The Impact of COVID on Child Learning

Online learning has proved challenging for students and families, particularly for students with disabilities and families with limited English.

As families and students of all ages adapted to online learning this Spring, many of our respondents expressed frustration with their experiences, citing tech issues, language barriers, and concerns about their kids’ learning. 

Angela, a Boston Public Schools elementary school student, has a speech impediment but her mom was proud to see how much she progressed when she started school last year. Surrounded by kids her age, Angela was able to socialize and speak more and looked forward to school every day. Now, as her first year is winding down, Angela refuses to join afternoon Zoom classes. She isn’t able to socialize with her new friends, and she doesn’t look forward to classes at all anymore. Her mom is having a hard time having to teach her so much. Online classes are predominantly reviewing material, while parents are expected to guide students through homework. Angela’s mom is not a native English speaker and has a hard time understanding what material has been assigned. She can teach her daughter in Spanish but when the teacher calls on Angela, she has to respond in English. As a result, she’s clammed up a lot and is no longer engaging. Now her mom worries that there will be a growing disparity between her and other classmates, especially if school remains online in the fall. Angela was offered the opportunity to do summer classes online, but with her mom returning to work in an effort to bring in income, her daughter cannot take the classes alone, especially with her speech impediment. 

“Having classes online in the fall] would be very frustrating for the kids. Zoom… [my daughter]  gets frustrated and it’s very, very, very hard that way. Because on Zoom the teacher is just reviewing what they’ve done so [we] have to do all of the homework with them. It costs me a lot [of effort].” 

[“Sería muy frustrante para los niños. El Zoom…ella se frustre y es muy, muy, muy difícil así. Porque ellos en Zoom solo la maestra está revisando lo que han hecho entonces es uno que tiene que hacer todo las tareas con ellos. Y para mí es muy muy difícil porque todo es en inglés. Cuesta mucho.”]

Pamela is a single mom of three elementary school aged children, the eldest of whom has an IEP. Pamela has started going to work later in the day so she can get her kids ready in the morning and have them seated at 9am sharp when online classes begin. The rigid timing frustrates Pamela: she says that the inflexible schedule has meant that her kids are sleeping less and spending more time on screens every day. While Pamela is glad the kids get to see their friends online, she says that they aren’t learning as much as they otherwise would be if they were in regular classrooms. 

“[My kids] go to sleep late every day. They are on the computers, the cellphones, the games. It’s a bit of an inconvenience because the teacher…they put [the kids] on a schedule as if they were in school and that doesn’t make sense. They want the kids to be sitting down at 9 am on the dot…they spend more hours awake. They want to go to the park, they want to go outside and I try to explain [why not].”

[“Se acuestan tarde todos los días. Están en las computadoras, en los celulares, en los juegos. Un poco bien incomodo porque el maestro…les ponen un horario como si estuvieran en la escuela que no tiene sentido. Quieren que los niños estén a las 9 en punto sentados….pasan más horas despiertos. Quieren ir al parque quieren salir y uno trata de explicar.” ]

Lalila is a recent 2020 high school graduate, completing the last few months of her senior year online. She says that it was really hard to keep motivated. For Lalila, the transition to online learning altered her routine, and she started having a weird sleep schedule because she didn’t have to get up early anymore. She would go to sleep at three or four AM and get up late, around noon. The school had to make attendance mandatory for their Monday meetings because so many students weren’t showing up. Another challenge Lalila faced was slow communication with teachers who would not respond promptly to emails. Because not everyone is suited for online learning, she thinks it would have been helpful to have more personalized and guided videos for her classes in order to make her more successful. 

Names and some details changed to protect confidentiality.