紐時賞析／疫情結束仍未反彈…美孩童閱讀力跌至新低 專家也沒轍

American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows

美國孩童閱讀力跌至新低

In the latest release of federal test scores, educators had hoped to see widespread recovery from the learning loss incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

在最新發布的聯邦考試成績，教育工作者本來希望能看見新冠肺炎疫情期間造成的學習失落全面反彈。

Instead, the results, from last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, tell a grim tale, especially in reading: The slide in achievement has only continued.

相反地，「全國教育進展評估」(NAEP)去年的評估結果講述一個令人憂心的故事，特別是閱讀：成績持續下滑。

The percentage of eighth graders who have “below basic” reading skills according to NAEP was the largest it has been in the exam’s three-decade history — 33%. The percentage of fourth graders at “below basic” was the largest in 20 years, at 40%.

NAEP指出，閱讀能力「低於基本水平」的八年級生比率是該考試舉行30年來最高—有33%。「低於基本水平」的四年級生比率是20年來最高，達40%。

There was progress in math, but not enough to offset the losses of the pandemic.

數學有進步，但不足以彌補疫情造成的損失。

Recent reading declines have cut across lines of race and class. And while students at the top end of the academic distribution are performing similarly to students prepandemic, the drops remain pronounced for struggling students, despite a robust, bipartisan movement in recent years to improve foundational literacy skills.

近期閱讀能力下滑影響遍及不同種族和階級。儘管學業成績頂尖學生表現和疫情前相似，但對於學習困難的學生，即使近年實施強力的跨黨派運動，改善基礎讀寫能力，成績下滑依舊明顯。

“Our lowest performing students are reading at historically low levels,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which gives the NAEP exam. “We need to stay focused in order to right this ship.”

負責NAEP考試機構「全國教育統計中心」主任委員佩姬．卡爾表示：「我們成績最差學生的閱讀水平處於史上最低水平。我們需要專注扭轉這個局面。」

Carr did point to Louisiana fourth graders as a rare bright spot. Though their overall reading achievement was in line with the national average, a broad swath of students had matched or exceeded prepandemic achievement levels.

卡爾確實指出，路易斯安那州四年級生是罕見的一個亮點。雖然他們的總體閱讀成績和全國平均相當，但大量學生的閱讀成績已達到或超越疫情前成績水平。

Louisiana has focused on adopting the science of reading, a set of strategies to align early literacy teaching with cognitive science research. The resulting instruction typically includes a strong focus on structured phonics and vocabulary building.

路易斯安那州一直專注於採用閱讀科學，這是一套將早期讀寫能力教學和認知科學研究結合的策略。由此產生的教學通常包含明顯專注於結構化自然發音及詞彙建構。

That approach has become widespread over the past five years, but does not seem to have led to national learning gains — at least not yet.

這種方法已在過去五年變得普遍，但似乎並未帶來全國學習進展—至少目前還沒有。

Experts have no clear explanation for the dismal reading results. While school closures and other stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic deepened learning loss, reading scores began declining several years before the virus emerged.

專家對於十分糟糕的閱讀成績結果尚無明確解釋。儘管學校關閉和與疫情有關的其他壓力加劇學習失落，但在新冠病毒出現的多年前，閱讀成績就開始下滑。

In math, higher-achieving fourth graders — those performing at the 75th percentile and above — are doing as well as similar fourth graders were in 2019. But fourth graders performing below average in math had not made up the lost ground.

數學方面，表現較好的四年級生—即成績達到第75百分位數以上者—表現和2019年時成績類似的四年級生一樣好。但數學表現低於平均的四年級生尚未補回差距。

In eighth grade math, only higher-achieving students showed improvements, but they remained below prepandemic levels.

八年級生的數學方面，只有前段班的學生表現有所改善，但仍低於疫情前水平。

文／Dana Goldstein　譯／羅方妤