Reading levels in early elementary school grades have remained fairly stagnant since the COVID-19 pandemic, a national education assessment and research organization revealed this week.
A new policy brief from NWEA, formerly the Northwest Evaluation Association, says first- and second-grade reading achievement “remains stalled with little rebounding,” while math achievement in those grades showed modest recovery since 2021, and kindergarten levels in both subject areas have remained mostly steady.
The findings were pulled from NWEA’s ongoing analysis of K-8 students across 30,000 schools dating back to 2017.
For reading, these early grade patterns closely resemble those recently observed in grades 3-8. Current first- and second graders were “day-care age” during the most disruptive periods of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, yet their achievement mirrors that of older students who experienced those disruptions earlier in their elementary school careers. This suggests broader, longer-lasting system challenges, as opposed to interruptions to a single cohort, said Megan Kuhfeld, NWEA’s data analytics director….
Years After the Pandemic, Younger Students Still Have Far to Go in Reading, Report Says
