The Lasting Educational Impact of COVID-19 on America’s Youngest Students
A Generation Shaped by Crisis Before Setting Foot in School
The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented disruptions across every aspect of society, but perhaps nowhere are its lingering effects more concerning than in our elementary schools. The children who are currently navigating first and second grade were either infants or not yet born when the virus first emerged in early 2020. These youngsters never experienced the sudden shift to remote learning or the chaos of classroom closures firsthand, yet they’re bearing the educational consequences nonetheless. As researchers begin analyzing how these formative pandemic years have influenced their development, a troubling pattern is emerging that suggests the crisis’s impact extends far deeper than initially anticipated.
According to a comprehensive report released by the National Perspective Education Assessment and Research Group (NWEA), today’s first and second graders are significantly underperforming compared to their pre-pandemic peers in both mathematics and reading assessments. While there’s a silver lining in the gradual improvement of math scores year over year, reading performance has remained frustratingly stagnant, stuck at levels last seen in spring 2021 when the first full pandemic school year was concluding. This persistent achievement gap raises profound questions about what exactly happened during those critical early years of these children’s lives and why traditional recovery efforts haven’t produced the expected results in literacy development.
Beyond Classroom Disruption: A Systemic Educational Challenge
What makes this situation particularly perplexing to educators and researchers is that these young students didn’t experience the direct classroom disruptions that affected their older counterparts. They weren’t pulled from in-person learning and forced into awkward Zoom sessions. They didn’t lose crucial instructional time or face-to-face interaction with teachers during their formal education years. Yet they’re struggling academically in ways that suggest something more fundamental has shifted. Megan Kuhfeld, a leading researcher at NWEA, emphasizes that the data points toward systemic changes occurring both within schools and throughout broader society. “We can’t pinpoint one specific cause,” she explains, highlighting the complexity of the challenge facing educators today.
The pandemic’s devastating effects on older students are well-documented and easier to understand. When COVID-19 forced schools to close their doors, children lost invaluable face-to-face instructional time with their teachers. The isolation of lockdowns took a severe toll on students’ mental health, while many families endured economic hardships that compounded the educational challenges. School attendance became optional or impossible for some students, creating learning gaps that widened with each passing month. In response, the federal government allocated billions of dollars to school districts specifically to help students recover lost ground, though these interventions have produced mixed and often disappointing results. National Assessment of Educational Progress data from 2024 shows that while fourth and eighth graders saw some improvement in math scores, their reading abilities continued declining, mirroring the pattern observed in younger students.
Understanding the Depth of Academic Disruption in Early Learners
Because standardized testing for very young children is less common than for older students, the NWEA report provides rare and valuable insights into just how deeply the pandemic disrupted academic development in the earliest grades. The research is based on comprehensive assessments administered to students during the 2024-25 school year, offering a current snapshot of where these children stand academically. Interestingly, kindergarten scores in both math and science have remained relatively stable throughout the pandemic period, suggesting that the formal introduction to academic subjects hasn’t been significantly compromised at the earliest level. However, once students progress to first and second grade, the troubling patterns become apparent.
These young elementary students are following a similar trajectory to their older peers, with math and reading scores falling short of what was considered normal before the pandemic struck. While math performance shows gradual improvement, suggesting that numerical concepts are being successfully taught and retained, reading scores tell a different and more concerning story. Literacy development has essentially flatlined since spring 2021, showing no meaningful improvement despite the passage of time and the return to normal classroom instruction. This stagnation in reading ability is particularly alarming because literacy skills form the foundation for virtually all future academic success, affecting a student’s ability to learn across every subject area.
The Hidden Factors Affecting Early Literacy Development
Researchers are working to understand exactly what’s driving these persistently low reading scores, and emerging evidence points toward changes in home environments and early childhood experiences. Kuhfeld highlights particularly concerning data showing that fewer parents are reading to their young children, a simple but powerful activity that research has consistently shown significantly boosts literacy development. A 2024 survey conducted among parents in the United Kingdom revealed that less than half of children under age five were being read to regularly—a shocking 20-percentage-point decline from just twelve years earlier. While this data comes from across the Atlantic, American educators report observing similar trends in their own communities.
Amy LaDue, Associate Superintendent of Minnetonka Public Schools located outside Minneapolis, offers additional perspective on factors beyond the classroom that may be hindering literacy development. During the pandemic lockdowns, she explains, many young children were confined to their homes for extended periods. They missed out on developmentally crucial experiences like visiting museums, playing at parks, and most importantly, interacting with other children their age. These activities, which might seem purely recreational, actually play a vital role in language acquisition and literacy development. Children learn vocabulary, narrative structure, and communication skills through these everyday experiences. LaDue believes this experiential deficit continues to hamper children’s development, particularly affecting those from low-income families who may have fewer opportunities for enriching activities even under normal circumstances. “These kids weren’t in school when the pandemic happened, but they were in early childhood and preschool,” LaDue explains. “Their opportunities to have those experiences outside of their home that build literacy skills and to apply them with peers probably were impacted because they were home.”
Innovative Interventions and Long-Term Solutions
In response to these challenges, schools and districts are implementing targeted interventions while also recognizing the limitations of what they can control. In Minnetonka Public Schools, educators report that while reading scores initially dropped during the pandemic, they have successfully recovered to pre-pandemic levels through focused instruction. Teachers have increased their emphasis on phonics-based reading instruction and implemented more frequent literacy assessments to identify struggling students early. When gaps are identified, students receive individualized support targeting their specific areas of difficulty. For example, a student who struggles with reading fluency might be paired with a classmate for practice reading aloud, providing both skill development and the social interaction that supports learning.
Beyond individual school interventions, a growing number of states and municipalities are making substantial investments in pre-kindergarten programs, recognizing that early intervention offers the best hope for addressing literacy challenges before they become entrenched. California has implemented universal pre-kindergarten, making early education accessible to all families regardless of income. New York City is taking an even more ambitious approach, expanding its pre-kindergarten program to include 2-year-olds, giving toddlers an early foundation in learning and socialization. New Mexico has made child care essentially free for nearly all families, removing financial barriers that might prevent children from accessing these crucial early learning environments. These initiatives represent a recognition that addressing the pandemic’s educational legacy requires thinking beyond traditional K-12 schooling to encompass the critical early years when language and literacy foundations are established. As researchers continue studying this unique cohort of pandemic-era children, their findings will undoubtedly shape educational policy and practice for years to come, as we work to ensure that the youngest victims of COVID-19’s disruption aren’t permanently disadvantaged by circumstances entirely beyond their control.
