麻豆影视

Twenty percent fewer kindergartners are on track to learn how to read than their peers were at this time last year, and most haven鈥檛 made much progress since the fall, according to new released Wednesday.

Thirty-seven percent of this year鈥檚 kindergartners are on-track in early reading skills, compared to 55 percent during the 2019-20 school year, just prior to the pandemic. Among first graders, 43 percent are on target, compared to 58 percent last year.

鈥淭eachers are working hard. They鈥檙e doing what they can,鈥� said Paul Gazzerro, director of data analysis at Amplify, a K-8 curriculum provider that collected the data from about 400,000 students across 1,400 schools in 41 states. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just not seeing the bounce back that we鈥檙e hoping for.鈥�

While all students are performing worse than they would have in a normal year, the gaps are especially pronounced for Black and Hispanic students. Compared to the prior year, 13 percent more white kindergarteners are considered at-risk, while for Black and Hispanic kindergarteners, the increases are 27 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

The results provide further evidence of the crushing effect school closures have had on young children鈥檚 early reading development 鈥� to the point they might not catch up, Gazzerro said. Amplify鈥檚 experts, however, said that while teachers tend to resort to lower-level instruction when children fall behind, it鈥檚 important to 鈥渄ouble down鈥� with grade-level material and that K-1 provides a key window to close the gap.

鈥淲e have a sort of once-in-a-generation chance to catch up these students,鈥� said Susan Lambert, Amplify鈥檚 chief academic officer for elementary humanities. She added that providing additional literacy instruction on top of what schools normally schedule could also address 鈥減ersistent gaps鈥� for students who were already struggling before the pandemic.

Leaders of the Kyrene School District, near Phoenix, Arizona, shared their results on Wednesday鈥檚 call with reporters, noting that their results mirror the national data, with more students in the 鈥渨ell below benchmark鈥� category than there would have been in a normal year.

鈥淥ne of my concerns is budgeting and how we鈥檙e going to fill in all these gaps,鈥� said Sharyn Weinheimer, the district鈥檚 academic intervention coordinator.

Teachers used the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills 鈥� or DIBELS 鈥� assessment to directly measure students鈥� reading, either in person or virtually, which eliminates the chance that students taking an assessment at home might cheat by looking up the answers or getting outside help.

Gazzerro said that they saw little difference between students who took the assessment remotely and those who took it in school, adding further confidence in the results.

This is the second time Amplify has released data showing the impact of the pandemic and school closures on students鈥� early reading development. In the fall, the company released from the beginning of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, showing that first graders experienced the greatest drop in scores beyond a normal 鈥渟ummer slide.鈥� The percentage of first graders considered 鈥渨ell-below benchmark鈥� increased from 27 percent in fall 2019 to 40 percent in fall 2020.

Reading expert Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi颅cago,said one advantage of using DIBELS is that it allows educators to examine the impact of the pandemic on an age group other assessments typically miss.

DIBELS, based at the University of Oregon, also has a large database for making comparisons between students tested in a normal year and those learning to read during the pandemic.

The schools in the study were more urban and served almost twice as many Hispanic and half as many white students than schools nationally.

DIBELS has come in for criticism from some reading experts because it focuses on a narrow aspect of learning to read. In the lower grades, for example, the assessment asks students to read and identify the sounds in nonsense wordslike 鈥渒ex鈥� or 鈥渓at.鈥� The method determines fluency 鈥� how quickly a student can identify a word.

Students, especially those with more advanced skills, sometimes struggle to make sense of the nonsense words, said Rachael Gabriel, an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut. They might turn them into the next closest real word and end up with lower scores, she said. The newest edition of the assessment includes revisions to prevent that confusion.

In the context of school closures, Gabriel said it鈥檚 likely that many鈥渂eginning readers missed a lot of beginning reading instruction along with opportunities for one-on-one feedback on their practice.鈥� But it鈥檚 also possible some students gained more skills than they would have in a normal year because of being exposed to more vocabulary at home with adults or having more time to read on their own more than they did in school, she said.

Michael Magee, CEO of Chiefs for Change, said he鈥檚 encouraged by Tennessee鈥檚 recent passage of a $160 million package that includes a phonics-based requiring schools to better identify and provide interventions for students lacking 鈥渇oundational鈥� skills.

鈥淥ne of the things that I think is clear a year into the pandemic is that teaching young children is very, very difficult online,鈥� he said, adding that the Tennessee legislation 鈥渃ombines real dollars and a clear point of view on how to teach reading with a practical understanding that this has been done virtually.鈥�

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