Assessing the links between risk factors, COVID-19 impacts, and reading skills

项目摘要 2019冠状病毒病大流行给世界各地的儿童带来了一系列突然而持续的压力因素。 美国，对他们的幸福、健康和学业成果产生了深远影响。的COVID-19 大流行导致前所未有的学校关闭，影响了近20年的学习。 7800万儿童（教科文组织，2021年）。学习阅读是至关重要的，因为阅读是生命的关键指标 收入、一般健康和福祉（OECD，2012）。在大流行之前，许多儿童已经 阅读困难的风险，只有35%的美国四年级学生表现出熟练的阅读水平 能力（NCES，2019）。这些阅读困难只会因COVID-19相关而被放大 影响。2020-2021学年的数据显示，儿童的阅读成绩变差，平均 年末阅读得分比大流行前水平低3到6个百分点（刘易斯等人，2021年）。的 该项目的总体目标是揭示COVID-19已经并将在短期内 以及对儿童阅读技能的长期影响。我们使用风险弹性模型作为框架 该项目认识到，儿童有不同程度的风险因素，使他们或多或少有可能 受COVID-19相关中断影响的弹性来源。我们将利用现有的活跃 国家双胞胎项目，国家双胞胎成就项目。NatPAT已经注册了一个 一个由1801对双胞胎组成的队列（并且还在增长），并一直在跟踪他们从小学到高中的进展。 每年三次收集他们的阅读进度监测数据。我们将继续招收双胞胎 进入NatPAT使用我们的成功和既定的招聘程序，并收集他们正在进行的阅读 数据此外，每年夏季的所有五年的补助金，任何双胞胎家庭的孩子在年级 幼儿园至6岁的儿童将收到一份调查问卷。该数据包将包含父母和孩子 通过问卷调查了解他们在上一学年与COVID-19影响有关的经历， 特别是他们的社会互动，健康和经济状况和变化，以及他们对数字化的体验， 技术.使用使我们能够理解因果关系的方法，我们处于独特的位置来解决 通过三个具体目标（SA）提出研究的总体目标。首先，我们将量化短期和 因COVID-19而失去社会资源对阅读技能的长期影响（SA 1）。二是 量化COVID-19相关健康和经济压力对阅读技能的短期和长期影响 （SA2）。最后，我们将量化数字鸿沟对阅读技能的短期和长期影响， COVID-19（SA3）。

PROJECT SUMMARY The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a sudden yet persisting set of stressors for children across the U.S., that have had far-reaching impacts on their wellbeing, health, and academic outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an unprecedented number of school closures that have impacted learning for nearly 78 million children (UNESCO, 2021). Learning to read is crucial, as reading is a critical indicator of lifetime earnings, general health, and wellbeing (OECD, 2012). Before the pandemic, many children were already at risk for reading difficulties, with only 35% of U.S. fourth graders showing proficient levels of reading ability (NCES, 2019). These reading difficulties have only been magnified by COVID-19 related impacts. Data from the 2020-2021 school year shows that children’s reading scores got worse, with average end of year reading scores 3 to 6 percentile points lower than pre-pandemic levels (Lewis et al., 2021). The overall goal of this project is to uncover the mechanisms through which COVID-19 has and will have short-term and long-term impacts on children’s reading skills. We use a risk-resilience model as the framework for this project, which recognizes children have varying levels of risk factors that make them more or less likely to be affected by COVID-19 related disruptions to their sources of resiliency. We will capitalize on an existing active national twin project, the National Project on Achievement in Twins (NatPAT). NatPAT has already enrolled a cohort of 1801 pairs of twins (and growing) and has been tracking them as they progress through elementary school, collecting their reading progress monitoring data three times a year. We will continue to enroll twins into NatPAT using our successful and established recruitment procedures, and collect their ongoing reading data. In addition, every summer for all five years of the grant, any twin family with children in grades kindergarten to 6 will be mailed a survey packet to their homes. This packet will contain a parent and child survey with questionnaires related to their experiences over the last school year related to COVID-19 impacts, specifically their social interactions, health and economic status and changes, and their experiences with digital technology. Using methods that allow us to understand causal relations, we are uniquely situated to address the overall goal of the proposed research through three specific aims (SA). First, we will quantify the short and long-term effects that losing social resources due to COVID-19 has on reading skills (SA1). Second, we will quantify the short and long-term effects of COVID-19 related health and economic stressors on reading skills (SA2). Finally, we will quantify the short and long-term effects of the digital-divide on reading skills during COVID-19 (SA3).