by Matt Hurt
There have always been students who have evidenced a year or more delay in their independent working ability. Unfortunately, our educational response to the pandemic of closing schools and offering virtual instruction has made this problem significantly worse (more on that here). Today there are significantly more students who are a year or more behind in their ability to work on grade level skills than before 2020.
The term “learning loss” has been used to describe the situation caused by our educational response to the pandemic. It seems that this term is an incorrect characterization of our current situation. To have lost something, one first must have had it. During the closures and subsequent offerings of virtual instruction many kids did not learn what they should have during that time. Some kids regularly participated in virtual instruction and they learned most of what they were taught. Some kids rarely if ever participated in virtual instruction and therefore didn’t learn what was expected. Unfortunately, the kids who were in the latter group tended to make up a significant part of our economically disadvantaged kids. This group typically has less structure in their homes to support these efforts.
For the purpose of this essay, everything discussed will be limited to the content areas of English and math. These skills (Standards of Learning or SOLs) are very well sequenced from Kindergarten through high school in such a manner that if students learn the skills from the previous grade, they have all of the prerequisites necessary for success in the following grade. These skills definitely build upon what was taught in previous grade levels, and any gaps in learning that a student has will result in negative consequences later on.
To understand the instructional process, we must first understand that there are a variety of skills that a student must master to be able to independently work on a given grade level. If a student has significant gaps in skill attainment, he or she will assess to be working on a lower grade level than the current grade placement. That does not necessarily mean that the student has learned nothing from the previous grade, but is missing some key aspects.
For example, SOL 2.6b requires students in second grade to determine the sums and differences of two numbers of no more than two digits. This is the first year students are expected to regroup, i.e. borrow for subtraction and carry numbers while adding. In third grade, SOL 3.3a requires kids to determine the sums and differences of two numbers of up to four digits. If the student did not master SOL 2.6b in second grade, he or she does not have the prerequisites to learn SOL 3.3a in third grade. The student may or may not have learned all other second grade skills. It is unlikely that any third grade student would have mastered no second grade skills unless they were simply not taught the content. Continue reading →
