Students are struggling to read behind masks and screens during COVID-19, but expectations are no different – USA TODAY

Phaedra Simon, a single mom of three from Opelousas, LouisianaI'm not trained to teach them how to read. It's totally different from how I learned.

Simon worked hard to keep her children ages9, 8 and 7 on track when they started the year virtually like everyone else in the St. Landry Parish school district. She even quit her jobto give her youngest the attention he needed.

As soon as the chance came to return to in-person learning, she seized it, even as she worries about their health."I'm not trained to teach them how to read," Simon said.

She's continued working with them, reading at home together every night. "I'm still nervous, waiting to see their new report cards," Simon said.

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Nearly a year into remote learning, instilling good learning habits remains a daily mission for Pam Bowling, a first grade teacher atAllen Elementary School in eastern Kentucky. Shepeppers every virtual lesson with positive narration Good job! I hear reading books being opened! a management technique usually reserved for kids off-task in an actual classroom.

Only now, the 6- and 7-year-olds in Bowlings class log on from their homes, many still donning pajamas.

Pam Bowling, a first grade teacher at Allen Elementary School in Allen City, Ky., reviews sight words with her class during a Feb. 15, 2021 virtual lesson.Floyd County Public Schools

Make sure we're sitting up, Bowling trilled at the start of her daily 9 a.m. reading session. I want you to be comfortable, but I dont want you to be too comfortable, right? We dont want to fall asleep. We want to make sure were sitting up, paying attention, just like we were at school.

On a mid-February morning, one perched at a desk, another sprawled on a couch, a thirdsatcross-legged in her bed, a stuffed Olaf, the snowman from the movie "Frozen," at her side.

I've got em with hair that looks like they've been shot out of a cannon,joked Bowling, an educator for 25 years.They're getting up, and their hair is every which way. And you can tell they're sleepy.

Even for veterans such as Bowling,teaching students to read over a videoconferencecall is an unprecedented challenge.

"It's particularly hard for teachers right now," said Taylor, the early learning professor fromRhodes College. "I dont think you can make the same connections, give the same in-the-moment feedback or at least as often as you might be if you had all of your students in a room."

In Floyd County, a community of about 36,000 in Kentuckys rural Appalachia region, Bowlings pleas for focus and participation are motivated by an unsettling reality: Poverty rates are high, and educational attainment is low.There is no time to waste.

Except for a brief return to in-person classes in the early fall, Bowling, 50,has been teaching from her dining room, a focus wall displaying weekly spelling words and reading skills affixed to a wooden hutch behind her seat.

I was very skeptical (of remote learning), Bowling recalled. I said, I don't know how we're gonna read through the camera. I don't know how that's gonna translate.

There was no sign of her early skepticism during the class's mid-February lesson asBowling and her students tackledsight words, spelling with the short e and nonfiction reading comprehension. Bowling, who said she can be her own worst critic, said she triesto remember the setup is only temporary.

Its just swallowing the fact that Hey, this is what I've been dealt with, she said. It might not be the best, it may not be the easiest approach, but and I say this almost every day to my parents and kids we're just gonna roll with the hand were dealt.

The next day, a brutal snow and ice storm knocked out power for nearly 48 hours. A few days after that, another momentous challenge loomed: With little time to prepare, Bowling and her kids eased back to in-person classes on a hybrid schedule, a litany of health and safety routines added to her charge.

"We're just gonna roll with it," she said.

WATCH: Three third grade teachers, three perspectives

When schools shuttered in March, Sydney Tolbert was a preschooler atthe Libertas Schoolof Memphis, Tennessee'sonly public Montessori charter school, and starting to makestrides in reading, her mother said.

"She was just right there. And then all of a sudden, we just stopped, recalledStephanie Tolbert, who felt relief that Libertas was of the few public schools in Memphis that offered in-person classes beginning in the fall.

I knew that if we could get her back in school, that she would just take off," Tolbert said. "And you could just see her. I watched her just, like, flourish. It was awesome.

In-person learning isn'ta pandemic panacea, especially for youngsters learning to read. In Sydney's multi-grade classroom, teacher Toni Sudduth, a classroom assistant and the 15 students practice social distancing and wear masks even when outside.

Second grader Skylar Tolbert, 7, peers over the shoulder of her younger sister, Sydney, 6, a kindergartner at Libertas School of Memphis. The sisters read at home each night after school.Courtesy photo

Although it helps that the curriculum is individualized for each student,group reading lessons, such as reviewing letter sounds, have had to be abbreviated. It's a challenge for students to be able to watch how their teacher's mouth moves while sounding out letter combinations and words. Sudduth started the year with a face mask with a clear window, but it kept fogging up. She switched to a clear face shield, so she can pulldown her mask behind the shield to demonstrate how a sound is made, then pull her mask up as the class makes the sound together, placing their hands to their throat to feel the sound as well.

Sounding out words is one area where online learning platforms provide an advantage, saidEmily Wakabi, areading interventionist at Libertas. I used to cue (students)every time, like, Watch my mouth,she said, and that's not helpful this year.

Most of Wakabi's work with about 40 children is done in person, but she meets online with students whose families don'twant to take the risk of returning to school. During a virtual session in February with second graderJada Guy, they worked onblending letter sounds to make words, and learning the new letter sound "ph." The computer froze, and an animated presentation to guide Jada as she pronounced the words lagged.

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Plenty of times, Jada demonstrated her excitement over what she was learning, including after writing down "pamphlet," a new word with the letter sound she'd been practicing.

"Was that fast, Ms. Wakabi?" she asked.

"That was so fast! You are fast," Wakabi said, explaining that building a student's confidence is a key to reading.

"A lot of times," she said, "kids need the motivation and encouragement to read just as much as they need the skills."

First grade teacher Kristin Bosco, left, works with a small group of students in her classroom at John Sevier Elementary in Maryville, Tenn., on Thursday, February 4, 2021. Bosco allows groups of up to eight virtual students to come into the classroom for in-person English-Language Arts learning from 8:30 to 11:30 in the morning.Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel

The Zoom meetingfeaturedmore personality than you see in a typical office call. A child sipped water too close to the computer. Another yawned, mouth wide open to the screen. A third sat obscured by his pencil box, which was positioned in front of the camera.

Kristin Bosco no longer gets distracted by such sights. The first grade teacher at John Sevier Elementary in Maryville, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, has 17 students in her virtual class.

She's grown accustomed to it, even if it might never feel normal to teach reading over a computer screen. While the children read a passage about a king, seeking words with the "ng" sound, Bosco flipped through her Zoom panel to see each face to make sure everyone paid attention.

Between tasks, the children talk with each other, something Bosco said she believes is important for their social growth. Learning this way has given her a window into the children's home life that she didn't always have. She hears about and often sees the children's pets and learns things such as when a parent switches jobs.

Conversations are an important foundation to literacy,helping children build vocabulary and practicewhat they're learning on the page.

Allowing children to talk more is really important," said Holmes from UL-Lafayette. "Teachers are trained to get children talking to each other. Theyre not learning that original, authentic language otherwise.

After the classreading, students brokeup into groups based on their reading level. Teacher's aide Kim Wood worked with one group, while Bosco stayed with another. Two groups occupied themselves withindependent activities. The groups rotate each day.

Bosco workedwith two boys who need the most support, takingturns with them reading a digital book about ice cream. One boy, Kian, told his teacher how much he loves ice cream, making a connection between it and the smoothie he has every night.

Kian's mom,Adrienne Schwarte, said virtual learning has allowed her to witness more of the learning process than she might otherwise see. Schwarte, a college professor,and her husbandadded a reading nook to their home to give Kian and his brother opportunities to read.

We've seen his confidence level really grow with reading," Schwarte said. "I would sayKian was probably a little bit of a slower reader at his grade level at the beginning of the yearcompared to some of the other students, and he's really picked up over the last three or four months.

At the start of the school year, third grade teacher Lisa Gemarwas asked to be one of 11 virtual teachers needed for children who didn't want in-person learning at Northside Elementary School in the Clinton, Mississippi, school district. It was an adjustment, but she was up to the challenge.

"The expectations are no different," Gemar, a 10-year teaching veteran, said of leading a class in a Zoomsession. "I'm still able to pick up on what they're struggling with, and we've built a really great relationship even virtually through a screen."

Just like their peers who are learning in person, the virtual students take weekly assessments, so teachers canreview what areas students need extra work in.Students whoneed more help meet daily with an intervention specialist for 30 minutes.

The transition to virtual learning was eased by Clinton's eight-year track record as aone-to-onedistrict, meaning every student gets alaptop or tablet.

In the Madison County School District north of Jackson, Mississippi,sometechnology issues have meantmore students needadditional intervention, saidChristylErickson, the district's curriculum director.

Some (students) are coming back that were unfortunately, because they had no internet and even hot spots that we provided did not help some of these children were packet learners," Erickson said."Their parents taught them. Now, we did have very few of those,but that's still a gap we have to close for these kids.

The experts fear the pandemic willwiden achievement gaps.

"Knowing what we know about how education inequity works, I would think its more likely that were going to see larger gaps between schools, between districts, because of those different kinds of financial resources," said Rhodes College's Taylor. "I hope that our national conversation around that is focused on the different types of resources provided to those groups rather than to look at them as individual failings."

If early readersget the resources in time and attention that they need, UL-Lafayette's Holmes said, she'soptimistic they can overcome the pandemic's challenges.

"Children are strong and can bounce back quickly, sometimes a lot faster than adults,"Holmes said."With consistent routines in place, whether learning at home or at school, I have hope that they will catch up."

Early childhood education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from Save the Children. Save the Children does not provide editorial input.

Published11:50 am UTC Mar. 7, 2021Updated5:33 pm UTC Mar. 7, 2021

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Students are struggling to read behind masks and screens during COVID-19, but expectations are no different - USA TODAY