Invisible Children

This week I have been given the opportunity to visit classrooms across the nation. As I look out at the faces of children in these classrooms, I wonder about the children that are missing. A timely report by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), “Present Engaged and Accounted For, The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades” was issued this month. This report seeks to draw attention to the often invisible issue of school absence in the early grades. The authors write, “Common sense and research suggests that attending school regularly is important to ensuring children develop a strong foundation for subsequent learning.” Children who are absent are missing the instruction that, for many, will make the difference between reading at grade level and falling behind. We are all familiar with the statistics; many of the nation’s children are not reading on grade level by third grade, and beyond third grade the numbers continue to fall. Earlier this year I authored an article for Education Week about how to improve reading levels for elementary school children. However, despite two decades of efforts to improve reading levels, literacy is still the issue in many schools across the nation. The NCCP report suggests that chronic early absence is a substantial factor contributing to the nation’s literacy problem. “During the early elementary years, children are gaining basic…academic skills critical to ongoing academic success.” Moreover, “the educational experiences of children who attend school regularly can be diminished when teachers must divert their attention to meet…the needs of children who miss substantial amounts of school.”

 But what do children, particularly children learning to read, really miss when they are absent? As I pondered this question, I stumbled across a letter to parents written by a teacher, Rebecca Hathaway. She lets parents know just what their students miss when they are absent. Ms. Hathaway writes, “It’s Monday morning, and students are writing about their weekends. While writing a weekend story is a part of our regular Monday routine, this assignment is not just an opportunity to practice a learned skill. Today I introduce multiple paragraphing. Moving from one paragraph to several paragraphs within a story is a complicated skill for third graders, and one that requires careful instruction.” She goes on to explain everything students will miss by not coming to school for just one day.

 As I travel the country, I often observe students struggling to learn to read. Each day I wonder how the students who are absent are ever going to catch up. We know what happens when they don’t – drop-out rates can be closely correlated to reading levels, and in some states future prison populations are predicted using third grade reading scores. While attendance is not a guarantee that children will learn to read, our children are guaranteed to fail if they do not show up each day ready to learn.