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Learning in the Time of COVID-19

During the COVID-19 crisis, millions of children who are homeless & food insecure can't access essential services or learning. Here are lists of useful resources for teachers and parents, including some for English Learners and students with exceptional needs. We will be updating this list with additional resources as we learn more about this shifting situation.

This list was originally posted in a Forbes commentary by LPI President Linda Darling-Hammond.

Jump to: Online Learning Resources for Educators | Online Learning Resources for Parents | Social-Emotional Learning | Supporting Students With Exceptional Needs | Supporting English Learners

Online Learning Resources for Educators

Online Learning Resources for Parents

  • The Barbara Bush Foundation for Literacy Educational Toolkit for At-Home Learning offers free online resources that can help children continue to build critical literacy skills while schools are closed.
  • The U.S. Department of Education’s Talk, Read, and Sing Together Every Day! Tip Sheets for Families, Caregivers and Early Learning Educators provide families, caregivers and early educators with research-based tips for talking, reading, and singing with young children every day beginning from birth.
  • NPR has created this Just For Kids: A Comic Exploring the New Coronavirus to help demystify the virus and to teach children how to protect themselves. The online version includes a print-and-fold zine version.
  • Storyline Online is produced by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television’s SAG-AFTRA Foundation as part of its children’s literacy program. The site streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Viola Davis, Chris Pine, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, James Earl Jones, Betty White and others.
  • The New York Times is hosting and continuously updating this page on ideas for working with content from the Times and other reliable sources.

Social-Emotional Learning

  • The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning offers suggestions for educators on addressing the social and emotional needs of students. 
  • In a Learning Is Social, Emotional and Academic blog, Lorea Martinez offers parents homeschooling tips to ensure social emotional learning is a part of student learning.
  • Sanford Harmony, a Pre-K-6 research-based social emotional learning program, promotes positive peer relations among students through lessons and activities that encourage communication, collaboration, and mutual respect. These free resources can be used by parents at home to help children express feelings and solve problems together.
  • The National Association of School Psychiatrists has developed a set of materials for schools and districts to support for their students and community around COVID-19 and pandemics. 

Supporting Students With Exceptional Needs

Supporting English Learners

Featured Resources

empty school hallway
Blog

Commentary: Learning In The Time Of COVID-19

Mar 19 2020
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During the COVID-19 crisis, millions of children who are homeless and food insecure can't access essential services or learning. But people are coming together to provide learning opportunities and to care for our students. 
Educating the Whole Child: Improving School Climate to Support Student Success
Report

Educating the Whole Child: Improving School Climate to Support Student Success

Sep 07 2018
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Each year in the United States, 46 million children are exposed to violence, crime, abuse, homelessness, or food insecurity—experiences that can affect attention, learning, and behavior. This report looks at neuroscience, science of learning, and child development research on whole child approaches to education that improve learning for all students, especially those living with trauma.
Education and the Path to One Nation, Indivisible
Brief

Education and the Path to One Nation, Indivisible

Feb 27 2018
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In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) to examine racial division and disparities in the United States. In 1968, the Kerner Commission released a report concluding that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Without major social changes, the Commission warned, the U.S. faced a “system of apartheid” in its major cities. In 2018, 50 years after the report was issued, that prediction characterizes most of our large urban areas, where intensifying segregation and concentrated poverty have collided with disparities in school funding to reinforce educational inequality.