They drafted a proposal in 7 days and had it approved in less than a week (!). Excellent work! You can find the full grant info below:
Title: Assessing and preventing the detrimental impact of literacy acquisition during COVID-19-related school closure
Mechanism: NSF 20-052 COVID-19, RAPID mechanism
Organization: Haskins Laboratories
PI: Fumiko Hoeft
Co-PI: Kenneth Pugh
Project Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to shelter-in-place and school closure in the majority of states across the U.S. since March of 2020 (40 and all states respectively, as of April 2, 2020). Most schools are expected to be closed throughout the remaining school year, which will result in students not receiving in-person academic instruction continuously for approximately 6 months. The closure will have profound impact on the development of basic reading skills in the early grades, and especially for those children in special education and at-risk for learning disorders where remote/online learning is challenging. Indeed, extended periods without direct instruction, even in a typical 3 month summer vacation period can result in students losing the equivalent of one month of academic performance; thus the failure to support learning over a period twice as long could be catastrophic. It is therefore crucial to encourage literacy practices at home during this closure period and provide access to evidence-based remote learning tools to strengthen key reading-related skills in the youngest learners. The goal of the current project is to examine the extent of the detrimental impact of the school closure on learning to read, and the degree to which a digital game-based reading instruction can rescue the expected “Coronavirus Slide".
100 educators across the U.S. and their K-2 students will be enrolled in the project (total student sample, approximately 2,000) and teachers will incorporate a research-supported, affordable, and technology-based reading instructional program (GraphoLearn) that can be administered in the home to support the development of essential phonological and letter-sound decoding skills with instructional content identical to evidence-based reading instruction in the classroom. Children will be encouraged to play the games for 20 minutes per day, 5 days per week, for 12 weeks, on their computers at home proctored by teachers during instructional time. Standardized online reading tests will be given 4 times. One research question examines critical factors that moderate reading gains with training including onset of the training (relative to school closing), duration/intensity of practice, and individual differences in component skills at onset of the study. Another major research question examines whether educational technology (EdTech) can serve to prevent closure-related slides by comparing pre and post testing for these children with comparable populations not enrolled in this study. Results from this investigation will allow researchers to assess factors that lead to successful learning through EdTech and minimal in-person guidance, which may guide future development and refinement of these remote learning tools. Further, the study is significant as it will not only assess the detrimental impact of COVID-19 on learning to read but also provide direct means to potentially support educators and students who are in dire need of evidence-based remote instructional tools. Such knowledge can be helpful in possible future closures providing guidance on how to teach students in remote areas within the U.S. where trained reading specialists are not readily available.