Dive Brief:
- Children who were of daycare age during the height of the pandemic are now in 1st and 2nd grade — and they're showing academic lags similar to those of older students who experienced prolonged learning disruption during the health crisis, according to findings released Tuesday by NWEA, a research and assessment company.
- In math, 1st and 2nd graders are showing steady recovery since pandemic-era lows, but overall achievement in the subject remains down. However, reading achievement for these grades remains flat, with little evidence of rebounding to pre-COVID performance.
- The data suggests the pandemic's negative impact on learning may reach beyond students who were in school at the time, extending to children who weren't yet in the K-12 system when the pandemic began in 2020.
Dive Insight:
“While these youngest elementary students were just infants and toddlers when COVID-19 hit, this stagnation in reading and uneven recovery in math is an indicator of something bigger impacting our education system that extends beyond one cohort or a moment in time,” said Megan Kuhfeld, director of data analytics and growth modeling at NWEA, in a March 10 statement.
The achievement lags in this cohort suggest that "current shortfalls reflect broader, longer-lasting system-level challenges" said NWEA in its press release.
Societal shifts in how students spend time out of school — such as spending less time reading for fun at home and more time on screens — are also likely to continue hindering students’ reading development as they move through school, Kuhfeld said in an email to K-12 Dive.
However, babies born during the pandemic who entered the K-12 system this fall and were in kindergarten in spring 2025 have steady achievement levels in both math and reading compared to before and after the pandemic.
While a variety of test results have pointed to learning lags among grades 3-8 and older, recent studies have also uncovered COVID-19’s impact on younger students.
With many parents red-shirting their children during the health crisis, some education experts predicted a “kindergarten bubble” of 4- to 6-year-olds who they expected to be more unprepared for formal schooling immediately following the pandemic.
A study released in 2024 by Curriculum Associates, the assessment company behind the i-Ready Diagnostic tool, showed that elementary schoolchildren, who were ages 1-4 in spring 2020 when COVID-19 shut down schools and early learning programs, continued to show a lack of school readiness in math and reading skills.
"In a single elementary school classroom, teachers are expected to support students who are far below grade level, those who are on-track, and others who are already advanced for their grade level," said Kuhfeld in an email to K-12 Dive. "When a larger number of students are far below grade level, the number of students needing extra support grows and the ability to differentiate instruction becomes more challenging."
The latest NWEA report recommends that state and district leaders consider:
- What system-level conditions are possibly contributing to ongoing stagnation in reading outcomes.
- How recovery efforts are addressing the persistent shortfall in reading that appears across grade levels, including for students who were not yet in K-12 during the height of the pandemic.
- What differences exist between support for math and reading recovery, considering students are showing rebounds in math but not reading.
"Many school districts are facing challenging budget forecasts, but these results point to the need for continued attention and resources put towards ensuring all students are able to develop foundational early numeracy and literacy skills," said Kuhfeld.
