• Researchers have proven that the mask worn by teachers due to the Covid-19 pandemic puts some students in difficulty when learning to read.

  • Pupils who struggle to discriminate between the sounds of language are indeed very affected, unlike other pupils.

Does the mask worn by teachers at school have an effect in learning to read? Yes, in some cases, responds in substance to a study published in the scientific journal 

The Psychological Year

. "The mask is very unequal, it increases the differences between children in difficulty and others", denounces Liliane Sprenger-Charolles, CNRS research director at the laboratory of cognitive psychology of Aix-Marseille University, one of the signatories of this study carried out on pupils aged 5 to 7. “We did not expect such a result, such a massive difference,” she adds.

To arrive at this conclusion, the team of researchers dived again into the data of a study carried out on 85 children, followed by the large kindergarten section at the end of CE1, and published in 2013. “We had shown that children who have poor phonic discrimination, that is to say difficulties in differentiating the sounds of the French language, a bit like Prince de Motordu de Pef, had poorer reading results three years later ”, relates Agnès Piquard-Kipffer, lecturer at Inspé (Higher National Institute for Teaching and Education) at the University of Lorraine.

The syllable count test

The results then militated in favor of an early identification of these difficulties, to better prevent future difficulties in learning to read. Because unlike Italian or even German, where there is little possible confusion, the French language has 36 sounds (called "phonemes") for 26 letters of the alphabet. That is to say as many traps to distinguish, for example, "cat" and "rat" or the (invented) words "jasu" and "jabu". For the study, the small pupils were subjected to different tests and games with sounds, including a syllable counting via… a recorded voice. "Today is the situation of a teacher who wears a mask", states Agnès Piquard-Kipffer.

Hence the idea of ​​diving back into the subject matter of this study, which makes it possible to assess the long-term effects of wearing a mask by teachers since it was carried out over three years.

“Children who have trouble discriminating between the sounds of language have much better results at 5 and 7 years old when they can see the entire face of the person speaking the syllables,” observed Agnès Piquard-Kipffer.

Children who are fragile in sound see their results drop when they do not see the teacher's facial expression ”.

On the other hand, in the group of children without difficulties, "the pupils have almost the same results, with or without a mask worn by the teacher".

"Equip teachers with transparent masks"

"For children in difficulty, the message of this study is catastrophic," warns Liliane Sprenger-Charolles.

"Teachers should be equipped with transparent masks", recommends Agnès Piquard-Kipffer, who also warns against the sound environment linked to the number of students per class: the more a class is noisy, the less the student perceives sound and learn to read.

"It's like imagining yourself understanding a conversation in English in the hubbub of a café terrace", also says Liliane Sprenger-Charolles, who calls for "to become aware of the importance of facial and lip reading".

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  • Marseilles

  • study

  • Society

  • Covid 19

  • Primary school

  • Education

  • Lorraine

  • Nancy

  • Reading