ATLANTA (AP) — Michael Crowder stands nervously at the front of his third grade classroom, his mustard-yellow polo shirt buttoned to the top.
“Give us some vowels,” says his teacher, La’Neeka Gilbert-Jackson. His eyes search a chart that lists vowels, consonant pairs and word endings, but he doesn’t land on an answer. “Let’s help him out,” Gilbert-Jackson says.
“A-E-I-O-U,” she and the students say in unison.
Michael missed most of first grade, the foundational year for learning to read. It was the first fall of the pandemic, and for months Atlanta only offered school online. Michael’s mom had just had a baby, and there was no quiet place to study in their small apartment. He missed a good part of second grade, too. So, like most of his classmates at his Atlanta school, he isn’t reading at the level expected for a third grader.
And that poses an urgent problem.