BOTHELL — What do kazoos, homemade bubble wands and race cars made of recycled material have to do with getting kids to read in the summer? A lot, if you’re at Canyon Creek Elementary.
That’s because while the students here spend the first part of their day on literacy, the other half is spent doing activities rooted in science, technology and engineering.
It’s part of an effort to keep kids excited about and engaged in school after learning slowed during the pandemic. Summer school attendance isn’t mandatory — students are invited to enroll based on recommendations from teachers and assessment data — so fun STEM lessons act as an incentive for them to keep them coming back, said Amity Butler, assistant superintendent at Northshore School District.
“What we found is that last year … it became tough to try to always make everything fit into literacy,” she said. “And if literacy is hard for you and that’s our focus and you’re constantly having to focus on sounding words out or doing things that are always difficult for you, you might not want to come back every single day.”
Amid boxes of books and binders of curriculum materials stacked in the hallways, the energy was palpable during the final week of the Northshore summer reading and STEM program, as staff prepared dozens of soon-to-be fourth and fifth graders — and the building they learn in — for the upcoming school year.
Students spent the first part of the day reading, working in groups on letter sounds and talking about key ideas from whatever book they’re reading. Then, after recess and snacks, they got to do activities in which they can embrace their inner scientist or engineer.
Students in Heather Casper’s classroom were engineers one day as they built makeshift race cars using CDs, cardboard boxes, straws and tape. The young engineers were laser-focused on ensuring their cars — with names like Thunderskull, Cheesy Goldfish and Pointing Jupiter — would go the farthest and fastest down an improvised ramp.
Students in other classrooms in this hallway learned about the amplification of sound — using kazoos, much to the dismay of neighboring teachers — while others created bubble wands or wind-powered cars.
Casper and the other teachers wish school could look like this all year.
Some lessons are easy enough to replicate, but the curriculum and materials cost money, and during the school year class sizes are almost twice as big. For summer school, teachers were paired with a paraeducator, and each class had, at most, around a dozen students at a time. The Northshore program enrolled about 95 kids this year in person, and another 40 or so in a remote reading program.
For elementary kids, the pandemic has delayed a “normal” transition into the social and academic structures of school. These students were in first or second grade when coronavirus hit, and the learning they’ve done over the past three school years has varied widely.
Butler said last year it was difficult for many young learners to make regular progress in reading, especially with so many students and staff repeatedly out for COVID-19 exposures, along with substitute shortages. Masks added an obstacle because they covered teachers’ mouths as they sounded out words.
“I can’t emphasize how hard that is for little people who may not be verbalizing letter sounds correctly — those are all just huge components to reading instruction,” she said.
Teachers were also busy doing COVID testing, adapting to virtual learning needs, and changing the way they interacted with students in their classrooms to maintain social distancing rules.
“It really has been a lot … I feel like I had to relearn my entire career I was trained in,” Casper said.
The summer program lasted just four weeks, not enough time to make up for the learning they have lost. Also, students are at the summer program — referred to by Casper as “camp” — for only a few hours each day, four days each week. To make the most of the time, they are grouped according to ability. The small classes allowed educators to give kids the individualized attention they need, Casper said.
Other summer elementary programs in the region have been even shorter and included fewer students — staffing is an ongoing challenge, and teachers and kids need some time off.
Kent Elementary School’s summer program enrolled about 25 kids, filling half of the available spots. It lasted for just two weeks, but principal Rosa Villarreal said kids could learn something new even in one day, especially when teachers are able to focus on their specific needs.
“When you have a very individualized plan for every student, they come to you and you have this chart … of exactly what they need, so I’m going to work on exactly what they need and I’m going to see progress,” she said.
Catherine Augustine, senior policy researcher at RAND, who worked on a study of voluntary summer school programs, agrees that having a focused curriculum is part of what makes an impact on students. But, she said, research shows the academic effects of summer programs are limited, and require high-quality teachers and curricula and consistent attendance over time.
“Summer programs — if done well — basically, kids learn the same amount that they would learn in the school year for the time period given,” she said. “So if you have a five-week summer program and it’s done well, kids are going to learn five weeks’ worth.”
Still, Augustine said it can be a useful tool to help make up for slowed academic progress during the pandemic. Augustine points out there are many other impacts, like the availability of meals and physical activity for kids who might otherwise be at home. She said more schools are offering blended programs, where kids do things like rock climbing, water polo or putting on a play, providing opportunities for students who might not be able to attend expensive summer camps; it’s not just sitting in a hot classroom.
Many schools, she said, are also building aspects of social-emotional learning into summer school, which can improve kids’ ability to regulate their emotions and encourage them to keep showing up.
“One of the things that we learned in our study is that if the type of program is a warm and welcoming place … they feel like they belong there, they feel like people want them there, they’re more likely to attend,” she said.
Local educators and school leaders say that’s a big focus for them, especially this year. In Lake Washington schools, social-emotional learning has been a core aspect of summer school, said Kelly Pease, director of intervention programs and literacy.
“It’s been really important to have our teachers start and end the day with social-emotional learning,” she said. “We want this summer-school teacher to be their person that they know believes in them and knows that they can do it — that they can gain the skills they need to become readers.”
Back at Canyon Creek, Casper started her afternoon STEM lesson with a feelings check — asking kids to rate how they’re doing on a one-through-five scale using their fingers. Part of ensuring kids are engaged and learning is making sure they feel safe, she said.
“Classroom community and social-emotional learning is like the number-one thing I promote in my classroom … last year there was a lot of anxiety to start the year,” she said.
Casper said she hopes to build more connections with families to ease their anxiety too. In Northshore, as in many other districts, some families elected to send their kids to school remotely, and those students will be returning to buildings for the first time this fall since the pandemic began.
She also plans to implement some of the summer-school STEM activities in her classes to help foster connections and teamwork skills. With the new school year right around the corner, and with masks off and students sitting in groups again, Casper said she’s feeling more optimistic every day.
