Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on pre-reading skills among Portuguese children

Frontiers in Education

Education

Sónia Frota¹  Marisa G. Filipe² 

[1]Center of Linguistics, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

[2]null

关键词: pre-reading skills;    phonological awareness;    rapid automatized naming;    preschool;    COVID-19;   

DOI  :  10.3389/feduc.2023.1282227

 received in 2023-08-23, accepted in 2023-09-06,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

IntroductionAlthough it could be expected that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted preschool children’s abilities associated with later reading skills, research has not yet addressed the topic. Our study focused on the impact of the pandemic on phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) abilities that have been shown to reliably predict later reading skills.MethodsA cohort of 82 typically developing European Portuguese children (mean age = 64.5 months, SD = 3.47), enrolled in their last year of preschool and dramatically affected by COVID-19 lockdowns, were assessed for PA and RAN skills.ResultsCompared to pre-pandemic normative data, our findings revealed lower average scores on the PA subtest (t = −10.85; p < 0.001; d = 1.62) and comparable average scores on the RAN task. A year later, the same group of children still exhibited lower scores on PA skills (t = 2.87; p = 0.005; d = 0.41). Furthermore, their word reading performance was also below the expected according to the normative pre-pandemic dataset (t = −2.69; p = 0.008; d = 0.29). A further comparison between the preschoolers affected by the pandemic and a post-pandemic cohort from the same school setting (N = 25; mean age = 72.08 months, SD = 3.30) highlighted that the pandemic cohort had lower PA average scores than their post-pandemic peers (t = 12.27; p < 0.001; d = 2.66).DiscussionThese findings underscore the enduring impact of disrupted learning environments on pre-reading abilities among preschoolers. Consequently, they contribute to further the understanding of the effects of the pandemic on the learning progress of young children.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Filipe and Frota.