Teachers' opinions on the academic and social development of students starting primary school through distance education

With the Covid-19 pandemic that started in China, compulsory distance education was implemented in our country as of March 2020, and children who started primary school at that time had to receive their first literacy education through distance education. The aim of this research is to reveal the positive or negative effects of distance-based primary literacy education on students' academic success and social development in the following years, based on teachers' opinions. The phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The study group consisted of 16 fourth-grade teachers who taught their students first literacy remotely during the pandemic. The research data were collected through a semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher. As a result of the examination of the obtained data by subjecting it to content analysis, it was concluded that distance education was not as efficient as face-to-face education, and that the literacy skills and social development of students who were literate through distance education were weaker than those who were literate through face-to-face education. In addition, it was determined that students' exposure to social isolation during the distance education process negatively affected the emotional development and psychological well-being of the students, and that some of the students still had problems in reading and especially writing despite being in the fourth grade. Considering the research results, some suggestions have been developed that can guide in similar situations.