Modeling Reading Ability Gain in Kindergarten Children during COVID-19 School Closures

Abstract

By 15 April 2020, more than 1.5 billion students worldwide experienced school closures in an effort to slow the spread of a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), during the worldwide coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These interruptions in formal in-person educational experiences caused adverse consequences on school-age children's academic outcomes. Using a pre-existing database, we calculated changes in children's reading ability without formal education (i.e., the summer months). The resultant models predicted that the rate of reading ability gain in kindergarten children during COVID-19 school closures without formal in-person education will decrease 66% (2.46 vs. 7.17 points/100 days), compared to the business-as-usual scenario, resulting in a 31% less reading ability gain from 1 January 2020 to 1 September 2020. Additionally, the model predicted that kindergarten children who have books read to them daily would have 2.3 points less loss (42%) compared to those who do not, who are predicted to have a 5.6-point loss during the same time period. Even though reading books to children will not substitute the critical role of formal education in teaching children how to read, families, educators, and policy makers can promote this simple strategy to facilitate and maintain reading ability gain during school closures, which may be a common occurrence as nations see the public health benefits of physical distancing for the current and future pandemic outbreaks.

Keywords: COVID-19; book; children; education; mitigation; parent–child interaction; policy making; read to child; reading development; school closure.

Figure 1

The number densities of reading scale scores are shown as the colored hexagons. The red line represents the fitted reading scale score gain using all available data.

Figure 2

The predicted reading scale scores before, during, and after COVID-19 related school closures. The gray line in Panel A shows the anticipated reading scale score in the business-as-usual semesters with formal education. The dotted, green, orange, blue, and yellow lines represent the anticipated reading scale score (Panel A) and the score change (Panel B) with COVID-19 school closures of all children in the sample, children whose parents never read to them or read once or twice a week, three to six times a week, and every day, respectively. Panel A shows the predicted reading scale score changes over time during 2020 kindergarten spring semester, COVID-19 school closures, and 2020 1st grade fall semester. Panel B shows the predicted change of reading scale score since 16 March 2020 during school closures of children whose parents read to them at different frequencies.