Nevo Einat
Department of Education, Western Galilee College, P.O. Box 2125, 24121 Acco, Israel.
Early Child Educ J. 2023 Feb 3:1-11. doi: 10.1007/s10643-023-01444-4.
Young children's language skills have a significant positive impact on their academic success throughout school, especially on reading and writing performance. The spread of COVID-19, which has resulted in lockdowns, fewer learning hours in kindergarten, and distance learning, might have affected children's exposure to learning opportunities. The aim of the current study was to compare language abilities (vocabulary and morphological awareness) of two groups of low SES kindergarteners, 110 children who attended seven kindergartens before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 54 children who attended eight kindergartens during the COVID-19 pandemic. While both groups followed the same educational program with the same teachers, the pre-COVID-19 group studied in kindergarten before the first wave of COVID-19 restrictions, in 2018-2019, and the mid-COVID-19 group, during the pandemic, in 2020. The results showed that the mid-COVID-19 group of children achieved lower scores on morphological awareness ( = 0.46 to = 1.19, = .006 to < .001), pointing to a negative developmental effect of COVID-19 on young children's language abilities. Educational implications of the results are discussed.
幼儿的语言技能对他们在整个学校期间的学业成功有着显著的积极影响，尤其是在阅读和写作表现方面。新冠疫情的蔓延导致了封锁、幼儿园学习时间减少以及远程学习，这可能影响了儿童接触学习机会的情况。本研究的目的是比较两组社会经济地位较低的幼儿园儿童的语言能力（词汇和形态意识），一组是110名在新冠疫情大流行之前就读于七所幼儿园的儿童，另一组是54名在新冠疫情大流行期间就读于八所幼儿园的儿童。虽然两组儿童都遵循相同的教育计划且由相同的教师授课，但新冠疫情前的那组儿童于2018 - 2019年在新冠疫情第一波限制措施之前在幼儿园学习，而新冠疫情中期的那组儿童于2020年在疫情期间学习。结果显示，新冠疫情中期的那组儿童在形态意识方面得分较低（= 0.46至 = 1.19，= 0.006至 < 0.001），这表明新冠疫情对幼儿的语言能力产生了负面的发展影响。文中讨论了该结果对教育的启示。
