Julio Roque Buenrostro
Pronouns: He/His/Him
Research Mentor(s): Ioulia Kovelman, Associate Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 3 (1pm-1:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 20
Presenter: 3
Abstract
Changes in the school environment drastically affect children’s ability to learn. In the middle of March 2020, there was a nationwide closure of all schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This specific event caused most children to have a reduction in their classwork to accommodate for the new virtual school format. The decrease in schoolwork and the unstructured learning format can be compared to a similar educational phenomenon known as “summer slump”. Summer slump is known as the loss of student knowledge caused by the long summer break in between school years. In this study we are trying to explore how effective virtual learning is for the development of children’s reading skills. We are also looking at the impact of learning in a home setting, which is full of distractions . In order to assess this, we compared the results of children’s reading abilities before the pandemic and throughout it. We analyze the data of 69 participants. The study’s participants are from different backgrounds and are between the ages of six to ten. Each participant was recruited from southern Michigan and began online school at the end of September 2020.They were previously enrolled in another study where they were tested on their reading skills using Woodcock-Johnson IV. The raw scores from each participant were standardized to accurately compare the progress of the participants over time. We predict that there would be no change of a decrease in the children’s ability to read.The main purpose of this study was to bring awareness in the school systems and to the parents about the students progress in reading.
Authors: Julia Scavnicky
Research Method: Laboratory Research
