Supporting Pandemic-Era Students on the Bookmobile

Happy October, everyone! I hope your spooky season is off to a great start. I’m Grace, the new Program Coordinator at the Maryland Book Bank. I’m a lifelong Baltimore County resident and book lover, and I’m so excited for the opportunity to contribute to the Book Bank through our blog. 

We’re now over a month into school, and things at the MBB are ramping up! The Bookmobile is hitting the road several times a week, visiting schools and distributing thousands of books to students in and around Baltimore. 

Right now, many of the children entering grades Pre-K 4 and kindergarten are colloquially called pandemic babies - born during the height of COVID-19 in 2020, or slightly before. Recently, a Baltimore Banner article came out detailing the ways that our cute little pandemic babies are acclimating to going back to school. Spoiler alert: they’re dealing with some challenges. 

Beyond the obvious academic consequences of missing in-person school or daycare time, our students are showing signs of underdeveloped social emotional skills. The National Education Association defines social-emotional learning (SEL) as, “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand emotions, establish and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.” SEL is a natural and critical part of the school experience - learning to play with others, listen to educators, and exist in a group environment is imperative to lifetime success both inside and outside of the classroom. 

Because the pandemic is still relatively recent, there is a limited amount of academic research surrounding how COVID has affected social emotional development. However, conversations with parents and educators make it clear that there has been a significant shift in how confident students feel when interacting with their peers. A Gallup poll published earlier this year states that 45% of parents with school-aged children report their child’s social development being negatively impacted by COVID, and 42% say that their children have experienced negative mental health effects. 

While lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing felt like strange but necessary measures to most adults, they became the norm for children growing up during the pandemic. Therefore, social cues like facial expressions, personal space, and sharing physical objects are skills that many students have lost the opportunity to practice during these key years. 

At the MBB, we acknowledge that at third grade, there’s a transition from learning to read to reading to learn. This means that the stretch from kindergarten to third grade is critical for literacy. It also overlaps with what experts say is the foundational period for SEL, meaning students who missed in-person instruction during this time are put at a disadvantage. 

That’s where the Bookmobile comes in. Our visits to schools across the city encompass more than just handing out books to students while they stand in a line. They are immersive experiences where we intentionally emphasize book choice. This means that students from grades Pre-K through 3rd grade must line up, listen to our instructions, hold their MBB bags, wait their turn, and independently choose up to 10 books in the truck. This can be a new and stimulating experience for children - I often hear students who have just stepped onto the truck wondering aloud as they take in all of the colorful covers: 

“Wow, this is so cool!”

“How many books are on here?”

“The Bookmobile is better than Lululemon!” (Thanks to our Lead Program Coordinator, J, for giving me this gem). 

Social-emotional maturity in these highly stimulating moments is important to emphasize within our education system. It’s practicing how to handle these big emotions and feelings that makes the Bookmobile an asset for kids developing their social-emotional skills, and we see examples of this happening on every visit. Many of the students we serve express wanting to pick out books for their little siblings or cousins, which shows their innate levels of empathy and kindness. Students work on sharing and problem-solving, when, inevitably, two students want the same book. And, as students wait their turn to enter the truck, they’re practicing patience and understanding for their peers who each deserve time on the Bookmobile. 

As we continue navigating the long-term effects of the pandemic on our youngest readers, it’s more important than ever to create safe spaces where children can grow academically and personally. At the MBB, we want to build a literacy ecosystem filled with compassionate and socially-emotionally mature humans, and the Bookmobile is one small piece of the puzzle. Our Bookmobile Home Library Program allows us the chance to engage with pandemic babies, creating a positive experience that encourages both a love of books and an opportunity to practice SEL.