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.