LOS ANGELES — In Elissa Elder-Aga’s 25 years of teaching elementary school, reading aloud has always been her favorite classroom activity, a chance to captivate her audience and impart all sorts of lessons — from grammar to morals.
But after many tries in the fall, she reached a sobering conclusion: No matter how hard she tried, how many voices she used, she could not hold the attention of kindergartners while reading to them on Zoom.
“When it didn’t transfer, I was shocked,” she said. “I am used to 25 pairs of eyes on me.”
None of Ms. Elder-Aga’s kindergarten students have spent a day inside a classroom this school year, like a vast majority of the roughly 600,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest after New York City. And her struggles echo those voiced by teachers nationwide: Will all-remote instruction cause lower-income students and students of color to fall further behind their more affluent peers?
