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Stanford researchers find that reading fluency among second- and third-graders in the U.S. is roughly 30 percent behind what would be expected in a typical year.
A study by researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) provides new evidence about the pandemic’s impact on learning among students in the earliest grades, showing distinct changes in the growth of basic reading skills during different time periods over the past year.
Ben Domingue (Image credit: Courtesy Graduate School of Education)
Results from a reading assessment given to first- through fourth-graders nationwide show that the students’ development of oral reading fluency – the ability to quickly and accurately read aloud – largely stopped in spring 2020 after the abrupt school closures brought on by COVID-19. Gains in these skills were stronger in fall 2020, but not enough to recoup the loss students experienced in the spring.
“It seems that these students, in general, didn’t develop any reading skills during the spring – growth stalled when schooling was interrupted and remained stagnant through the summer,” said Ben Domingue , an assistant professor at Stanford GSE and first author on the study , which was released by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a nonpartisan research network housed at Stanford.
“It picked up in the fall, which is a testament to the work that educators did in preparing for the new school year and their creativity in coming up with ways to teach,” Domingue said. “But that growth was not robust enough to make up for the gaps from the spring.”
Second- and third-graders were most affected, the study found. Overall, students’ reading fluency in second and third grade is now approximately 30 percent behind what would be expected in a typical year.
Reading fluency is fundamental for academic development more broadly, the researchers said, because problems with this skill can interfere with students’ ability to learn other subjects as they make their way through later grades.
“Reading is kind of a gateway to the development of academic skills across all disciplines,” said Domingue. “It’s a key that opens all of the doors. If a kid can’t read effectively by third grade or so, they’re unlikely to be able to access content in their other courses.”
The new study differs from previous research on COVID-19 learning loss in that students’ skills were measured periodically throughout the year, making it possible to assess growth at different stages of the pandemic.
“Most studies on learning loss so far have looked at fall-to-fall changes to show how students have been affected by COVID,” said Domingue. “But just measuring the cumulative effect doesn’t help us understand what was going on between those two time points. There were a lot of changes in what school looked like during different periods between those two points, and it seemed likely there would be some differences in the patterns of learning.”
The study’s focus on students in early elementary grades also distinguishes it from others on learning growth and loss, which typically look at the impact on students in grades 3 through 8 – the ages most often included in annual standardized exams and other routine assessments.
The findings were based on data generated by an oral assessment measuring reading fluency in more than 100 school districts nationwide. The reading assessment used in the study takes only a few minutes, and though normally administered in a classroom, it was also conducted remotely during the pandemic. Students were recorded while reading aloud from a device, and their score was based on a combination of human transcription and speech recognition.
The researchers examined trends in the students’ long-run growth back to 2018, observing fairly steady growth until the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. The trajectory flattened at that point and remained flat throughout the summer, indicating that children’s reading abilities had stopped. “It was flat in an absolute sense, not just relative to years past,” said Domingue.
Growth resumed in the fall at levels similar to what the researchers saw before the pandemic. But those gains weren’t enough to make up for the ground lost earlier in the year.
The researchers also observed inequitable impact: Students in historically lower-achieving districts (based on data from the Stanford Education Data Archive ) developed reading skills at a slower rate than those in higher-achieving ones. Schools that typically score low on annual standardized tests often serve a greater share of low-income and minority students – populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic in ways that impinge on their readiness to learn, including lack of access to computers, reliable internet access or a parent at home.
“It’s quite likely that lower-achieving schools are dealing with a whole battery of problems that educators in more affluent districts aren’t facing,” said Domingue. “But there was still growth. The teachers were probably moving heaven and earth to help their kids learn to read, and it’s reflected in the gains. But it’s important to recognize the differential impact on students.”
The researchers also found that about 10 percent of students who were tested before the pandemic were not observed in fall 2020. It’s not clear why they were missing, but the researchers suggest that if these students had trouble accessing the assessment remotely, they may be less engaged with school overall and could be falling even further behind than students who were tested.
The researchers caution that, while their analysis provides important evidence on learning loss in the early grades, it doesn’t include information about whether students attended school in person, remotely or in some hybrid form.
They also note that their findings should not be applied to other academic subjects, largely because of the focus on reading in the early grades and the likelihood that it was a centerpiece of many schools’ instruction for the fall of 2020.
While the full extent of COVID-19’s impact on learning won’t be clear for months or even years, this study provides evidence that – after the initial shock of the pandemic –educators found ways to teach and assess young students’ reading skills. And even in the midst of continued uncertainty and disruption, these students were able to achieve gains in the fall similar to pre-pandemic times.
“We can build on this research by identifying practices that accelerate learning for students who’ve fallen behind, and by making sure schools have the resources they need,” said Heather Hough, executive director of PACE and coauthor of the study. “These findings are worrisome, but they do not need to be catastrophic.”
Other co-authors on the study include Jason Yeatman , an assistant professor at Stanford GSE and the School of Medicine and David Lang, a GSE doctoral student.
Carrie Spector, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 724-7384; cspector@stanford.edu
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In an era of strident polarization – and just in time for the midterm elections – a new study tests an approach for building political consensus and reducing partisan animosity.
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TOEFL ® Young Students Series Research Program: Research Grants for Graduate Students — 2023 Call for Proposals





ETS is pleased to announce the TOEFL ® Committee of Examiners (COE) 2023 Young Students Series (YSS) Research Program.
The TOEFL ® COE Young Students Series (YSS) Research Grants for graduate students are intended to support research related to the TOEFL YSS assessments (the TOEFL Primary ® and TOEFL Junior ® tests) as well as foundational research that promotes high-quality language assessment related to young English learners between the ages of 8 and 16. This year, priority will be given to proposals that address the topics identified in the research agenda below.
The TOEFL Junior and TOEFL Primary research test forms will be available to principal investigators funded by the TOEFL COE YSS research program.
For the TOEFL Junior test, 2 types of research test forms are available:
For the TOEFL Primary test, 2 types of research test forms are available:
For data output, ETS will provide grantees with a scoring file. For each test section, either raw scores or scaled scores can be provided to grantees. Scoring fees should be included in the project budget, and a scoring-fee estimate should be obtained by contacting the grant coordinator at TOEFLYS@ets.org .
The Public Use Datasets are available to principal investigators funded by the TOEFL COE YSS research program. The datasets come from two test forms of each test, include scores accompanied by demographic information about test takers (e.g., gender, native language, native country, etc.) and copies of relevant test materials.
Requests for research instruments and data for other TOEFL YSS assessment products (e.g., the TOEFL Junior Speaking test, the TOEFL Primary Speaking test) will be considered on a case-by-case basis and granted when feasible. Please be aware that legal concerns related to the protection of test taker identity may limit what data can be shared with external researchers. ETS welcomes grant applications from researchers who plan to recruit participants and collect data locally in countries around the globe.
The TOEFL YSS Research Grants for graduate students are offered to students enrolled in master's and doctoral programs in institutions around the world in language testing, language education, applied linguistics or related fields. Priority for the Research Grants for Graduate Students will be given to TOEFL YSS-related research or foundational research related to young students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
Each grantee will be required to submit at least 1 progress report and at least 1 manuscript of publishable quality, in addition to appropriately acknowledging the support of the TOEFL program when disseminating the results of the funded work.
Interested researchers must submit an intent form by April 15, 2022. Applicants should use the Intent Form Template and submit it electronically to TOEFLYS@ets.org , including "Intent to Apply — COE YSS Graduate Student Research Grant" in the subject line. Selected applicants will be invited to submit full proposals.
Proposals must include a Letter of Institutional Commitment committing the applicant's institution to the proposal. The letter must be signed by a representative of the institution's contracting office with commitment authority and must be submitted with the proposal. Proposals will not be reviewed for consideration until such a letter has been received. The contracting officer may obtain a sample ETS grant agreement by submitting a request to TOEFLYS@ets.org .
Note: Some institutions are unable to comply with ETS's contractual language regarding intellectual property. We recommend that the contract language be reviewed by the institution's contracting officer before signing the letter of institutional commitment.
For applicants who are invited to submit full proposals, proposal materials must be submitted via email with the subject line "2023 COE YSS Research Grant Application Submission" to TOEFLYS@ets.org by 11:59 p.m. U.S. ET on Friday, July 15, 2022.
Proposal submissions must include the following documents:
The non-blind copy of your proposal must include all of the following key components, which are outlined in the below and are provided in the Grant Proposal Template :
The blind copy of your proposal should be the same as the non-blind copy, except that it must not include:
Please use the proposal template, which contains the following formatting:
Each proposal will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
The review will take into account each of the criteria above. To view our review form, see TOEFL COE Proposal Review Form .
Applicants who are invited to revise and resubmit proposals will receive constructive comments. An invitation to the next step does not guarantee that applicants will receive a grant.
All grant winners will be required to submit at least 1 progress report and 1 manuscript of publishable quality during their funded study. The exact due dates for these deliverables depend upon the individual project schedule. Please indicate the date by which you intend to submit your progress report(s) and manuscript in your project schedule.
Grant funds are generally disbursed in several payments, aligned to study milestones and submission of deliverables. The timing and amount of grant disbursements is flexible, depending on the project's needs. A typical grant might receive a first payment near the beginning of the project to help defray the costs of data collection. Please estimate in your budget and project schedule the specific amounts you will need for specific purposes at specific dates. For each payment that is disbursed, ETS must receive an invoice that itemizes the relevant project milestones and deliverables for which grant funds are requested.
Authors are expected to submit 1 manuscript of publishable quality as the final deliverable of the grant. Typically, the research can be published either as an ETS Research Report or as an article in a scholarly journal. When a final grant report successfully passes technical review, it can be submitted for publication. In your proposal, please specify the publication venue you plan to pursue, and be aware that the manuscript will have to pass ETS technical review before being submitted for publication, whether as an ETS Research Report or an article in a scholarly journal.
Grant recipients are required to appropriately acknowledge the support of the TOEFL program when disseminating the results of funded work. The following standard disclaimer should be included in any publications including conference presentations:
This research was funded by ETS under a TOEFL Committee of Examiners YSS research grant. ETS does not discount or endorse the methodology, results, implications or opinions presented by the researcher(s).
If you have additional questions about the application process or the grant in general, please contact us at TOEFLYS@ets.org .
To ensure that the research funded through these grants is of high quality, the Young Students Research Subcommittee requires a written statement of support from a faculty member who can comment on the applicant's research skills, and who is familiar with the plan, scope and schedule of the proposed study.
Obtaining the written support of your university for conducting the study is important because we need to ensure that your university agrees to work with ETS to process the payment of the grant. Please use this Letter of Institutional Commitment .
Yes, but to make sure you will be able to perform the work associated with the project, you must first discuss potential involvement with your department and university. (Please see FAQ #2 above.)
Yes, but to make sure you will be able to perform the work associated with the project, you must first discuss potential involvement with your department and university. (Please see FAQ #2 above.)
Please consider April 15, 2023, as the tentative start date of the project. The actual start date will vary depending on the duration of the contract process involving your university and ETS.
The expected duration for each project is 12 months. However, individual projects may continue beyond the first 12 months. Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis, with the caveat that project duration cannot exceed 24 months. If you intend for your study to last more than 12 months, please include an explanation in your proposal's schedule section.
No. No additional funding will be made available to grantees should their project extend beyond the original project timeline.
Yes, please include information about the payments to participants in your budget details. If your payments and other project expenses exceed the maximum award amount (USD $5,000), please consider alternative funding resources to cover the difference.
The Public Use Datasets are available to principal investigators funded by the TOEFL COE YSS research program. The datasets come from two test forms of each test, and they include scores accompanied by demographic information about test takers (e.g., gender, native language, native country, etc.) and copies of relevant test materials.
If you plan to administer a research test form to your participants, ETS can share with you a research test form of the TOEFL Junior Standard test, or the TOEFL Primary test Step 1 or Step 2 (Listening and Reading only), which you can administer to your research participants free of charge. Researchers may also administer publicly available sample items.
If you intend to administer a secure, live test to your participants for research purposes, please be aware that the TOEFL Junior tests and the TOEFL Primary tests are administered locally to students in schools or other institutional settings. When approved by ETS, researchers are responsible for administering the assessment for the purposes of their study. For more information about the assessments, please visit TOEFL Primary tests FAQ and TOEFL Junior tests FAQ .
Note: ETS cannot provide live, secure assessments or constructed-response scoring services free of charge. If you plan to use the secure, live test in your research, or to use sample tasks to collect spoken or written responses to be scored at ETS, please contact TOEFLYS@ets.org to obtain more detailed information on fees you would need to budget in your proposal, and for any further questions regarding test administration for research purposes.
If you plan to administer publicly available sample speaking and writing tasks, and you would like responses to be scored by ETS raters, you will need to budget for scoring. Please contact ETS at TOEFLYS@ets.org regarding a scoring estimate for your budget.
Note: Score reports cannot be provided to test takers who take a research form.
Yes, the study funded through the grant can be used to build your dissertation project.
Student grantees will own both the data and the manuscript.
Yes, we encourage our grantees to present their work at professional conferences. Grantees are required to submit an abstract and presentation slides to ETS for review at least 2 weeks prior to the date on which they are to be submitted or presented. In addition, grantees are required to include the standard disclaimer statement in their presentations (see Dissemination Plan above).
Yes. However, total travel expenses per calendar year should not exceed USD $1,000 for domestic travel or USD $1,500 for international travel.
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