Education Experts Talk Student Literacy, COVID Learning Loss and How Teachers Can Confront the Widening Achievement Gap - The 74 Million
How hard can it be to teach kids how to read?
Well, if you ask Mary Clayman, it’s the equivalent of rocket science. “We cannot put any curriculum in front of a teacher and expect them to become a master of their craft,” said Clayman, Director of the DC Reading Clinic.
“There is a huge body of knowledge that teachers need to have access to and to understand to be able to adequately diagnose and intervene with a student.”
In her role at the reading clinic, Clayman trains teachers in the science of reading, which she defines as “this vast body of knowledge, decades of research, fMRI studies, which is cognitive science, information on the English language, [and] the theoretical underpinnings of how we think children acquire print.”
But that leads to a big question for education leaders: “Is the instruction in schools informed by this vast body of knowledge?”
Clayman was among a panel of experts assembled by the Progressive Policy Institute and The 74 on Wednesday to deal with the enormous question of how educators will close the achievement gap in literacy that has grown to a chasm during the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel was also sponsored by Education Reform Now DC.
