Reading skills intervention during the Covid-19 pandemic

Ana Sucena,Cátia Marques,Ana Filipa Silva

doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01059-x

Ana Sucena, Cátia Marques + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01059-x

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Abstract

This paper diagnoses the reading skills at the onset of second grade after one (final) trimester of first grade, with online schooling as a result of COVID-19. It also describes and assesses the impact of a Reading Skills Consolidating Program conducted with second graders during the first weeks of the school year. This intervention program focuses on the promotion of letter-sound, phonemic awareness, decoding and spelling. The intervention was implemented with 446-second graders (224 boys and 208 girls), preceded and followed by a reading assessment. Results were analyzed with an intra (pre- and post-test) group design. A paired sample t-test indicated the presence of statistically significant differences between the two assessment moments, with higher values at the post-test. At the pre-test, there was a significantly higher than the normally expected percentage of students with a reading level on or below the 10th percentile along with a significantly worse performance among low Socioeconomic Status (SES) students. The post-test revealed a positive impact of the training program, as indicated by (i) a decrease to about half of the number of students at or below the 10th percentile, (ii) an increase of 20% of students with reading skills at or above the 30th percentile and (iii) the difference decrease in reading skills in a result of SES.

Highlights

This paper diagnoses the reading skills at the onset of second grade after one trimester of first grade, with online schooling as a result of COVID-19
We focus on an intervention program designed for training second graders reading skills right from the beginning of the school year, after one trimester of first grade with schools closed during the 2019–2020 school year
We can observe that 27% of the students had reading skills at or below P10, a percentage that increases to 45% if we set the cutoff point at results equal to or less than P30

Summary

Introduction

This paper diagnoses the reading skills at the onset of second grade after one (final) trimester of first grade, with online schooling as a result of COVID-19. The majority of schools provided some virtual instruction during the last months of school in 2019 (Lake and Dusseault, 2020), and the same scenario reoccurred at the beginning of 2021 Throughout this time, both educators and parents have been actively seeking the best way to continue formal education through remote or virtual learning (Daniel, 2020; Hodges et al, 2020; Reich et al, 2020). Differences in children’s reading activities during the pandemic might accelerate pre-existing social differences in children’s cognitive skills Based on these results, it is important to intervene as early as possible in order to help children that have seen their school year affected by the pandemic. When these difficulties are identified early and are accompanied by a prompt and intensive intervention, the likelihood of reversing trajectories is very high (Hall and Burns, 2018; Lyytinen, 2008)

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