Recently released KRA and third grade reading data revealed significant learning losses for Ohio’s children. A recent national study, The COVID 19 Slide, predicts that students may experience a learning loss of 30% in reading and 50% in math as a result of the pandemic crisis. Left unchecked, it’s an academic setback that could derail students who were previously on grade level – and would be disastrous for students who were already behind.

“The typical approach to remediation won’t come close to catching students up and will likely compound the problem. In a study, The Opportunity Myth - the approach of ‘meeting students where they are,’ though well intentioned, practically guarantees they’ll lose more academic ground and reinforces misguided beliefs that some students can’t do grade-level work. The students stuck in this vicious cycle are disproportionately the most vulnerable: students of color, from low-income families, with special needs, or learning English. In other words, doubling down on current strategies for catching students up will only widen opportunity and achievement gaps.”¹

Addressing these challenges will require a new level of focus on proven strategies to accelerate student learning..."

According to TNTP Reimagine Teaching, schools can get students on track by diagnosing lost learning and putting every student on a fast track back to grade level using a strategy designed to accelerate their exposure to grade-appropriate work, not delay it.

Acceleration entails focusing on key building blocks, or standards. Looking closely at what students know and don’t through a variety of check-ins and allowing teachers to change how students are grouped. Every unit starts with a pretest; then teachers use “asynchronous” or independent time to catch students up. Students consistently receive grade-level materials, tasks, and assignments. Instead of sending students backwards to fill in all of the learning gaps, the strategy recommends educators focus on filling in only the most critical gaps—and not in isolation, but at the moment they’re needed.

Educators know that overcoming learning loss will be challenging, but it's not unattainable. During this pandemic, our students – across all grades – have developed skills and coped with difficulties that no one would have expected them to learn at their ages. Despite ongoing obstacles, our kids have shown us that they can do far more than anyone ever expected!

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1 LEARNING ACCELERATION GUIDE Planning for Acceleration in the 2020- 2021 School Year, April 2020, TNTP