When Covid Hit, They Were in Diapers. So Why Are Kindergarteners Struggling?

livemint.com:

America’s youngest students entered school this year with weaker math and reading skills, compared with before the pandemic, according to new data that is surprising some educators. In kindergarten, students tested in 2023 were about 2 percentage points less likely to begin school at grade level in both math and reading, compared with 2019, data compiled by the testing company Curriculum Associates show. Scores also remained below prepandemic levels in the first and second grades.

The decline is concerning, say researchers who reviewed the results. Schools are struggling to help older students who fell behind since the pandemic and now face an additional, less-appreciated hurdle: catching up younger students, too. “We are still seeing sizable gaps in school readiness, in school performance for kids who weren’t even in school at the time of the pandemic," said Emily Oster, a Brown University researcher who has studied pandemic-era learning.

The analysis looks at test scores of over a million students who took a digital test called i-Ready last fall. The test asks young students to complete tasks such as matching a sound to a corresponding letter or identifying which picture of a shape—a circle, triangle or square—has four sides. Schools can purchase these exams as a way of monitoring student progress throughout the year.

Researchers at Curriculum Associates compiled nationally representative sets of students in kindergarten through second grade and compared scores in recent years to those in 2019, before the pandemic. Scores were lower almost across the board. Second-graders who took the test in 2021 and 2022 saw the worst declines, probably because they were in school during the height of the pandemic.