Long-term school absences during pandemic lockdowns may result in learning gains and losses much like the summer reading loss, but little is known about the actual effects of such lockdowns. This mixed-methods study examined changes in reading enjoyment, amount and resources in three groups of bilingual children—English-Chinese, English-Malay, and English-Tamil speaking children—during the COVID-19 lockdown in Singapore. Results reveal a lockdown reading gap between children’s stronger language (English) and weaker language (Chinese/Malay/Tamil). Within each language, results show differential reading gains and losses for children who enjoyed and did not enjoy reading in print and digital formats. Children’s reading enjoyment before the lockdown, changes in reading enjoyment and print reading amount during the lockdown in English and Chinese/Malay were significantly correlated. Children preferred print reading over reading digitally both before and during the lockdown, and devices were underutilized for reading purposes.

在大流行封锁期间长期缺课可能会导致学习得失，就像夏季阅读损失一样，但人们对这种封锁的实际影响知之甚少。这项混合方法研究调查了在新加坡 COVID-19 封锁期间，三组双语儿童（英语-中文、英语-马来语和英语-泰米尔语儿童）的阅读乐趣、数量和资源的变化。结果显示，儿童的强语言（英语）和弱语言（中文/马来语/泰米尔语）之间存在锁定阅读差距。在每种语言中，结果显示了喜欢和不喜欢印刷和数字格式阅读的儿童的不同阅读收益和损失。封城前孩子们的阅读享受，锁定期间英语和中文/马来语的阅读乐趣和印刷阅读量的变化显着相关。在锁定之前和锁定期间，儿童更喜欢印刷阅读而不是数字阅读，并且设备未充分用于阅读目的。