More Than a Third of Children Who Started School During Coronavirus Have Problem Reading
More than one-in-three students who started school during coronavirus pandemic restrictions are reading far below grade level and have little chance of recovering by the end of the school year.
According to a study by Amplify, a curriculum and assessment group, students in kindergarten through third grade are struggling with reading to such a degree that many require “intensive” intervention in order to recover from losses due to the pandemic.
The study used data derived from Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessments, a common diagnostic test that looks for indicators such as phonemic awareness, comprehension, alphabetic principle, and fluency. It compiled data from more than 1,300 schools in 37 states from 2019 to 2022.
While there has been some improvement from the 2020-2021 school year, the 2021-2022 school year, students are still well below pre-pandemic reading readiness. The results also show that earlier grade levels have the students least prepared relative to their grade level’s benchmark standards.
Only 47 percent of kindergartners are reading at grade level now compared to 55 percent pre-pandemic. That number can be coupled with the fact that 37 percent of kindergartners are considered “at-risk readers” who read well below their grade level, compared to only 29 percent pre-pandemic. “At-risk readers” are considered to only have a 20 percent chance of making up the gap by the end of the school year. (Read more from “More Than a Third of Children Who Started School During Coronavirus Have Problem Reading” HERE)
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