Grade 4 cohorts affected by COVID-19 restrictions showed significant negative trends in verbal achievement for non-SEN and SEN-L-R students in all three domains, and for SEN-L-S students only in orthography¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In Grade 4, significant negative cohort trends in reading, listening, and orthography emerged for non-SEN and SEN-L-R students, while SEN-L-S students showed significant negative trends only in orthography. → Rebecca Schneider 2025

Evidence¶

Rebecca Schneider 2025¶

Rebecca Schneider, Sebastian Weirich, Poldi Kuhl, Stefan Schipolowski, Petra Stanat. (2025). COVID-19-related differences in students' verbal achievements: Comparisons of different cohorts of students with SEN based on large-scale assessment data from Germany. Learning and Instruction 100 (2025) 102228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102228

q3 · i? · associational · r3

Trend analysis of representative German large-scale assessment data comparing the 2016 and 2021 Grade 4 cohorts, with jackknife-2 standard errors and linking error. The article reports "significant negative trends in verbal achievements for non-SEN and SEN-L-R student cohorts in all three domains."

"In Grade 4, the results indicate significant negative trends in verbal achievements for non-SEN and SEN-L-R student cohorts in all three domains. For SEN-L-S students, mean values were also smaller at T2 than at T1, but significant group differences were only found for orthography."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The article concludes the negative cohort trends are likely in part attributable to pandemic-related schooling restrictions, while acknowledging attribution cannot be fully confirmed — a broader claim this one bears on
• In Grade 9, negative achievement trends emerged for non-SEN and SEN-L-R students in all domains, and SEN-L-R trends were always significantly more pronounced than for non-SEN peers — related
• Grade 4 pandemic learning conditions were significantly related to verbal achievement, with the teacher-rated functioning of distance learning relating more positively to achievement for non-SEN than SEN-L-S students — related
• In Grade 9, fewer problems during distance learning were associated with better verbal achievement, summer school attendance was associated with lower reading and listening achievement, and learning-condition relations did not differ between student groups — related
• During the pandemic, Grade 4 students with SEN-L experienced less favorable home learning environments and lower parental support than non-SEN students, while Grade 9 group differences were largely non-significant — related
• Students in The Netherlands lost on average 3.16 percentile points (0.08 SD) in achievement during the 8-week COVID-19 lockdown — related
• One year after emergency remote instruction, Norwegian second-graders showed no statistically significant differences from a pre-pandemic cohort in writing quality, handwriting fluency, or attitude toward writing — related
• The COVID-affected cohort caught up to the control cohort in reading fluency one year after the pandemic — reports the opposite