I’m in my fifth year teaching science to fifth and sixth graders, but, like every other teacher at the K-8 charter school where I work, I also teach reading.
Literacy is a foundational skill for learning new content and as an upper elementary science teacher, my soon-to-be middle schoolers have ideally made the vital transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” But pandemic-era school closures drastically cut into learning time, and literacy skills have been slow to recover.