Impact of school closure due to COVID-19 on phonemic awareness of first-grade primary school children

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread school closures globally, impacting 1.6 billion students. While intended to curb virus transmission, these closures had detrimental effects on children's well-being, increasing psychological distress due to reduced social interaction and isolation. School closures disrupted the learning process, especially for lower-achieving students who rely heavily on teacher guidance and support. The shift to online learning environments weakened student-teacher interactions, leading to adaptation challenges for both students and teachers. The resulting learning loss is a significant concern, particularly in literacy, a foundational skill for future academic success. Phonemic awareness, a crucial component of literacy, involves understanding the sound structure of words and is a strong predictor of reading ability. While studies have examined the impact of short-term school closures on reading, the long-term effects on phonemic awareness, especially in contexts with prolonged closures, remain largely unexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the impact of the extended COVID-19 school closures in Turkey—one of the countries with the longest closures—on the phonemic awareness of first-grade students.

The literature extensively documents the importance of phonemic awareness in literacy development and reading comprehension. Studies highlight the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving phonemic awareness, especially for at-risk children. The quality of instruction, and the interaction between teachers and students, is crucial for these interventions to succeed. Existing research has explored the effects of shorter-term school closures on reading, but the impact of prolonged closures on phonemic awareness in primary school children has not been comprehensively studied. This research directly addresses this gap, focusing on the unique context of lengthy school closures in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research employed a two-study design. Study 1 focused on developing a reliable Turkish Phonemic Awareness Test (TPAT). The TPAT was created through four phases: (1) a literature review of phonemic awareness measurement, (2) expert review, (3) ethical approvals, and (4) data collection and analysis involving 231 first-grade students. Item analysis and internal reliability were assessed; the final TPAT demonstrated a high Cronbach's alpha of 0.94, indicating strong reliability. Study 2 investigated the impact of COVID-19 school closures on phonemic awareness. Two cohorts were compared: Cohort 1 (59 students) who received face-to-face instruction for over six months before closures, and Cohort 2 (193 students) who experienced significantly disrupted schooling. Data were collected online using Google Docs, including the TPAT and measures of socioeconomic status (SES) using the Hollingshead two-factor index, and family size (FS). Mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2015) examined the direct and indirect effects of school closures (represented by cohort membership), SES, and FS on phonemic awareness scores. The independent variable was school closure (Cohort 1 vs. Cohort 2), and the dependent variable was performance on the TPAT. SES and FS were included as mediator variables.

Study 1 established the TPAT as a reliable instrument for measuring phonemic awareness in Turkish first-graders. Study 2 revealed a significant negative effect of COVID-19 school closures on phonemic awareness. Cohort 2 (the post-pandemic group) showed substantially lower TPAT scores compared to Cohort 1 (the pre-pandemic group) (Table 2 & 3, β = -2.32, p < 0.01 for total effect; β = -2.19, p < 0.01 for direct effect). This result supports Hypothesis 1. The mediation analysis (Table 4) showed that neither SES nor family size significantly mediated the relationship between school closure and phonemic awareness scores, refuting Hypothesis 2. The model explains 44% of the variance in TPAT scores solely due to cohort membership (Table 3). Figure 1 visually represents the direct, indirect, and total effects. The findings demonstrate significant learning loss in phonemic awareness regardless of SES or family size.

The results indicate substantial learning loss in phonemic awareness among first-grade students due to prolonged COVID-19 school closures. This loss is attributed to the disruption of the crucial social interaction between students and teachers, essential for effective learning. The absence of face-to-face instruction prevented students from benefiting from direct teacher demonstrations, feedback, and support in a social learning environment. This aligns with Vygotskian theory emphasizing the role of social interaction and more knowledgeable others in learning. The significant difference between cohorts highlights the impact of the shift from classroom to online learning environments on the development of phonemic awareness. The lack of mediation by SES and family size indicates that the negative effects of school closures were widespread, affecting students across socioeconomic backgrounds and family structures. The study's findings have implications for educators and policymakers, emphasizing the importance of in-person instruction and robust support systems to mitigate learning loss.

Study 1 successfully validated the TPAT as a reliable measure of phonemic awareness in Turkish first graders. Study 2 demonstrated a substantial negative impact of prolonged COVID-19 school closures on phonemic awareness, independent of SES and family size. The disruption of in-person learning and the reduced student-teacher interaction significantly hindered the development of this crucial literacy skill. Future research should explore the long-term consequences of this learning loss and investigate interventions aimed at remediation. Further research should examine other potential mediating factors such as parent-child interactions, home learning environments, birth order, and executive functions. The impact of school closures on other academic domains should also be investigated.

The study's limitations include the reliance on online data collection, which may have introduced bias, and the cross-sectional nature of the design which prevents causal inferences about long-term effects. The sample was specific to Turkey, limiting the generalizability of findings to other contexts. The study focused on phonemic awareness; investigating the impact on other aspects of literacy and broader academic skills is warranted.