Online learning quickly became essential during the COVID-19 school closures, while upending most traditional learning practices. This case study looks at the significant growth students at one primary school achieved using ABC Reading Eggs in class and at home.
ABC Reading Eggs Success During the COVID‑19 Shutdown
This remarkable case study shows how one group of students not only maintained, but improved their grade level during the challenging lockdown period using ABC Reading Eggs.
Case Study
The case study school is in North Carolina and serves over 500 students. Minorities make up approximately half of the student population. Additionally, almost half of the students qualify for a free or discounted lunch.
The school closed in mid-March 2020 to help minimise the spread of COVID-19. During the remote learning period from March–June 2020 students in Kindergarten and Year 1 were expected to complete daily reading and writing activities.
Kindergarten
The ABC Reading Eggs Kindergarten lessons are sequenced to gradually build on students’ literacy knowledge. At the beginning of Kindergarten, most students are emergent readers who use ABC Reading Eggs to learn letter sounds, phonemic awareness skills, phonics skills, and highfrequency words. As students reach the Year 1 lessons, they have an ever-expanding reading vocabulary, can read sentences and simple stories which include short- and long-vowel words plus the high frequency words that all students need to become fluent readers.
Lessons Completed
From September 2019–June 2020, 84* Kindergarten students completed 4758 ABCReading Eggs lessons. Students completed 834 lessons—their highest number—in April 2020 during remote learning.
Grade Level Progress
In the 2019–20 school year, Kindergarten students made substantial progress. The table below shows students’ grade level progress as they spent time using ABC Reading Eggs.
| Grade level progress range | Number of students | Average minutes per week using ABC Reading Eggs |
|---|---|---|
| 2.01–2.5 | 10 | 46 |
| 1.51–2.0 | 10 | 43 |
| 1.01–1.5 | 24 | 31 |
| 0.51–1.0 | 22 | 17 |
| 0–0.5 | 18 | 9 |
All except one Kindergarten student started the year at grade level. By the end of the year, over half the students were working above grade level.
| Start of the school year | End of the school year | |
|---|---|---|
| Above grade level | 1 | 46 |
| At grade level | 83 | 38 |
| Below grade level |
On average, Kindergarten students spent 26 minutes per week—that is only a little over 5 minutes per school day—using ABC Reading Eggs and progressed 1.11 grade levels during the 2019–20 school year.
Grade level progress increased with time spent using ABC Reading Eggs.
Year 1
Year 1 lessons build upon students’ literacy knowledge. As students’ progress through the Year 1 maps, they are introduced to more challenging phonics sounds, decodable words, and high frequency words. Students also access a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. After Lesson 60, students can visit Storylands, a separate set of 20 lessons that contain 140 activities that cover emergent and early reading levels 1–10 and build reading, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
Lessons Completed
From September 2019–June 2020, 95 Year 1 students completed 5682 ABC Reading Eggs lessons. These students completed 875 lessons—their highest number—in March 2020 during remote learning.
Grade Level Progress
During the 2019–20 school year, Year 1 students made substantial progress. The table below shows students’ grade level progress as they spent time using ABC Reading Eggs.
| Grade level progress range | Number of students | Average minutes per week using ABC Reading Eggs |
|---|---|---|
| 2.01–2.5 | 4 | 4 |
| 1.51–2.0 | 19 | 41 |
| 1.01–1.5 | 35 | 30 |
| 0.51–1.0 | 29 | 21 |
| 0–0.5 | 8 | 11 |
Over 80% of Year 1 students started the year below grade level. By the end of the year, almost 80% of students were working at or above grade level.
| Start of the school year | End of the school year | |
|---|---|---|
| Above grade level | 1 | 36 |
| At grade level | 15 | 41 |
| Below grade level | 79 | 18 |
On average, Year 1 students spent 29 minutes per week using ABC Reading Eggs and progressed 1.18 grade levels during the 2019–20 school year.
Grade level progress increased with time spent using ABC Reading Eggs
Student Progression to ABC Reading Eggs
During the remote learning period, several Year 1 students completed the ABC Reading Eggs program. Some of these students went on to make significant progress using ABC Reading Eggspress.
The charts below highlight these students’ remarkable progress. The quiz data demonstrates that the children could apply the knowledge they had gained during the lessons.
The ABC Reading Eggspress Comprehension program is a complete strategic reading program devised by education experts to be used at school or at home. The program’s carefully sequenced lessons use a range of texts to build children's literal, inferential, and critical reading comprehension skills, and metacognitive understanding. Children are required to engage with comprehension concepts such as main idea and details; compare and contrast; making connections; sequencing events; cause and effect; understanding character; drawing conclusions; predicting; summarising; fact and opinion; point of view; and word study. The charts below highlight these students’ remarkable progress. The quiz data demonstrates that the children could apply the knowledge they had gained during the lessons.
Sample Student A
Student A tested into ABC Reading Eggs at grade level in December 2019. The student made significant progress during the remote learning period and completed the program in late May 2020. Student A then sat the Placement Test for ABC Reading Eggspress and commenced the program accordingly at Lesson 1. Student A progressed 2.0 grade levels using ABC Reading Eggspress in just a few weeks.
ABC Reading Eggs Lesson Progress
Reading Eggspress Lesson Progress
Reading Success During a Time of Uncertainty
The 2019-20 school year was unprecedented. Teachers, parents, and caregivers worked tirelessly to ensure there were minimal interruptions to students’ learning as they transitioned from in-class lessons to remote learning. And, for their part, students showed incredible resilience and perseverance in challenging circumstances. It was inspiring to see children use ABC Reading Eggs to maintain and even extend their grade level learning during this difficult time.
Download the full report
Download the full case study in PDF format and see how ABC Reading Eggs helped students succeed during the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown.