Father arrives home from deployment; meets his baby girlSpreading holiday cheer with Christmas tree lighting in Naples
Father arrives home from deployment; meets his baby girl A man returns home from deployment and gets to be a father. Only WINK News cameras were rolling as Peter Rosche held his baby girl Margo for the first time. It’s been a long 5-weeks for the Rosche family. Peter wasn’t able to be there for her birth because he had been on a US […]
NAPLES Spreading holiday cheer with Christmas tree lighting in Naples On Monday night, the sleigh bells were ringing in Naples, and the snow was falling; the 47th annual Christmas on Third Festival was kicking off.
Fort Myers Tip-Off brings marquee programs to SWFL The Fort Myers Tip-Off returns to Southwest Florida and brings marquee programs such as Michigan, Xavier, South Carolina and Virginia Tech.
NAPLES Super 8 in Naples to become apartments for local workers A Super 8 Motel in Naples will soon look slightly different; it will become an apartment building with fully furnished units.
Endangered Florida panther killed by vehicle on SR-29 SB in Collier County; 30th death in 2024 The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has announced the 30th Florida Panther death of 2024.
FORT MYERS BEACH Efforts to restore Fort Myers Beach underway The Fort Myers Beach coastline continues to feel the impacts of the recent storms. Crews working on the sand renourishment beach project have more than six miles of “Critically eroded beach” to restore.
More water headed into Caloosahatchee: What it means for our estuary Southwest Florida cringes every time the mention of releases from Lake Okeechobee comes up. There are concerns about what’s in the water and whether it will dirty our shoreline or even fuel blue-green algae blooms.
NAPLES Transforming animal care: how a $1.5M donation is helping SNIP Collier We are seeing the first major changes from a donation from Tom Golisano.
FORT MYERS BEACH “We did what we had to do” Fort Myers Beach mayor takes blame for loss of FEMA discount FEMA sent the town of Fort Myers Beach a letter explaining why they lost their flood insurance discount. One reason was not removing temporary trailers and containers from flood zones. Now, the mayor says to blame him for it.
NORTH FORT MYERS Suncoast Estates fatal shooting leaves community on edge A fatal shooting took place on Saturday at the Suncoast Estates in North Fort Myers, on Heck Drive, that left one man dead and another seriously injured.
SANIBEL Gulfshore Life Men and Women of the Year award honoree: James Evans The environment and economy are nearly synonymous in Southwest Florida, and while many people work to protect both, one man stands out and has made the environment his life’s work.
NORTH FORT MYERS Where did the Shell Factory animals go? With the closure of The Shell Factory in September, people have been wondering where the animals went.
NAPLES Naples man arrested on multiple violent charges including kidnapping and sexual battery A Naples man has been arrested on multiple violent charges stemming from an alleged case of kidnapping involving guns, drugs and sexual battery.
MATLACHA CW Fudge Factory in Matlacha getting back to business after storms Getting back to business is giving one island the boost they need before the holidays.
southwest florida How much will a Christmas tree cost in Southwest Florida this year? With Thanksgiving this week and Christmas around the corner, we want to know how tree prices are stacking up across Southwest Florida.
Father arrives home from deployment; meets his baby girl A man returns home from deployment and gets to be a father. Only WINK News cameras were rolling as Peter Rosche held his baby girl Margo for the first time. It’s been a long 5-weeks for the Rosche family. Peter wasn’t able to be there for her birth because he had been on a US […]
NAPLES Spreading holiday cheer with Christmas tree lighting in Naples On Monday night, the sleigh bells were ringing in Naples, and the snow was falling; the 47th annual Christmas on Third Festival was kicking off.
Fort Myers Tip-Off brings marquee programs to SWFL The Fort Myers Tip-Off returns to Southwest Florida and brings marquee programs such as Michigan, Xavier, South Carolina and Virginia Tech.
NAPLES Super 8 in Naples to become apartments for local workers A Super 8 Motel in Naples will soon look slightly different; it will become an apartment building with fully furnished units.
Endangered Florida panther killed by vehicle on SR-29 SB in Collier County; 30th death in 2024 The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has announced the 30th Florida Panther death of 2024.
FORT MYERS BEACH Efforts to restore Fort Myers Beach underway The Fort Myers Beach coastline continues to feel the impacts of the recent storms. Crews working on the sand renourishment beach project have more than six miles of “Critically eroded beach” to restore.
More water headed into Caloosahatchee: What it means for our estuary Southwest Florida cringes every time the mention of releases from Lake Okeechobee comes up. There are concerns about what’s in the water and whether it will dirty our shoreline or even fuel blue-green algae blooms.
NAPLES Transforming animal care: how a $1.5M donation is helping SNIP Collier We are seeing the first major changes from a donation from Tom Golisano.
FORT MYERS BEACH “We did what we had to do” Fort Myers Beach mayor takes blame for loss of FEMA discount FEMA sent the town of Fort Myers Beach a letter explaining why they lost their flood insurance discount. One reason was not removing temporary trailers and containers from flood zones. Now, the mayor says to blame him for it.
NORTH FORT MYERS Suncoast Estates fatal shooting leaves community on edge A fatal shooting took place on Saturday at the Suncoast Estates in North Fort Myers, on Heck Drive, that left one man dead and another seriously injured.
SANIBEL Gulfshore Life Men and Women of the Year award honoree: James Evans The environment and economy are nearly synonymous in Southwest Florida, and while many people work to protect both, one man stands out and has made the environment his life’s work.
NORTH FORT MYERS Where did the Shell Factory animals go? With the closure of The Shell Factory in September, people have been wondering where the animals went.
NAPLES Naples man arrested on multiple violent charges including kidnapping and sexual battery A Naples man has been arrested on multiple violent charges stemming from an alleged case of kidnapping involving guns, drugs and sexual battery.
MATLACHA CW Fudge Factory in Matlacha getting back to business after storms Getting back to business is giving one island the boost they need before the holidays.
southwest florida How much will a Christmas tree cost in Southwest Florida this year? With Thanksgiving this week and Christmas around the corner, we want to know how tree prices are stacking up across Southwest Florida.
An elementary school teacher walking his students into a classroom. Photo Credit: WINK They were the kids most disrupted by the pandemic, the ones who were still learning to write their names and tie their shoes when schools shut down in the spring of 2020. Now, they’re the big kids at elementary schools across the United States. Many still need profound help overcoming the effects of the pandemic. To catch up, schools have deployed a wide range of strategies. And among some incoming fourth-graders, there are encouraging signs of gains. But as this generation progresses, many will need extra reading support that schools are not as accustomed to providing for older students. Beyond third grade, fewer teachers each year know how to help students who are lacking key foundational reading skills, said Elizabeth Albro, an executive at the U.S. Department of Education’s independent research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences. “ Middle and high school teachers aren’t expecting to have to teach kids how to read,” Albro said. Nationally, students suffered deep learning setbacks in reading and math during the pandemic. Last year’s third-graders, the kids who were in kindergarten when the pandemic started, lost more ground in reading than kids in older grades and were slower to catch up. With federal pandemic relief money, school systems added class time, brought on tutors, trained teachers in phonics instruction and found other ways to offer extra support to struggling readers. But even after several years of recovery, an analysis of last year’s test scores by NWEA found that the average student would need the equivalent of 4.1 additional months of instruction to catch up to pre-COVID reading levels. The one bright spot was for incoming fourth-graders, who made above-average gains and would need about two months of additional reading instruction to catch up. Karyn Lewis, who leads a team of education policy researchers at NWEA, described them as “a little bit less worse off.” The school system in Niagara Falls, New York, is seeing similar results, said Marcia Capone, the district’s assessment administrator. The district brought on additional reading specialists, but Capone said it will take time to bring struggling students up to speed. “I do not believe it’s hopeless, but it’s not something that’s going to occur in, say, three years’ time,” Capone said. The problem for children who don’t master reading by third grade: School becomes that much harder in later grades, as reading becomes the foundation for everything else. Schools have plenty of experience with older students who struggle. Even before the pandemic, only about a third of fourth graders scored as proficient in reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “nation’s report card.” But the pandemic made it worse, particularly for low-income students and kids of color. So some schools are targeting some upper-grade students with the “ science of reading,” a push to embrace research-backed strategies for reading based on phonics. Many new laws endorsing the phonics-based approach target students beyond third grade, according to a July report from the nonpartisan Albert Shanker Institute. In Virginia, for instance, a law signed in March mandates extra help for struggling readers through eighth grade. It is one of the most aggressive efforts yet. “There’s an implicit recognition,” wrote the authors of the Shanker report, “that reading improvement needs to address a greater span of grades, and that reading difficulties do not necessarily end in 3rd grade.” That will require a major shift. Historically, phonics and help decoding words have gradually disappeared in the upper grades. Most English teachers at that level are no more prepared to teach a student to read than a math teacher would be, said Miah Daughtery, who advocates for effective literacy instruction for the NWEA research organization. “They’re prepared to teach text,” she said. “They’re prepared to teach literature, to analyze ideas, craft, story structure, make connections.” The federal pandemic relief money that bolstered many schools’ academic recovery efforts soon will run out, leaving some experts less optimistic. “We’re past the point where we’re likely to see a quick rebound,” said Dan Goldhaber, of the American Institutes for Research. Teachers are reporting it is taking more time to get through material, according to Tonya Perry, the vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Some school systems are turning to programs that break grade-level subject matter down into a variety of reading levels, so strong and weak readers can still learn the concepts, she said. “Now we have to spend more time building the foundation for what we’re asking students to do,” she said. Early in the pandemic, some students repeated a grade. But that was only a short-term solution, often taken reluctantly because of concerns about the effect on kids’ social lives and academic futures. By last year, grade retention numbers were trending downward again. One thing teachers can do is rely less on silent reading in class, and instead have small group activities in which strong and weak readers can be paired together, Daughtery said. Lewis, of the NWEA, said the takeaway should not be that the COVID kids are beyond help. “The message has to be: We’re doing the right things. We’re just not doing enough of it,” she said. “And we need to amp up and certainly not take our foot off the gas pedal anytime soon.”