When Peggy Hoover took her son, Bryce, to kindergarten in 2021, he struggled. It was the first time he was stepping into a classroom after his preschool shut down the year before because of COVID, and he was leaving his mom who he had spent the past year at home with.
His Steel Valley teachers distracted him as he entered the school building. And they worked with Bryce throughout the day to ensure he stayed for the entire kindergarten session.
But as he got further into his first year of school, Bryce fell behind on things such as writing letters and mastering writing his name, things he would have learned in preschool.
“It was rough,” Ms. Hoover, 39, of Munhall, said of Bryce starting kindergarten. “We had some bad days, we had some good days. He missed me a lot.”
But Bryce isn’t alone. Some of the country’s youngest learners struggled educationally — especially in reading and math — during the pandemic and felt social-emotional impacts as they were forced into online learning or missed crucial stepping stones learned during preschool.
“The impact of the pandemic is lasting way longer than we expected unfortunately,” said Kristen Huff, vice president for assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, a Massachusetts-based company that provides instructional materials, assessments and data management tools to K-12 teachers. “If you don’t get the foundational skills, whether in reading or math, the impact is not only long-term but it compounds over time as you move through the grades.”
Those findings were detailed in a June Curriculum Associates report, which looked at how students entering kindergarten through fourth grade during the 2021-22 school year performed in reading and math and compared it against kids who started the same grades before the pandemic.
Students who started kindergarten in 2021-22 saw similar reading scores to those who started kindergarten before the pandemic. But as they moved up in grades, those scores began to lag. Kids who started first and second grade in 2021-22 were largely behind in reading from the start, something that has lasted through the 2023-24 school year. And children who began third and fourth grade during COVID were behind at first, but scores have begun to rebound.
Math scores were worse. Kindergarteners, first, second and third graders saw slightly lower scores starting in 2021-22. But those continued to decrease over the years and have not yet rebounded. Fourth graders saw bigger impacts, largely falling behind starting in 2021-22 and staying that way through 2023-24.
Working for a rebound
Officials are also seeing developmental issues such as holding a pencil, Melissa Brown, a psychologist with UPMC Western Behavioral Health, said. Other issues, Ms. Brown said, include regulating emotions, leading at times to children hitting and throwing things.
Now, both parents and school districts are working to help students rebound from the pandemic.
At South Allegheny, district leaders took a three-pronged approach: academic proficiency, student supports and attendance after seeing grades fall during COVID.
In the 2018-19 school year, English language arts scores on the standardized PSSAs hovered around 69% for third graders, 60% for fourth graders and 58% for fifth graders, Michael Calvert, South Allegheny’s director of elementary education, said. By 2020-21, those scores dropped to 55% in third grade, 48% in fourth and 43% in fifth grade. At the beginning of those same years, 70% of third graders were proficient in math. By 2020-21 that fell to 34%.
In response, South Allegheny — a district of 1,400 students, almost 67% of whom are economically disadvantaged — implemented 120 minutes of reading each day for K-5 students, broken into 40 minute chunks, and 80 minute math blocks. There is also a 40 minute “What I Need” period to work with students on subject areas where they’re struggling. They also hired a full-time counselor, social worker and school psychologist and created a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports system to build an inclusive school environment where students feel welcomed and cared for.
And so far, Mr. Calvert said, grades are beginning to slowly rebound.
“It takes time and we’re going to continue to struggle a little bit and push forward and stay the course,” Mr. Calvert said.
For South Allegheny parent and district reading specialist Rebecca Lombardo, getting her three kids through the pandemic was a team effort. When shutdowns first went into effect, Gino, now an 11-year-old fifth grader, was in kindergarten. Lucia, now a 9-year-old fourth grader, was in preschool and Constantine, a 7-year-old second grader, had not yet started school.
Her Port Vue home was converted to include study stations complete with dividers to limit distractions. Because both she and her husband work fulltime, Ms. Lombardo’s mother would help the kids as they completed online learning.
But the work paid off. Ms. Lombardo said her children did not experience pandemic-related learning loss or social-emotional problems — something she attributed to her children being at home with each other during school closures. She also said South Allegheny in response to the pandemic “really devoted a lot of time to trying to bridge” gaps for students.
“It was like teamwork between me and the school, which is like what it is when you're brick and mortar, but I do think parents had to step up a little bit more with this pandemic,” Ms. Lombardo said. “Especially working parents. It was hard.”
At Woodland Hills — which educates 3,200 students, 76% of whom are economically disadvantaged — students who had virtual instruction for the majority of the kindergarten years are struggling to make up ground more than their peers across the board, Eddie Willson, assistant to the superintendent, said. The district put extra supports in place for those students with the help of benchmark data to identify areas where students are struggling.
“We've still got a long way to go and a lot of ground to make up across the board,” Mr. Willson said. “You know, we're not incredibly happy with all of our scores, but that grade level that we really targeted assistance on seems to be making up ground faster than the other grades, which is showing us that interventions are hopefully working.”
Bringing in extra support
Christine Ruffing was a kindergarten teacher at Steel Valley’s Park Elementary when the pandemic hit. She quickly saw that students who were engaged with online learning did well. But those who struggled to get online and work from home had a learning gap.
Steel Valley has 1,400 students, 69% of whom are economically disadvantaged.
According to Tom Shaughnessy, principal at Park Elementary, the district anticipated “there was going to be a big dip in their academic performance” when kids returned to in-person learning so “we knew we were gonna have to make some pretty big changes.”
That meant taking it back to paper and pencils to help build students’ fine motor skills after years of working on computers. Teachers checked in with students to see how they were feeling that day. Steel Valley also brought in counselors to work with students and families, as well as coaches to help bolster math and reading skills.
“It's important that people are really just understanding that even though the academics might not be where we want them to be, if the basic needs of kids aren't met, the academics aren't going to matter,” Kim Winters, principal of Barrett Elementary in Steel Valley. “They're never going to get better if we don't give them what they need to be successful just as a human being.”
Those supports were felt by Ms. Hoover.
Steel Valley worked with Bryce, sending him to a reading specialist and to speech. At home, Ms. Hoover used workbooks over the summer with Bryce and her oldest, Hunter, who was in second grade in 2021. They now also have 30 minutes of required reading time each day.
Bryce, now an 8-year-old third grader, graduated from speech classes last year. And Hunter, now a 10-year-old fifth grader, has seen drastic improvements in his benchmark tests.
“We all work together,” Ms. Hoover said, “and as long as you as a parent worked with your kid and worked with the school, they did whatever you needed them to do.”
First Published: November 29, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: December 2, 2024, 2:37 p.m.
