This School Reopened Quickly After COVID. Kids' Reading Was Still Behind

COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) Students spread out in their rural Kansas classroom, answering questions with a partner about invaders atop elephants attempting to sack Rome more than 2,000 years ago.

Do you want to read? one of the third graders, Parker, asked his partner after the lesson on the Punic Wars. Because Im not really good.

Bekah Noel told her students to jot down answers for their partners if they needed extra help writing or spelling. Halfway through the school year, with some of her students reading nearly 200 words per minute and others struggling to sound out around 10, she has had to make a lot of tweaks like this.

Exiting from the pandemic, the assumption might be that Noels students should be among the least scathed. The tiny, 900-student school system in Columbus pivoted to remote learning briefly in March 2020 before going back in person that fall, initially without masks. While some U.S. students spent a year or more learning online, pandemic school in rural Kansas was as normal as it got.