Young Children’s Preschool Participation Experiences and Home Learning During the Pandemic in USA

• In Event: Young Children’s Home Learning Environment During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in March, 2020, schools throughout the U.S. have opted to discontinue in-person classroom learning. Most of the nation’s 5 million 3- to 5-year-olds attending preschool classrooms had their attendance cut short in Spring 2020. While online platforms have proved effective for older students, young children learn best through hands-on activities and responsive interactions with adults and other children.
To learn how the pandemic is impacting young children’s learning experiences the authors developed a parent survey on: (1) children’s home learning activities during the pandemic; (2) children’s preschool participation and program closures; and (3) services children and parents received to support emergency remote learning when preschool programs closed their classroom operations due to the pandemic.

Methods
In order to investigate the effects of preschool closures and at home learning on young students, Preschool Learning Activities survey (PLA) was conducted between May 22 and June 5, 2020. 945 adults with children 3-5 and not yet in kindergarten participated in the survey. Study-specific post-stratification weights have been applied to the final sample to adjust for survey nonresponse, number of preschoolers per household, and to ensure the proper distributions for the specific target population. Analysis of these results was conducted using 2-tailed t-tests, an analysis of variance, and post-hoc tests.

Results

Preschool Program Participation Pre- and Post-Pandemic Including Remote Learning

By the time of our survey, preschool participation had fallen from 61% to just 8%. This change occurred because (1) programs closed classrooms for 74% of the children enrolled and (2) 45% of children whose classrooms remained open stopped attending. Most preschool programs that closed classrooms provided some support for learning and development. Of students without in-person learning, 77% received instruction on how to contact the child’s teacher, and 72% of children were contacted by the teacher. Students also received worksheets (60%), digital/online support (58%), and other paper-based materials (54%). 76% of children with an IEP continued to receive services but only 37% of the total continued to receive full support. Preschool programs that closed classrooms continued to provide meals to only 23% of children (see figure 1).

Home Learning Experiences

The survey asked a series of questions to assess the extent parents engaged in home learning activities in the last week with their preschool-age children. We found that 80% of parents reported reading to the child; more than 60% reported singing songs and teaching letters, words, or numbers; 37% reported working on arts and crafts with the child and 47% reported telling stories three or more times in the past week. Comparison with the 2019 National Household Education Survey (NHES) responses to the same questions reveals that the amount of time parents spend on home learning activities mostly decreased during the pandemic (see figure 2). We also examined variations in home learning activities by home language, race/ethnicity, parent education, and parent working status and found inequities for home learning activities among these groups. 


Authors

• William S Barnett, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Presenting Author

• Kwanghee Jung, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Non-Presenting Author