Children Hit Hardest by the Pandemic Are Now the Big Kids at School. Many Still Need Reading Help

This non-fiction, third-person report by Heather Hollingsworth, “Children Hit Hardest by the Pandemic Are Now the Big Kids at School. Many Still Need Reading Help,” explores the impact of COVID-19 on children’s literacy development. Hollingsworth documents how the pandemic disrupted essential reading and math skills, causing significant learning setbacks—particularly for kindergarteners who are now third graders, showing greater reading losses and slower recovery than older students. Schools have used federal pandemic relief funds to extend instruction time, hire tutors, and train teachers in phonics-based methods to support struggling readers. The article emphasizes that this problem is especially severe among low-income students and children of color. It also notes challenges middle and high school teachers face in teaching reading fundamentals and highlights research from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), which advocates for moving away from silent reading towards small group instruction mixing strong and weak readers.

Hollingsworth’s article situates these educational disruptions within broader COVID-19 storytelling by illustrating how the pandemic has caused lasting setbacks requiring targeted, research-based interventions. The piece underscores that recovery is a prolonged process that exposes and exacerbates systemic inequities in education. Focusing on literacy and phonics instruction, the article contributes to pandemic narratives that extend beyond health impacts to include social and educational fallout. The shift in pedagogy reflects wider efforts to address pandemic-induced learning loss and supports a more equitable approach to student recovery.