Children hit hardest by the pandemic are now the big kids at school. Many still need reading help

, the ones who were still learning to write their names and tie their shoes when schools shut down in the spring of 2020.

But even after several years of recovery, an analysis of last year's test scores by NWEA found that the average student would need the equivalent of 4.1 additional months of instruction to catch up to pre-COVID reading levels. The problem for children who don't master reading by third grade: School becomes that much harder in later grades, as reading becomes the foundation for everything else.

"There's an implicit recognition," wrote the authors of the Shanker report, "that reading improvement needs to address a greater span of grades, and that reading difficulties do not necessarily end in 3rd grade."

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