweet potatoes and a jar of water are an all-time standard because the trick works every time.  I’m presently trying to grow a rose cutting in a potato.  I’m not sure that it will work, but I’m giving it a try. There are all kinds of suggestions online.  Find a plant in your yard.  Look up online to see if it can be transplanted.  Then, follow the directions.  Have fun.

​Don’t sit around just watching TV, playing video games, or saying, “I’m bored.”  Explore.
Find something new and learn all about it.  Yes, we’re stuck at home, but home can be a fun place to be.
 
Helping others and giving to others is one of the best ways we can help our children reduce their stress levels and feel happier during these difficult days.  Thinking of the needs of others is always a good idea.
 
Yes, I know that some children also need to be working on getting ready to go back to school in the fall.  In my next blog post, I’ll explore some fun ways to incorporate learning into your summer activities.

I have been asked if I would talk more about how to incorporate hands-on learning into a lesson.  Here is a simple example. 
 

First, Make a book

Put glue on the top side of the loose end of the spiral.  Pull spiral up and glue to the opposite page.  Press glued ends down firmly.

Open and close.  Your book should open to show spiral and then close flat.  If there is a problem, readjust the spiral.

Second, Write a Story

One rule that I have with pop-ups is that every pop-up must have a story, even if that story is only three sentences long.  Reading a story is often a good way to encourage children to write.  The pop-up makes it fun.  Have your child write a story about their feelings, problems, or fears.  For very young children, you may also write down a story that the child tells.  If your child is reluctant to write a story, start a story and then have them finish the story.  Teens should also write stories about their feelings or problems.  If teens feel that the single pop-up is too simple, challenge them to make the pop up at the top of the page.  It is simply three spirals put together.  Not as hard as it looks.
 
Always edit and correct grammatical and spelling problems.
 
Glue the story on the back of the pop-up.  Write the title of the story and author’s name on the front cover.  Children may also decorate the front cover, but do not use liquid glue.  Only use glue sticks with pop-ups.  Liquid glue soaks through the paper.
 
Reading a story out loud is the best way to improve reading fluency.  Have the child practice reading the story to you.  You may even videotape your child reading their story and share the video with family and friends.  Ask for the child’s permission first.
 
You have turned a simple story into an entire lesson.  You have taught reading, writing, possibly spelling, and reading fluency.  You have also spent time talking about feelings and problems.   
 
In this time of uncertainty and tragedy, we must all try to do what we can to help others.  Perhaps a simple story can show us the way to equality, justice, and a better way of life.  One suggestion that I have this summer is to help your children and teens look for stories or books that illustrate how to live a better life, how to treat others fairly, how to help those in need, how to speak kindly, how to be considerate of others feelings, how to turn away from hatred and anger, how to work for peace.  Superheroes are fine – up to a point, but I’d like to challenge children, teenagers, and adults to look for reading material that will help you change your life and also help you change the life of those around you.  We must not just think about ourselves; we must always think of the needs of others as well.

Politicians, school administrators, teachers, and even parents are arguing back and forth whether it is safe to open schools in the fall.  Regardless whether we open or do not open, both plans are going to be riddled with problems, frustration, and, most likely, tears. 
 
Before we try to answer the question of whether we should open or not, let’s turn to the
CDC guidelines for schools to reopen.  The guidelines are extensive, so I'll summarize, but I encourage you to read the list in its entirety:  

• social distancing—all desks 6 feet apart, social distancing in halls and on buses, keep all desk facing in one direction, even seat students in one direction at tables 
• close all “communal shared areas” – playgrounds, cafeterias, gym locker rooms, and erect plastic barriers between restroom sinks 
• “cloth face coverings” should be worn by staff and students – even the CDC admits this may be a challenge, especially getting younger children to wear a face mask all day. 
• staggered schedules – including arrival and drop-off times, even possibly staggered class schedules 
• serve prepackaged individual meals – have children eat at their desk in the classroom, schools may also require students to bring lunch from home  
• no field trips – use virtual activities, limit visitors and volunteers 
• have students bring their own water bottles to minimize use of water fountains 
• avoid sharing – art supplies, pencils, electronics, library books, toys 
• clean and disinfect frequently – door handles, water faucets, buses, classrooms 
• post signs and show videos – to show how to properly wash hands and how to properly wear a face mask 
• screen all students and staff daily for Covid-19

 
This extensive list still doesn’t answer the question:  Should we or should we not reopen?  There is no one simple answer or blueprint to follow.  This is not a one-size-fits-all solution.  Let’s turn to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for his advice:  “…it’s always related to the level of activity of the virus….”  
 
Are You Sure That We Should Open Schools in the Fall?
 
Not everyone agrees that we should.  Some school districts and colleges have made the decision to keep classes online in the fall.  To some extent, we must wait to see what the state of the coronavirus is in the fall.  So, we cannot simply say, “open the doors; school is back in session.”  Yes, we must plan.  We cannot just sit down and wait to see what happens, but as we consider the difficulty of reopening school, we must also answer, “should we?”   
  
Three Reasons that we should not open schools in the fall
I’ll give three reasons why we should not open schools in the fall.  I stated in previous blog posts that group or classroom style teaching is better than online or remote teaching.  At present, however, online education is safer for our children.  Safety is a good reason to not reopen schools in the fall.
 
 
First reason that should keep us from opening schools in the fall is safety.  We must ask:  Is it Safe? 
 
Let’s go to the experts first.  Dr. Aaron E, Carroll, Associate Dean professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine said that,
 
“U. S. schools cannot safely reopen until public health officials find ways to identify and treat people infected with Covid 19.”  
 
Yes, you can find many people who will say “the numbers are going down and everything is fine.”  Really?  According to Johns Hopkins University, there were 21,140 new cases of coronavirus in the United States on June 4th.

Statista Research and Analysis stated that “Approximately 27,900 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the United states on June 18, 2020.”
 
We are a long way from winning the battle against coronavirus.  Yes, some states are seeing a bit of relief, but other places are seeing definite spikes.  
 
So, safety is definitely a major concern and reason to question whether school should reopen in the fall.
 
Many parents are worried about the health and safety of their children if schools reopen in the fall.  According to one survey, 60% of K-12 parents said they would not be sending their children back to school in the fall; instead they would be seeking online options.
 
Yes, there are others saying, “please hurry up; open the schools.” 
 
I understand that parents need to go back to work, and to do so, many parents need the schools to reopen.  Yet, need doesn’t answer the safety question. 
 
In all of these discussions, are we really critically evaluating what is best for the children?   
 
 
We must remember that when we are discussing safety, children get sick too.
 
What about the children who are still getting sick from coronavirus complications, and what about the children who have died?  New York alone reported 161 cases of mysterious pediatric links with coronavirus. 
 
More: Should We Pretend It's OK to Open the Schools?

Harvard Medical School published an article stating:  
 
“Children, including very young children, can develop Covid-19….  A complication that is more recently been observed in children can be severe and dangerous. Called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), it can lead to life-threatening problems with the heart and other organs in the body. Early reports compare it to Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory illness that can lead to heart problems.”
 
Many teenagers have also been found to have the symptoms.  Hundreds of cases have been registered from across the nation.  Definite health dangers lie in the path of reopening in the fall.
 
Do we turn a blind eye to these problems and just say, “I don’t care any more? I’m tired of being stuck in the house.  I cannot deal with another day of homeschooling.” 
 
We need to face the facts. Coronavirus is not a hoax.  Coronavirus is real, and it is dangerous.  
We must also face that there are health risks involved with reopening the schools.  The question is:  Are the benefits worth the risks?
 
The second reason that we should consider not opening schools in the fall is mental health.
 
Everyone warns that school will not be the same as when it closed in March.  Students and teachers will be faced with a completely different approach to classroom education.  Many schools are contemplating to have some students attend a morning session and other students attend an afternoon session.  Other may have students attend on alternate days.  Neither of these plans explains what is to be done with children when they are not attending school on their scheduled day or time. 
 
Confusion and uncertainty usually lead to fear. As one parent stated, “I don’t want my kid sitting alone in a square on the playground shouting to his friends through a muffled sounding mask….” 
 
Children are often anxious about going back to school in the fall.  The changes and restrictions required at school this fall for their safe return will increase this anxiety, but the question is:  Would returning to school in the fall with all the problems and restrictions be psychologically better for children than staying home and continuing for another year with online education?
 
No one can actually answer that question.  We do not have the experience or knowledge to say exactly how children will react if school reopens. 
 
Most school systems are saying that, even if they return to school in the fall, classroom education will incorporate online or remote learning.  So, we most likely have both problems to deal with. 
 
Students will not be returning to school as it once was. If schools reopen in the fall, school classrooms, by necessity, will be different.
 
As a psychologist, I believe that we will have some children and teens who adapt and cope with the changes.  I also think we will have some children and teens who will not do well with the changes.  The question is, Will we be alert to their needs?  Will we notice when they are struggling?  Will we understand why they are afraid?  How will we help them cope?
 
Each child or teenager is different.  Each student’s fear will be different.  Each problem will need to be handled on an individual basis.  There will be no group solution.
 
I do know that, regardless of whether we returned to school in the fall or whether we continue with online education, we must consider the mental health of our children, teenagers, and teachers.  We have many children and teens suffering from the closure of school this spring.  What have we done about their fears?  So far, nothing.
 
The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) offer some excellent advice.  I’ll summarize the article but encourage you to go and read the entire article: 

• The NASP suggests that parents and teachers become role models.  Children do learn from your example; therefore, how are you handling your fears? 
• The NASP advises to be aware of how you talk about Covid-19.  Yes, it is very important to talk with your child or teenager, but the way you talk with them can either increase their fear or calm their fears.  Be positive.  Remember to listen to what they have to say and then respond with truth.  There are a lot of opinions floating around.  Some are healthy, some are not.  It is always best to share the facts.  Listen to the scientist and the doctors, not the politicians. 
• The NASP says that you need to explain social distancing.  Children do not understand exactly why they should sit 6 feet apart or not touch and play on the playground or not sit at the lunch table sharing and swapping food.  Explain that school will be different for a while.  Ask your child how they feel about these differences.  Let children and teens share their feelings. 
• The NASP encourages everyone to focus on the positive.  Cherish the extra time you have together as a family.  Plan something special.  It doesn’t need to cost money.  
• The NASP says that parents and teachers should identify projects that might help others.  Giving to others has always been one of the healthiest ways to help yourself.  Send positive messages.  Call others on the phone.  Skype with those you haven’t seen for a while.  Plan a project to help others in your community, those in need, those who are struggling.  Helping someone else really will help you. 
• The NASP says that everyone should offer lots of love and affection.  This should be something we do every day.  Regardless of whether we are in the middle of a pandemic or enjoying the happiest of days, we should always share love and affection.  Add it to your daily schedule.  Children and teens particularly need this added love and affection in these stressful times.

  
The third reason that we should consider not opening schools in the fall is the quality of education. 
 
You read the CDC’s list above of what we need to do to safely reopen school in the fall, but can we teach under that much pressure on safety compliance? 
 
Yes, I know there is also a question about the quality of education that has been delivered through on-line education.  So, which is better? 
 
On-line distance learning this spring has not been classified as successful.
 
In their report, The Return: How Should Education Leaders Prepare for Reentry and Beyond? compiled by CHIEFS for Change and the Institute for Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, we read that
 
“In the midst of the pandemic, the majority of schools and systems are struggling to provide rigorous, grade-level learning; …. Many students will finish the school year academically behind—some, substantially so. Suggestions abound, from holding all kids back a year, to designating “half-year” status; from summer school in 2020, to an extended school year in 2021.” 
 
 
So, what should we do? 
My own research shows that retaining students doesn’t work [see my blog post from 5-14-20].  Half-year status would create the same problems as retention.  Both of those ideas should be scratched off the list.  Summer school would be extremely hard to pull off this summer and has been proven only to be effective when you have a highly qualified teacher, excellent curriculum, and strong attendance.  Furthermore, many believe that even a “well-crafted” summer school program cannot offset the learning deficits of low-income students this year.  The Return report went on to state that:
 
“Intensive summer programming in 2020 will not compensate for COVID-19 learning losses.” 
 
Extending the school year will require the same restructuring of facilities and schedules as reopening in the fall.  

Extending the school year does not answer such questions as:

• the cost of reopening – making school facilities safe for reopening is going to cost money because schools were not designed to accommodate social distancing – where will the money come from?  
• managing flexible schedules –  school attendance may need to be staggered and distance learning may become a permanent part of the classroom schedule which could mean that parents need to be home part of the time because students will be working at home as well as at school – what do you do with students whose parents must work? 
• smaller class sizes – having small mentoring groups of less than 12, crowded hallways will also be a problem – middle school and high school students may be required to stay in one classroom rather than switching classes – where do you put the extra students? 

 
Therefore, we are back where we started.  We have online education that has not worked for many students this spring during the coronavirus pandemic.  We have reopening plans that seem impossible at best and not financially feasible.  We have parents needing to go to work and students who need to learn.
 
Yet, we must remember that simply sending students back to school will not guarantee that they learn.  Schools were in academic trouble before the pandemic. 

More: Reading scores were worse in 2019 than they were in 2017

Our educational system needs a total overhaul.
 
Will classroom teaching quality be questionable even if we reopen?  Is there any way to help students?
 
As I said above, most schools have stated that their reopening plan will probably include both distance and in-person learning.  Some even suggest that each student, not just the special needs students, will need an individualized educational plan.  This plan will incorporate transportation, learning needs, specific goals for the year, social and emotional supports needed, and a way to coordinate between the home and school schedule.
 
Other educators point out the need for very strong teachers.
 
“Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, wrote in 2018, ‘The strongest education research finding in the last twenty years is that the quality of a teacher is the single greatest in school determinate of student outcomes.’ A high-quality teacher not only bolsters students’ academic success in the short term, but also their economic productivity and social wellbeing in the long term. ‘High-quality’ means, among other things, holding students to high standards. Research continues to affirm…that teachers matter.” 
  
Having a positive relationship with a teacher can help a student alleviate fears, develop a stronger motivation to learn, feel a sense of satisfaction with how they are learning, while helping to reduce anxiety, disruptive behavior, and anger over the changes that the coronavirus pandemic has brought about.
 
A strong teacher can also make the difference in whether a child learns or does not learn.  Regardless whether students are learning online or in an adjusted classroom in the fall, excellent teaching will be required.  Students also need excellent curriculum.  No more merely sending home a stack of worksheets. We have time this summer, and we need to be getting ready for fall.
As Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Karen Salmon said,
 
“We’re not sure that [school building closure] is not something that we’re going to revisit in the fall or the winter…. I’m really focusing much of our resources on the expansion and accountability wrapped around online learning and distance learning.”
 
Chris Reykdal, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Washington, echoed the same concerns.  
 
“Short of a vaccine, which people continue to tell us is 12 to 18 months away, we have to figure out if it’s safe to come back even in the fall….  I already have to start thinking about how to continue to strengthen our online model, which is gotten exponentially better over the last two weeks but there’s a lot of work to go.”
 
There isn’t one single answer.  There are those who believe we should reopen school in the fall.  There are those who believe we should continue with online education.  There are those who believe we will end up with a combination of the two.
 
What should we do?
 
I believe we should be restructuring our educational program.  We need to improve quality.  We need to improve teaching.  We need to improve our curriculum.  I’m in the middle of writing a list of 20 reasons why reading scores were worse in 2019 than in previous years.  Each of the reasons listed so far explain a problem that we have in our educational system, a problem that is causing reading failure, a problem that we can change by correcting how we teach.  Regardless whether we teach online or in the classroom, we need a new educational approach.
 
I believe we also need to be prepared to teach through online education in the fall.  I do not believe that reopening the schools will work.  We must be ready this time.  We can’t just assume that reopening schools will solve all of our problems.
 
While we wait for decisions to be made, I offer Part 3 of my suggestions for free education resource materials.
 
 
Part 3:  Free Educational Resources
 
I always try to suggest free resources that you may turn to.  This week I’m into reading.  See   Part 1 of this ongoing list on my blog on 5-24-20.  Part 2 of this list may be found on my blog for  6-2-20.  

For me, summer means extra time to read.  I hope that it does for your child or teen as well.  I found an interesting site this week that includes stories for multiple ages. 

I particularly like this one about the raindrop, entitled Do What You Can.  
 
If you do not find a story that your child can read to you, remember, it is wonderful to sit down and read to your child.  Spending time together is the best gift you can ever give to any child or teenager.  Yes, teenagers still need time and love as well.
 
Here’s also a story written by a child. You might use this story to encourage your own child to write about a personal incident or to create a fictional story.  Sometimes writing about problems can be the best therapy.  Encourage your child or teen to write or to just talk about their concerns, their fears, or times when they have felt that no one cared.  This week has been a truly difficult week.  Families need to talk, need to share, need to show that they care for one another and those around them. 

If you are looking for something special to teach today, look no further.  Today, June 8, 2020, is World Oceans Day.  Talk about how important it is to protect the ocean.
Some fun web sites to explore:

1. NASA offers a fabulous site that talks about oceans throughout the universe.    It’s very interactive, even small children will enjoy this.  
2. Mr. Trash Wheel is a big hit.   Also, if you did not use it earlier, there is a wonderful story on Scholastic about Mr. Trash Wheel.
3. There’s also Fred. 
4. Have children design their own trash collector.  Here’s another suggestion.  

While looking for good educational ideas, I stumbled across another problem:  worksheets.  Everywhere you look, more and more free worksheets appear, and yes, this is a problem in the classroom and for online teaching because worksheets do not help students learn. Hands-on projects like the one on the left lead to better teaching and learning. 

• Worksheets do not teach.  Worksheets (the question-answer or paper pencil type activity) are just busy work, or as one author so eloquently stated,  “They’re easy.  They’re painless.  They require little lesson planning.”  

 

• Worksheets do not encourage students to learn.  If a worksheet is too easy, the student learns nothing and becomes bored.  If the student does not know the material covered by the worksheet, the student is either practicing mistakes or becoming more and more frustrated until eventually giving up.  Frustration over a worksheet can actually reduce a student’s motivation for learning.  A simple set of directions at the top of the page is not the same as teaching a concept. 

 

• Worksheets do not lead to long-term meaningful learning.  A student achieves meaningful learning  when information is completely understood.  That is not the same as mere memorization. Worksheets do not promote meaningful learning. “The mere accomplishment of the worksheet task does not signify the child’s ability to read or comprehend.”  Even when a student can complete a worksheet correctly, it still doesn’t guarantee that the student has learned the concept being taught.

 

• Worksheets only test rote memory.  Worksheets do not encourage critical thinking or creativity, and they do not connect with real life experiences.  “Rote memory allows for memorization of base information, but it doesn’t put that information into any sort of context. The lack of context for complex subjects mean that the student has not learned anything about what they are studying.”  

 
As one 20-year teacher said,  “Our goal as professional educators should be lessons that encourage divergent thinking [complex, higher order analysis, critical thinking], not convergent thinking [just learning facts or memorizing].

So, Why Do We Have So Many Worksheets?
Because they’re easy to use and require very little effort.  Let’s be honest.  With the mere click of a button, you can find hundreds and thousands of worksheets.  There are worksheets on almost every topic.  There are worksheets for every age level. 
 
Is that what we want for our students? 
 
I certainly do not, and I will go one step further.  Worksheets have also contributed to academic failure, especially reading failure.  Remember, the Nation’s Report Card reported that reading scores in 2019 were worse than scores in 2017.  That means that more students were struggling or failing in reading in 2019 than in 2017. [see my 10-31-19 blog post]  As we continue to explore the 20 reasons why those scores were lower in 2019, I contend that the overuse of worksheets in the classroom is one of those reasons.
 
Another way of stating the problem:
 
“Imagine you’re taking a test in history class. To prepare, you look at your notes and re-read your textbook. You take the exam and get a decent score. Great!  But what happens if you take that same exam without revision in 6 months? A year? You’ll likely get a much lower score.  That’s because you didn’t really learn that material. You memorized it for a single purpose and have since forgotten.

"Retaining information can be a struggle, and not just over long periods of time as described above. You can be taught something and forget it almost immediately if it doesn’t sink in.  Hands-on learning is proven to be more effective at helping students grasp what they’re taught.” 
 
What is hands-on learning?  Hands-on learning is a teaching method that directly involves the student by actively encouraging the student to “learn-by-doing.”  Hands-on learning is better than the “hands-off” learning approach.

• “Hands-off” means to give students a problem, and they must figure out how to work out the solution to that problem without help.
• “Hands-on” incorporates the principles of what’s being taught (usually by a teacher but not through lecture) with participation in activities that teach and reinforce the principles being taught.

 
Hands-on-Learning Encourages Application to the Real-World
For example, I use hands-on learning in all of my reading programs. At the Reading Orienteering Club, information is taught at every single workstation.  Every workstation teaches: 

(1) information on a theme—for example, the history of spaceflight,  (2) a counseling principal—for example, how to work together as a cooperative team, not a competitive one, and (3) vowel clustering—whichever vowel sound is being studied for that day.  I call these:  “Start with Teamwork, Follow the Word Clues, Take Action, and Are You Ready for a Challenge?” Each section provides information to be taught in an intrinsically motivating, hands-on way.  Students must not only learn the concept being taught, but they must also learn to follow step-by-step directions to complete a hands-on project, and at the end they must come together as a cooperative group to present a group program on the concept that was taught—usually a make-believe TV puppet show.  Completing a hands-on project (puppet) or make-believe TV show gives students an intrinsically motivating sense of achievement.  Success really is contagious, and learning can be fun.  Hands-on learning is also a more effective way to teach: “Hands-on learning is proven to be more effective at helping students grasp what they’re taught. There’s no shortage of studies that show hands-on learning has a significant impact:”
 
“One study compared test scores of 8th graders who were lectured about water quality with students who built a water purification device. The students who went through active learning saw much higher test scores and improvement rates.”  

• “Another study found that students who didn’t engage in hands-on learning were 1.5 times more likely to fail a course than students who did.”  

 

• “Hands-on learning better engages both sides of the brain.” 

 

• “Listening and analyzing processes occur in the left hemisphere, but visual and spatial processes are handled on the right. By combining multiple styles of learning, the brain forms stronger overall connections and is able to store more relevant information.” 

 

• “Brain scans also show increased activity in sensory and motor-related areas of the brain when thinking about concepts they had hands-on experience with.  Being able to touch and see something is simply more powerful than only reading about it.” 

 
Can We Use Hands-On Teaching with Online Instruction or Social Distancing?
 
I believe we can, but with the schools closed and the on-line teaching reports from this spring showing dismal results, we certainly need to improve.  To be fair, some teachers and schools have been successful this spring, but, then, to be truthful, some have not.
 
In a 2020 special report on education during the coronavirus lockdown, Class Tag reported:  

“68.8% of teachers relied on worksheets and/or prepared written study packets”
“49.9% did not use any form of live video streaming or had any plans to”
“only 12.7% said that they would use a live video lesson or streaming [in the future].”
  
The response from parent groups is not much better.
 
When the survey responses from parents with a household income of less than $25,000 a year were compared with households of $100,000 a year, the effectiveness of online remote learning this spring was very different.  For example: 

• “Parents from low-income homes are ten times more likely to say their kids are doing little or no remote learning (once a week or less) (38% vs. 3.7%)” 

 

• “Kids from low-income homes are three times more likely not to have consistent access to a device (32% vs 10%) and five times more likely to go to a school not offering distance learning materials or activities at all (11% vs 2%).”

 

• “Parents from low income homes are twice as likely to say remote learning is going poorly or very poorly (36% vs. 18%) and are more likely to say their kid’s work is mostly or entirely busy work (35% vs. 19%).”

 
Hands-on teaching techniques were not being used in the school districts surveyed by these studies.  Worksheets, even the cut and paste type worksheets, are not a hands-on teaching technique.
 
We do know that creative hands-on teaching has been used successfully in the classroom.  Many studies clearly show that hands-on teaching techniques have made “a significant impact:”

My reading clinics have proven this as well.  See the research data in my latest book:  Afterschool Programming and Intrinsic Motivation (2019).
 
The question is, can hands-on teaching techniques be used in a classroom that is practicing social distancing?  Or with on-line education? 
 
Let’s look at the classroom first, but before we answer that question, let us take a look at what classrooms may be like in the fall if schools reopen. The Los Angeles County schools published a document outlining a plan for safely reopening their schools following the necessity of social distancing.  This is only one example, but it was the only published plan that I could locate.  I’m sure more will become available soon.  They decided:

• They would need to abandon the long-held traditions of playtime, socialization, and hands-on support.
• This would in effect mean no science labs, no team sports, no recess, and no group work.
• They were not at all sure how they would keep kindergartners or other young students 6 feet apart.
• They also weren’t sure how to get students to wear masks all day.  And how do you keep students from “fiddling with or taking the mask off.”  Another question, was what to do if a child comes to school without a mask or refuses to wear a mask?
• It was decided that students would remain in the classroom for lunch and eat at their desks—which are, naturally, spaced 6 feet apart.
• All desks must be 6 feet apart and facing the same direction, no groups or desks facing each other or pushed together, no table time, or carpet areas. 
• Hallway traffic would be designated as only one-way at certain intervals in order to avoid contact.
• Class sizes must be cut.  Maybe some students could come to school in the morning and then others in the afternoon.  The question of what to do with students only attending school for half the day was never resolved.
• Classroom libraries and books would be impossible to sanitize each day and therefore must be packed away.
• School library time would be closed for the same reason.
• The school would have to purchase each student’s personal equipment—masks, crayons, pencils, paper, or whatever is needed for that age level.

 
The report made going back to school in the fall sound rather bleak.  On May 20, 2020, USA Today reported that 60% of K-12 parents surveyed said that they did not plan to send their children back to public school in the fall.  Most said that they would be looking into “at-home learning options.”  Even 20% of teachers surveyed said that they do not plan to return to the classroom in the fall, not under the present conditions. 
 
Hands-on learning does not seem to have much chance.  I’m not sure learning of any kind will have much of a chance.
 
The Los Angeles group even admitted that “the diminishing of play, lunch table chatter, and personal contact could hurt students if such measures continue in the long term.” 
 
I foresee a mountain of worksheets, with teachers saying, "what else am I to do?"  Keep in mind that worksheets can be just as easily assigned through a student’s personal school computer as they can by passing out a piece of paper.  As one teacher said, “They thought they had taken worksheets away when they limited copier paper, but then, they gave each student a computer.  It’s even easier now.”
 
Learning is doomed if worksheets prevail. Yet, I do see the problems.
 
As a matter of fact, my Reading Orienteering Club after-school program will remain closed in the fall because I do not think it is safe for children to come back into a classroom group program.  Furthermore, my program would also not be as effective without hands-on learning.  Therefore, I am looking for other options.  I’m working this summer to develop an on-line program.
 
What about online instruction?  Is it possible to use hands-on teaching techniques with on-line instruction? 
Some teachers are saying that, with online instruction, we do not have any option other than to use worksheets, but remember, children do not learn from worksheets. 
 
Are worksheets the only option for online instruction? 
I say, no.  Let me offer an example.
 
If ever there was a time that we as teachers, parents, and psychologists need to teach kindness, thinking of the needs of others, equality, being nonjudgmental, justice for everyone, saying nice words about others instead of name calling, it is now. We need to find a positive, forward-thinking educational lesson, and there is one just waiting to be taught.  It’s an event that can easily be taught through online education.  It’s an event that can be taught without worksheets.  It can even utilize hands-on learning techniques. It’s an event that’s free.  It’s an event that can teach reading, spelling, writing, history, science, and even math.  It’s an event that will forever be part of the history of 2020, and today’s students are living participants of this historical event.  The event that I speak of is the launch that took place on May 30, 2020 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  Yes, this one historical event can give you a weeks’ worth of lessons on cooperation, being kind, helpful, saying thank you, and giving others credit instead of trying to claim the glory for yourself.  These are lessons that we should be teaching right alongside reading, writing, and math.
 
Let’s start with reading.

1. You’ll want to view the historic launch of May 30, 2020.  
2. Next, add some background material for older readers.  I selected this site because it is well written and fun to read.  Children and teens will be encouraged to read and learn.  The reporter actually checked the facts.  Note, that it was written before the failed May 27th scrubbed mission, but it takes this into account.  This allows you to explain some of the complexities of space flight. 
3.  I then have my older students be the reporter.  They write their own TV report on the launch.  They may even want to rewatch the video.  They may write a short paragraph or a longer report-- depending on their age.  At this point you have supplied visual information from the video, written information to be read, writing practice, and a check on comprehension and accuracy of facts.  You accomplished reading writing and comprehension without one single worksheet.  You may even be able to work spelling and vocabulary into the lesson as well.
4.  You can extend the hands-on techniques by videotaping the student’s TV report.  The student can practice reading the TV report which is the best way to improve fluency, and you can edit the written TV report which allows you to teach grammatical sentence structure.  So far, you have taught history, a bit of science if you go into details on the rocket, reading, writing, comprehension, and reading fluency. 
5.  If you are working with only younger children, add a video summary of your own.  Then, have children make the Falcon 9 rocket sitting on the launch pad.  It’s simple: 

 

• Wrap a sheet of white paper around a paper towel tube, empty water bottle, or even tissue holders.  If you are using 3 tissue holders, you will need to tape or glue them together before adding the paper.
• Wad a piece of aluminum foil into a round ball, preferably a clean piece ready for recycling.
• Place a thick circle of glue in the middle of a sheet of white copier paper.  Place foil in the middle of the glue.  Shape paper around the foil to make the rounded nose cone.  [see picture at top of page]
• Glue rounded nose cone on top of the paper towel tube rocket.
• Add streamers for fire.  Even the youngest children can replay the launch countdown. 

 
I also include a pop-up version, but pop-ups take more space, patterns, and explanation than this blog post allows.  The student’s pop-up book also covers each stage from launch to recovery.  This picture illustrates the return of the Falcon 9 to earth. 

Now you’re ready to be creative.  You can expand the lesson in many directions.  One totally hands-on site from NASA allows you to teach and reinforce what you are teaching through hands-on learning.  Everything is done for you, even step-by-step directions.  Pick a topic.  Go teach.  No, you do not need worksheets.
 
Another site breaks the teaching material into age groups.  if you are not sure what is appropriate for the age of your student, this site does it for you.  Yes, it’s hands-on.
 
Depending where your interest or lesson is going, this site tells how to build a satellite or a rover that actually moves.  Think of the science and history you can teach.  Yes, we really can teach without worksheets.  
 
There are hands-on resources that are easily accessible about earth, the atmosphere, climate, or even how we can improve the air we breathe.  There is also a Junior Ranger program celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo program.  Everything is right at your fingertips.  There’s even a wonderful interactive site about climate and weather. 
 
Maybe you are not as excited about outer space as I am.  If your interest does not lie in outer space, here are a few sources you might check out as well:
 
Part 2 of my suggestions for free education resource materials
If you are able to get outside and go for a hike, this is a wonderful guide on what to do while you’re practicing social distancing and soaking up a little sunshine. 

 There are more virtual tours.   Check these out. 

1. Some are repeats but look at the “Lion King” and “National Parks.”  These are totally new and very exciting.  
2. This salt mine is certainly interesting. You can have students write a story pretending they are visiting in the salt mine. Be creative. It can be a mystery or an adventure story.  You can teach writing and sentence construction as easily with fiction as you can with nonfiction. 
3. Do a tour of the states.  Pick one location and research it.  Then write up a travel report. 
4. Don’t forget volcanoes, you can teach science, history, and language arts by exploring volcanoes.   
5. BrainPOP offers an excellent lesson on birds. 
6. If you have not explored the live stream presentations from Monticello, I highly recommend them, especially the ones featuring the actor speaking for Thomas Jefferson. 
   
   

Earlier Post, Part I:  Free High-Quality Teaching Resources  (click link and scroll down)
 
There’s lots to explore, and many ways to teach using hands on learning. Use Schoology as I recommended in my last blog post  It’s free.  This will make it easy for children to link onto the websites that you want them to use.
 
Regardless whether we send children back to school to sit 6 feet apart and work individually on their school computers or teach children from home, we can incorporate hands-on learning.  We do not need to resort to worksheets.  We can also use hands-on teaching techniques with on-line learning. Our children deserve the best that we can give them.

The simple rocket on the left was made from paper and is covered with space-related spelling words. My grandson made a rocket from the same homemade pattern while he was learning about science as we worked together on Skype. 

From the White House to the streets, some people are clamoring to just reopen everything.  Regardless how many cities and states are still showing that new coronavirus cases are soaring upward, some yell, “reopen anyway.”  Others ignore the fact that people are still dying.  Many turn a blind eye to the statistical data-driven predictions of a returning second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.  Yes, some areas are showing mild improvement, but many are not.  Honestly, no one can predict exactly what will happen if we reopen or even what is the best path to take toward reopening.  Unfortunately, closing our eyes and pretending that the coronavirus has gone away isn’t our smartest decision.
 
Caught in the middle of this panic-stricken approach to overcoming the coronavirus pandemic lie our children and our public school system.  As the end of the school year draws near, school officials, teachers, parents, and even students are asking: What should we do in the fall?
 
There are almost as many responses as there are people asking the question.  Some of the responses are intelligent.  Some are just plain foolish and dangerous.  I am not swayed by the noise from the streets or the whims of vote-hungry politicians. 
 
In education, we consider it essential to teach critical thinking skills to students.  Critical thinking is defined as analyzing facts and statements to make the best decision or find the best solution to a problem. We need critical thinking skills every day of our life.  We desperately need to apply our critical thinking skills right now.  We should be using critical thinking to make good decisions, to understand the consequences of those decisions, and to solve our coronavirus problems. 
 
Are we using critical thinking during the coronavirus pandemic? 

No, our decisions are being driven by those who yell the loudest.

I am a psychologist.  My doctoral degree is in educational psychology, counseling.  I specialize in group- centered prevention for children and teens.  I began focusing on reading failure because of the psychological damage and mental health issues that arose with children and teens who failed to learn to read in school.  So, from me, you will always get a scientific, data-driven response.  Science is not perfect, but I believe that if we listen to scientists, evaluate what they say, and analyze the implications of research for our life, we will have a healthier and better lifestyle for all.  In short, we should make our decisions in the school system based on critical thinking.
 
As I read the research data, it is telling us that it is not safe to reopen schools in the fall.  Why?  I’ll highlight three main reasons:  (1) coronavirus is dangerous even for children, (2) social distancing and safe coronavirus health practices are not possible with children and teens in our present school settings, and (3) keeping schools closed will help reduce the spread of coronavirus across the nation.

• Coronavirus is dangerous for children.  It was once believed that children were not as severely affected by coronavirus as adults.  Yet, every day we are seeing more and more cases of children being severely affected by coronavirus; some even dying from coronavirus complications. There have been 161 reported cases of this mysterious link with coronavirus just in New York. Documented cases have been reported in New York, Colorado, Indiana, and Florida.  Is our desperation to reopen worth risking our children’s lives?
  
  
• Social distancing and safe coronavirus health practices are not possible with children and teens in our present school settings.  If you work in the schools and have seen school buses transport children, please tell me how you are going to practice social distancing on school buses.  Not all parents can drive their children to school every day.  Most buses are stuffed end to end, and with today’s economy, schools certainly do not have the money to go out and buy more school buses.  The truth is that it’s not possible to practice social distancing on a school bus, a playground, the gym locker room, or even the school cafeteria.  I’m not even sure teachers can manage in the classroom. Yes, school buses, playgrounds, restrooms, and cafeterias (and let’s not forget the classroom) must all be made safe and must practice social distancing if we are to start school back in the fall.  So, what happens if we just ignore social distancing at school? Here's what one major study found out: 

 

• “The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, looked at the policies mandating social distancing, and found that the longer a measure was in effect the slower the daily growth rate of covid-19, ….  For social distancing policies that lasted at least 16 to 20 days, the daily rate of infection dropped by more than 9 percentage points, according to the study. Policies lasting 15 days and less also saw declines in the daily infection rate, researchers found. Such social distancing measures, mandated by 95 percent of the country, include shelter-in-place orders, school closures, bans on large events and the closure of gyms, bars and restaurants.…  Places with no social distancing orders were at substantially higher risk for infection."

 
So, ignoring social distancing is like saying, “Yes, I want coronavirus to spread.”  Is that what we really want?  Do we really want to ignore the dangers of removing social distancing from our schools, our communities, and our daily lives?  True social distancing in schools is impossible under our present educational system.  To open the doors and send children back to school without effective social distancing is just inviting more children and adults to become sick and possibly even die.

• Also, “…if nobody followed these (social distancing) guidelines at all, the number of new infections would continue to rise exponentially, with the number of infected people doubling every few days.  That’s the absolute worst-case scenario, where nobody changes their behavior at all.” 
• Keeping schools closed will help reduce the spread of coronavirus.  So, if social
• distancing at school is just not practical or achievable and if coronavirus is in fact dangerous for children as well as adults and if we know that to reopen the schools will increase the risk of coronavirus continuing and spreading across the nation, then why are we doing it?

 
As Science Magazine points out, “Proactive school closures -- closing schools before there is a case there-- have been shown to be one of the most powerful non-pharmaceutical interventions that we can deploy.” 
 
Yes, if you turn to the Internet, you can find many people saying that opening the schools is not a threat nor will it increase the coronavirus.  However, you can find anything on the Internet.  Even savvy four-year-olds have been known to add ideas onto the Internet.  Check and evaluate the sources.  I give links for all my sources so that you can read and check the information.  I will never ask you just to take my word for something.  Think. Analyze. Use your critical thinking skills.
 
From me, you will receive the best scientific information I can find.  I do not listen to politicians, but I do understand the desperation to reopen the schools so that the schools may provide free childcare for those who need to go back to work.  Yet, if it only prolongs the duration or increases the severity of coronavirus, then opening the schools is not a good solution for us as a nation.
 
I have presented the best scientific research I can find in order to enable us to use our critical thinking skills so that we may make intelligent decisions.  Therefore, should we open schools this fall?  I think the answer needs to be, no.  So, what are we to do?  We must look at alternatives to reopening schools.  This is just as businesspeople who can successfully work from home during the pandemic should work from home.  All students who can successfully learn from home should do so as well.  Yes, I know that we will need to make some special provisions for children whose parents must go to work, but, if we can reduce the spread of coronavirus by using online education techniques rather than opening the schools, I believe we should do so in the fall.  This summer, we have time to plan and organize an online approach.

In psychology, one of our main goals is always to help children, teens, and families have a healthier, happier, and more productive life.  I plan to spend my summer exploring Internet opportunities and options.  I plan to pursue two areas of research:
 
What can parents do to help their children prepare for whatever form of schooling is offered in the fall?
  
What is the best way to teach our children this fall?
 
What can I do this summer to help my child be ready for the fall?

As promised, I’ve been compiling a list of online resources.  I only recommend resources that I have been able to check and/or that I have used.  You need to be careful.  There’s lots of bad information on the Internet as well as lots of good information. 
 
When I decided to embark upon compiling a list of free high-quality teaching resources, I did not realize that it would be such a daunting task.  I very naïvely thought that I could just look up some topics and find good teaching material.  Wrong.  Yes, I can find lots and lots of material, but I was looking for high-quality, effective teaching material.  That turned out to be a totally different task.  Today I will offer Part I of my list, and I promise to add to it as I find new material. 
 
Part I:  Free High-Quality Teaching Resources   

• Start with an organizational system:  If you have not explored Schoology, I suggest you begin with their free site for parents, students, and teachers.  It is a wonderful way to organize your lessons, even for teaching from home.  Students can go on the site and easily follow the lessons you have organized. 
• I sent my first two suggestions for online resources in my blog post of 3-3-202:  Scholastic magazine and National Geographic videos.   Those are still two of my highest recommendations.  Yes, Scholastic only offers four weeks for free, but if you have not taken advantage of those four weeks of material, I highly suggest you do so.  They are wonderful.  No one beats National Geographic for videos and for research material about animals and nature. 
• Another free resource that I find very useful is BrainPOP. This learning resource is normally not free, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, they are extending this resource to parents at home.  It is excellent and interesting.  It offers both easy and advanced learning videos, interactive quizzes, and all types of hands on learning extensions.  If you are working with your child at home or if you are a teacher sending lessons home, this resource is a must.
• NASA is a terrific resource for the classroom and for parents at home, and, in case you haven’t heard, we are just in time for the first launch by SpaceX.  They are promising full coverage of the launch.  It will be the first launch of astronauts from American soil in nine years.  Don’t miss it.  There’s also lots of material that parents can use, and NASA's videos are exciting history to explore.   Children love to make paper rockets, and they are so easy to make.  Just wrap paper around an empty water bottle or paper towel tube, then decorate. 
• I do not often recommend online zoos because their websites are not always easy to navigate.  However, the San Diego Zoo offers an exciting and interactive website.  Make sure your children check out the stories and special videos, especially the cheetah track.  I particularly enjoyed learning about the rescued animals.  You can do all kinds of activities about animals from the information children can obtain from the videos and stories on this site.  

​As we near the end of what would have been another school year, the age-old question of grade retention arises.  A parent has asked, “Should my child be retained?  I know he’s struggling.”  My personal response is never.  I am also equally opposed to simply “socially promoting” students on to the next grade.  Neither method works.  Research has shown both methods to be complete failures.
So, what should we do?  Many students have fallen behind during the coronavirus pandemic.  Should these students be retained?  No! 

Megan Andrew, a sociologist from the University of Notre Dame, conducted a study, where she found that students who were retained a grade in between kindergarten and 5th grade were 60% less likely to graduate from high school than those who had similar grades but were not retained.  One of the unique features of this study is that she compared the students who were retained with the students who were also failing but not retained.  She studied more than 37,000 students across the United States and matched students of similar family backgrounds, IQs, and cognitive skills.

We have over 40 years of research showing the harms of retention.  Researchers have stated:  

• "Most children do not 'catch up' when held back.
• "Although some retained students do better at first, these children often fall behind again in later grades.
• "Retention is one of the most powerful predictors of high school dropout; holding a child back twice makes dropping out of school 90% certain."

The researchers went on to say,

“The most notable academic deficit for retained students is in reading…. Students who are unprepared in reading have a 15% chance of succeeding in math and a 1% chance of succeeding in science, while students who are good readers have a 67% chance of succeeding in math and a 32% chance in science.”  

So, what should we do?  Focus on reading.  Focus on teaching reading correctly, using a teaching method that actually works.  We have 8 years of research showing that vowel clustering works with students who failed with phonics and balanced literacy. 
Don’t retain students.  Teach them to read instead.

It’s No Wonder Our Children Cannot Learn to Read with Phonics!  As I went looking for resources, I was astounded at the mountains of inaccurate information that I found on the internet. I know that I promised you a blog about free resources that you could use to teach children while they are at home.  I’m working on it.  I will keep my promise, but I ran into some resources that, I am sorry to say, help us see what is wrong with phonics education.  They also help to show us why reading scores all worse in 2019 and why so many children cannot read across the nation.

As I have mentioned earlier in earlier blog posts, a big problem with phonics is that the rules have so many exceptions the children get confused.  Confusion leads to reading failure. Let’s look at an example.  One seemingly popular phonics internet site says:  “a in ago should say long a for an open syllable, but it is a schwa.”

Yes, letter a is using the schwa sound, but the reasoning in this statement is wrong.  There are words that start with the letter a that use the long a vowel sound:  able, acorn, apron—just to list a few.  There are also words that start with the letter a that do not use the long a vowel sound: ago, among, around, away—again just to mention a few.  Regardless of the phonics rule, the word ago does not use the long a vowel sound, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that it should.  There are plenty of words that start with the letter a that do not use the long a vowel sound.  So, why would a phonics educator think that the word ago would use a long a vowel sound?  

Because they do not understand the rules that they are trying to teach and because the phonics rules are not consistent. This is why it doesn’t work to try and rely on phonics rules.  
Some researchers have counted the number of times phonics rules do not work and have found phonics rules are accurate only 60% of the time.  What should children do the other 40% of the time?  [Check my blog post from 10-26-19 for more data showing how unreliable phonics rules are.]

When the phonics rules have all of these exceptions, it is easy to see how even teachers and resource writers can get confused.  You must be careful when taking worksheets, informational videos, or any other information off the internet--even if you are paying for it.  Just because someone charges a fee, doesn’t mean the material that they are selling you is accurate.  Don’t teach mistakes or incorrect information.  Inaccurate information also leads to reading failure. 

I’ve worked with many students at my reading clinic who were sent to me because they were failing in reading, when their only problem was that they had been taught incorrectly.  They had memorized phonics rules, but the rules were inconsistent.  Therefore, they had become confused.  Confusion leads to failure.

Look in a dictionary or use the dictionary on your computer.  Check to make sure that what you are purchasing or even using for free is accurate.

There are actually 7 different sounds for the letter a.  The schwa sound is not an exception; it is just one of the 7 sounds.
Caption:  There are actually 7 different sounds for the letter a.  The schwa sound is not an exception; it is just one of the 7 sounds.
​

The chant is growing louder, heard from the streets and all the way to the White House—“Send the children back to school.”  If we stop and think, truly analyze what is best for our children? Sending the children back to school right now is not in the best interest of our children.  Yes, it would provide free childcare, but is it safe?  No.  Absolutely no one, except for a few parents marching up and down the street without masks, contends that the best health solution for our children is to send them back to school.  Again, I’m a psychologist; I read what the scientists are saying, not the politicians.

• “…public health experts believe social distancing is the best way to prevent a truly horrific crisis….” ​David Fisman, infectious disease epidemiologist, states that it is not true that children do not get COVID-19.  He clarifies that the “Chinese data suggest that kids get the infection about as often as adults….” He then goes on to explain that “… given the eagerness with which they [children] share their germs, they could still be important infection spreaders.”  


• Epidemiologist Adam Kucharski, author of The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread—and Why They Stop, is saying that the threat from children to adults should “cause us to worry.” 

Therefore, can we truly say that it is safe to open schools-- for the children… for the teachers … for the families who the children go home to each afternoon?  No, we cannot.

So, what are we to do? 
As some have pointed out, we were not doing the absolute very best job of educating children across the nation before the coronavirus pandemic; therefore, this may be an opportunity for us to rebuild our educational system.  Remember, as I stated in my 10-31-19 blog post, reading scores were worse in 2019 than they were in 2017.  Yes, children in the fourth grade dropped from 37% in 2017 to 35% in proficiency in 2019—this is with an emphasis on common core standards, balanced literacy, and phonics.  Students in eighth grade dropped from 36% in 2017 to 34% in eighth grade. Be careful.  This does not mean that only 35% could not read.  No, it means that only 35% could read at the 4th grade level.  That leaves over half of the remaining 4th graders across the nation struggling or failing in reading at the fourth-grade level.  The same is true for eighth graders; over half of the students were struggling or failing.  Read the report correctly.  Yes, it’s misleading. See the Nation's Report Card for details. 

Our schools are failing and have been for a very long time.  So, simply returning children to the classroom will not solve reading failure.  Why?  Experts say, it is because of the way we teach reading in the classroom [see my blog post from 2-14-20, #4, for research facts].  If you are interested in the entire series on why the 2019 scores are worse than 2017, check out my blog posts from 1-5-20, 1-18-20.

So, even if we send children back to the classroom and risk the threat of coronavirus spreading, we are not necessarily improving education for students across the nation.  No, education still receives a failing grade.

Again, I will ask, what are we to do? 
You may be saying, “I’ve heard that phonics is the answer.”  Unfortunately, phonics is not the answer.  Phonics is part of the reason we have so many children failing in reading today.  Read the research, all of the research.  Yes, there are those who are still out there selling phonics, but phonics is not helping our students read better.  Yes, some children do better with phonics than they did with whole language.  That is true, but phonics still leaves many students failing.  Read the test scores.  The 2017 and 2019 scores on the Nation’s Report Card show that over half of the nation’s fourth and eighth grade students were unable to read at their designated age level, both in 2017 and in 2019.  The school pushed phonics in the 2018-2019 school year.  Phonics is not the answer.  For more research on why phonics fails, read my blog post of 10-26-19.

So, if phonics is not the answer and it is dangerous to send children back to the classroom, should we look for other alternatives?  Yes, I think that we should. 

I think for this spring, this summer, and in the fall, we should emphasize and develop an effective online educational program.  No, I’m not saying that we should take education online permanently.  I still very strongly believe in the group approach for teaching, especially hands-on teaching techniques, but I also see the health dangers that we face today and therefore I think that at this time we must do something different than simply giving up and stuffing children back into classrooms.

How?  That will be the subject of my next blog post, and I welcome any online educational experts to weigh in on the subject.

My most recent book contains more research data to show that vowel clustering works better than phonics.