TEACHERS' VIEWS ON THE EVALUATION OF LITERACY TEACHING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

At the end of 2019, the coronavirus, which affected the whole world, started to spread in Turkey with the first cases seen as of March. With the spread of the virus, almost all public and private institutions and organizations have taken some precautions. In this process, the Ministry of National Education has also taken some measures within its own body. Most of the second semester of the 2019-2020 academic year was carried out with distance education. At the beginning of the new academic year, although the schools remained open from time to time, they were closed most of the year and the studies were carried out remotely. In the 2020-2021 academic year, first-year students also learned to read and write for the first time through distance education, although there was no such experience before. In the study, the views of teachers on primary literacy teaching during the epidemic period were examined. In this context, the aim of the research is to determine the opinions of the teachers about the first literacy teaching carried out with distance education activities during the epidemic period. The research was carried out with 10 teachers who experienced literacy teaching during the epidemic period, and the data obtained were subjected to content analysis. According to the findings of the study, connection problems, problems in family communication, and wrong intervention of families in the process were identified as problems. The opportunity to work one-on-one i Correspondence: email demircicav@gmail.com, kutlu_senay@hotmail.com, huseyinkilicaslan308@gmail.com Cavide Demirci, Emine Şenay Doğaner, Hüseyin Kılıçaslan TEACHERS' VIEWS ON THE EVALUATION OF LITERACY TEACHING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC European Journal of Education Studies Volume 9 │ Issue 1 │ 2022 109 with students is seen as the advantage of this process. Teachers used web 2.0 tools, presentations, different platforms. Although a target close to face-to-face has been achieved in reading teaching, it has not been successful at the same rate in writing teaching. The teachers carried out the process by using student-centered methods and techniques such as gamification and individual teaching.


Introduction
The Corona Virus (Covid-19) epidemic, which was seen in China in December 2019 and then affected the whole world, caused serious changes in the education system as well as affecting all the systems of the countries. In order to stop the circulation of the virus, countries have taken different decisions such as flight bans, quarantine, and martial law. Schools were closed, along with the public sectors in 195 countries, including Turkey. More than 1.5 billion students and 63 million teachers have been affected by quarantine and school closures worldwide (UNESCO, 2020). After the Corona Virus was first seen in Turkey in March 2020, all public and private institutions and organizations were affected by the epidemic. Schools within these institutions have also been one of the institutions most affected by the virus. After the first case was seen, the Ministry of National Education took measures. First of all, education was suspended on March 16, 2020 for a short time, this break was extended at certain intervals and schools remained closed until the end of the semester. During this process, it was aimed to continue education with different methods.
In order to ensure the continuation of education all over the world, emergency distance learning tools have been put to work and efforts have been made to minimize learning losses and ensure the continuity of learning by mobilizing all opportunities (TEDMEM, 2020). The distance education process was carried out with television or radio broadcasts, book-based teaching materials, online content, live lessons with mutual interaction, according to the technological infrastructure, economic and geographical conditions of the countries. In addition to television, virtual classroom environments where students and teachers interact in online environments brought students and teachers together (Sözen, 2020, p. 304). Following the examples in the world, Turkey has made similar practices with other countries in order to minimize the negative impact of the Covid19 epidemic in terms of education. In this process, schools were kept closed as much as possible and education and training practices were planned and carried out remotely.
UNICEF (2020) and OECD (2020a) countries' educational institutions to prevent children from being affected by this epidemic; suggested that they support teaching with enriched materials in the virtual environment for primary, secondary and high school levels, and that teachers should support students' learning with daily or weekly distance education.
During the epidemic in Turkey, face-to-face education was suspended at all education levels and open and distance education opportunities were started to be used for all students. With the decision of urgent distance education, this process was tried to be managed with EBA (Educational Information Network) and live lessons. It has been determined that 10 different courses for primary and secondary school levels and 22 different courses for high school levels are taught through distance education with TV support (Can, 2020). Although television-assisted teaching partially met the teaching needs, situations such as the use of technology and creating content with these tools for teachers who are accustomed to face-to-face education forced teachers (Telli & Altun, 2020).
Education and training activities were carried out remotely during the epidemic period. The teachers who are the executives of this work in this period do not have such an experience in the past years. Although there are academic studies on distance education, these studies have not been put into practice by teachers. This situation forced teachers who had no previous experience in distance education and who started planning this education as soon as the epidemic started. However, in this case, it can be thought that the most difficult level is the primary school 1st grade teachers. Distance education studies have undoubtedly been more painful for first grade teachers, the most important step of primary school. Although closing schools and turning to distance education is the best solution to control the epidemic, this sudden transformation has led to difficult situations for these teachers and students who have just started school (Hopegood, 2020). At the beginning of the epidemic, education activities began for all grade levels through EBA. However, education and training activities at the 1st and 2nd grade levels were carried out with the individual efforts of the teachers, as well as the TRT primary school broadcasts. With the start of the 2020-2021 academic year, teaching activities were carried out with live lessons at the 1st and 2nd grade levels (Kılınç, Afacan and Uzunpınar, 2021, p. 121). During the epidemic, teaching activities with 1st graders are more difficult than other grade levels. The fact that the acquisitions that students need to take face to face in a social environment are made remotely has challenged both students and teachers. Because literacy teaching is a process that requires one-to-one and face-to-face activities with students. The planning and implementation of this process is challenging for teachers who do not have such experience before.
The importance of first grade literacy education, which is the first step in which the child meets the school and the education life begins to shape, was once again understood during the epidemic. When the researches are examined, the topics that are mostly used are; the studies related to the Covid19 epidemic period deal with the problems related to distance education at different levels, the evaluation of the environments where distance education is carried out, the difference of distance education from face-to-face education (Yurtbakan and Ayyıldız, 2020), and what the opinions of teachers and school administrators are about them. However, very few studies have been found specifically in the context of 1st grade literacy activities. In these studies in the literature, the difficulties experienced in distance education and first literacy teaching during the pandemic period, how the process went for teachers and the positive aspects of this process were discussed. In the study conducted by Erbaş (2021), the problems encountered in the first literacy teaching during the epidemic period and solution suggestions were discussed. In the study, the teachers who were the first to teach literacy filled out an online form. According to the data obtained from the forms, parents, teaching contents, school administration, motivated students helped teachers in this process. The Internet and the lack of necessary equipment and tools are the most challenging situations for teachers. In the sound-based sentence method, the steps of creating words from syllables were added to the findings as the situation where teachers had the most difficulty. In the study of Kargın and Karataş (2021), interviews were conducted with teachers on the first literacy teaching during the epidemic period. In the study, the most frequently mentioned problems were infrastructure problems, excessive course hours, problems in making and writing sounds, and problems in EBA. In this process, it was found in the findings that teachers used lesson plans and materials, different online platforms were preferred by teachers, game-based teaching was provided, and parent support was received. In the study conducted by Kılınç, Afacan and Uzunpınar, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty primary school teachers who taught literacy during the pandemic period. It was found that the process progressed well in the periods when the students were contacted, one-to-one feedback was not given to the students in the process, and the students' spending too much time in front of the screen affected them negatively.
However, researching the difficulties experienced in the teaching of literacy through distance education during the epidemic process and receiving the opinions of teachers on this subject will not only contribute to the literature, but will also pave the way for the development of professional studies on the subject. This study; considering the 5 million enrollment rate, it is considered important for teachers working in the first level of primary school and for academicians working in this field.
The aim of this study is to determine what the views of teachers who teach distance literacy are in the 2020-2021 academic year.
According to the opinions of the teachers, the sub-aims of this research are: 1) What are the opinions of the teachers about the problems experienced while teaching literacy and the solution of these problems during the Covid 19 period? 2) According to the teachers, are there any advantages of distance learning, and if so, what are they? 3) What are the technologies, methods, techniques and assessment tools used by teachers in the first literacy teaching during the pandemic period? 4) According to the opinions of the teachers, to what extent were the objectives achieved in the first literacy teaching?

Methodology of Research
Qualitative research method was adopted in this study, which aims to determine the perceptions of primary school first grade teachers about teaching literacy during the COVID 19 epidemic. Qualitative research creates an interpretative framework that examines the meanings that individuals or groups attribute to a social phenomenon or problem (Creswell, 2013). Qualitative research is different in nature from quantitative research, which has been used in the fields of science for many years. Because the complexity and depth of human behavior gives rise to the idea that different methods and techniques should be used than quantitative research. These methods and techniques should handle the environment with a flexible understanding while examining human behavior. For such reasons, the idea that qualitative research designs will be more useful in dealing with human behavior emerges (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018). As a matter of fact, in each classroom environment, first literacy is taught based on different practices and experiences. Quantitative methods may be insufficient to measure the characteristics of this teaching. The method suitable for these different and small universes is also qualitative research methods (Erkuş, 2016).

Design of the Study
With this framework provided by the qualitative method, teachers' experiences in teaching literacy during the epidemic was analyzed in depth. In addition, the study was structured according to the case study . In the case study, one or more situations are handled and this situation is investigated in detail (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018, p. 73). The situation that was investigated in this research is the experiences of primary school 1st grade teachers in teaching literacy during the COVID 19 epidemic. In line with the opinions of the teachers, the changes and different experiences related to the teaching of literacy during the epidemic was examined in depth.

Study Group
The working group of this study, which was examined the experiences of teachers in teaching literacy during the COVID 19 epidemic, consist of 10 teachers working in Eskişehir and Konya and teaching literacy through distance education between 2020-2021. The teachers who were included in the study were selected by purposive sampling with the typical case sampling method. The researcher introduces a new or unprecedented situation with typical situation sampling and makes descriptions in a specific area (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2016, p. 121). In this study, about the experiences related to teaching literacy with distance education, which has not been encountered before and is a new situation for teachers. The table below contains information about the working group.

Data Collection Tools
The data of the study was collected face to face through semi-structured interview questions prepared by the researchers. After the interview questions were prepared by the researchers, they were presented to the expert and the areas open for improvement was determined and rearranged. After the interview questions were prepared, a pilot interview was held and the questions were tested for their suitability for the purpose. In the light of appropriate questions, face-to-face interviews were with teachers who teach 1st grade in Eskişehir and Konya between 2020-2021. Interviews were conducted by the researchers in both written and audio recording form. Finally, the researchers made transcripts of all the interviews they have obtained and send them to the participants for confirmation.

Data Analysis
Semi-structured interviews with teachers were transcribed after audio recording. These texts obtained from the interviews were subjected to content analysis in accordance with the nature of qualitative research. The main purpose in content analysis is to reach certain concepts from the data and connections through these concepts. In content analysis, the data is examined in detail and themes and concepts are obtained as a result of the analysis. Then, the data is organized according to the concepts within the framework of a certain logic (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018, p. 242). In the research, the data obtained after the interview were examined in detail. While analyzing the interview texts, coding was made according to the connection between the sentences, and after the codings were categorized, the related ones from these categories were gathered under certain themes. After the themes were sorted according to a certain order, the analysis of the excerpts from the interview texts was made more evident. In this way, the data obtained in the research were analyzed in depth.

Validity and Reliability
As in quantitative research, in qualitative research methods, the researcher is expected to meet the reliability criteria. The reliability of a study can be ensured by presenting verifiable and credible data. The researcher can ensure the credibility of the findings by taking some precautions throughout the study (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In the model developed by Lincoln and Guba (1985), reliability criteria were collected under 4 main titles. These 4 titles are credibility, transferability, reliability and confirmability, which are explained below.
Credibility: Credibility refers to the compatibility of the data obtained with reality (Shenton, 2004). A number of measures were taken by the researchers for the credibility of the study. First of all, the research method was chosen in direction to the purpose of the study. In addition, a detailed literature study was conducted and appropriate interview questions were prepared in order to obtain objective findings. In addition, it was tried to provide the necessary environment for the participants to give honest answers. For this reason, the participants were encouraged to participate in the study voluntarily and it was stated that they could leave whenever they wanted. In the preparation of the interview questions, expert opinion was taken and it was confirmed that the questions were related to the objectives. Finally, rich and intense descriptions are included in order to increase credibility. The opinions of the participants were presented under the relevant themes by quoting them one by one.
Transferability: Transferability is related to the degree of adaptability of the obtained findings to similar situations (Shenton, 2004). In this study, the number and characteristics of the study group, limitations, research method, the number and duration of the data collection sessions were presented in detail, and the research environment was presented to the reader by describing it. With these descriptions, it was tried to support the transferability.
Reliability: Reliability is explained as the consistency of findings and interpretations (Shenton, 2004). In order to ensure reliability, the researchers paid attention to the compatibility between the coders. The codes obtained were presented to the expert opinion, and the final version was reached by making the necessary adjustments in the light of expert opinions.
Confirmability: With confirmability, it is explained as the findings being free of the researcher's prejudices and beliefs and reflecting only the researched phenomenon (Shenton, 2004). In this context, it has been confirmed that each comment is related to the data with the expert opinion as external audit in the study. In addition, the findings were sent back to the participants and their confirmation was obtained. All these processes contributed to the confirmability of the study. Table 2 contains the data obtained from the teachers regarding the teaching of the literacy process to the 1st grade students before the pandemic period. The opinions of teachers about their positive and negative experiences in teaching literacy before the pandemic were presented in codes. As can be seen from the table, while there are important advantages such as using body language and dealing with the child one-on-one in face-to-face literacy teaching, there are also negative aspects such as noise and inability to reach all children due to the crowded classrooms. The answers of some of the participants about these are as follows; K3 said that "Once, you were holding the child's hand where he could not write, because I taught the first grader to hold his hand, he must feel the sound, and I taught him to hold a pencil by holding the hand that can't write, it is very important to hold the child's hand in the first grade." K5 added, "Of course, you are talking about face-to-face classes. Why is it easier to teach children to read and write face to face because we deal with children face to face. We start from holding the pen and do all the necessary activities for him to feel the sound. Children have fun with cut and paste activities. We decorate the classroom so that it attracts attention for the children."

Literacy Teaching in the Pandemic
When the data obtained were examined, it was seen that teachers had some difficulties in teaching literacy with distance education during the pandemic period. However, there were also participants who stated their positive aspects despite the difficulties. The positive and negative aspects of literacy teaching in distance education are presented below.
K9 said, "There is a video making program. I bought it. I was deleting their ads and adding text. I was taking pictures of children, I was pasting those pictures on them. I was adapting the video I took, adapting it according to the class, and showing it to the children."

Ensuring Teacher-Parent Cooperation in Distance Education
It is very important to reinforce teaching not only at school but also outside of school in literacy teaching. It is very important for parents to support and encourage the child at home. Therefore, teacher-parent cooperation formed another theme of the research. The interviews are summarized in Table 5; Teachers stated that they frequently talked to parents before the pandemic, but during the pandemic, these meetings were via phone or zoom, and this was not very effective. K3 said that "I used to hold the parent meeting periodically, even if we do not meet face to face, a certain first year student brings himself, so we meet every time he comes, if the first grade teacher interrupts the dialogue with the family, we will lose that child. I am in contact with the parents. While I was teaching on the phone or via Zoom during the pandemic, I talked to the parents during breaks, of course, it was more effective to meet face to face, communication was not remotely, but still it was not too bad." K9 stated that "I was meeting with parents every week via Zoom. I was doing it by writing maybe five or six times so that not everyone would agree. I used to say this every week at the parents' meeting: This process is not a process that only the teacher will do, only the student. In this process, I said that you should definitely participate, definitely support, and if you trust me, if you believe in me, support me."

Evaluation of Literacy Teaching in Distance Education
One of the important steps of the literacy teaching process is evaluation. The question of the techniques used to determine whether children learn to read and write differ in distance education was included in the research and the following codes were obtained. It has been revealed that measurement and evaluation techniques have not changed in distance education before and during the pandemic, but the support of the family is more in the lessons held from home via Zoom. However, this situation was sometimes perceived as positive and sometimes negative. While the involvement of the parents was positive in terms of supporting the student, the parent's involvement caused the evaluation to be incomplete. The opinions are as follows: K3 said, "By doing dictation, I see if the child understands, I write on the board and ask them to write in the notebook to check the writing. It was not very productive in the distance period, but I will have it taught, for example, his mother says it before him. It's not a very good evaluation, you can't say come and show you, you handle it with the help of your family, this made the process very difficult." The participant with the code K5 said, "Here again it is troubled. In other questions, I said that it was very difficult to help the child from the computer in understanding what he read or wrote. Of course, parents also intervene. The parent is reading, the child is repeating. I could not understand whether it is a child or a parent in the lesson. (Gigglenig)" K9 stated "I was sending a short text to the parents on WhatsApp, the parents were printing it out, and I told them to enter each student one by one saying there is a mistake here and there, there is this mistake here, at the beginning of the paragraph, put a finger between words, start with a capital letter, put a full stop at the end. .. I sent them back by telling them their mistakes one by one."

Teachers' Suggestions
Finally, teachers' suggestions were received regarding the teaching of literacy in emergency distance education such as the pandemic process. The codes related to these views are presented in Table 7 below. As can be seen in Table 7, the teachers listed the suggestions that families should be supported technologically and educationally in this process, that the infrastructure support should be increased, that these classes are not suitable for distance education, and that language support should be given to immigrant students. The opinions regarding this are as follows; K3 afirmed "…every child needs internet in their home, they need a microphone, so I am not a supporter of distance education during the time I was desperate, technological needs need to be met……Another important problem is that none of the immigrants could attend because they didn't have the internet, they say that the man doesn't understand Turkish, what is the need anyway……." K4 declared "I think if there is a pandemic, 1st graders should just continue. Others will be closed, but 1st graders will continue. Learning in the classroom is very important. They are now in 2nd Year and still have trouble following the classroom rules." K6 stated "You will never rush. It is very important for them to perceive the sound, pronounce it, and write it in accordance with the instructions." he said.
K7 afirmed "As a more experienced individual, if I were to take one again and do distance education, I would definitely not rush. I think this is the first thing we should do. If necessary, let him switch to reading and writing in March, but progress slowly. That would be my biggest piece of advice."

Discussion and Conclusions
According to the findings obtained from the research, there are some problems faced by teachers in the process of distance literacy teaching during the pandemic. First, teachers focused on problems such as crowded classrooms, indifference of families in face-to-face literacy teaching, and listed the positive aspects such as using body language, providing discipline, and effective lecture. However, while they used body language and facial expressions in pronunciation and writing exercises in face-to-face education, they could not use them in distance education. Aziz and Dicle (2017, p.129) stated that distance education cannot replace face-to-face education, especially using body language cannot replace anything. In addition, technological infrastructure problems, family interventions in lessons and lack of motivation in children were also stated as difficulties encountered in the distance literacy teaching process. On the other hand, in the study conducted by Çakın and Akyavuz (2020), it was revealed that children are motivated by feeling in the classroom environment in distance education. In this sense, it is seen that the findings of the two studies do not overlap. In addition to these, other positive aspects of distance education are listed as the students' feeling more comfortable in distance education, the opportunity to work one-on-one on zoom, the encouragement of the family to the lesson, and the availability of the material at home.
During the pandemic period, most of the reading goals were achieved in the first literacy teaching using distance education. However, teaching writing in distance education is difficult both in practice and in terms of evaluation. For this reason, there have been deficiencies in reaching the goals in distance writing teaching.
Teachers enriched the first literacy teaching with distance education by using different methods and techniques. By preparing different materials, students were motivated and literacy teaching was supported with these materials.
The differentiation in the use of technological tools by teachers in teaching literacy before and during the pandemic was investigated and it was revealed that there were some differences but not so much. While teachers used smart boards, computers, printers and web 2.0 tools before the pandemic, they benefited from zoom, EBA, web2.0 and video recordings during the pandemic.
In the framework of the data obtained about teacher-parent cooperation theme; It has been found that face-to-face meetings routinely held before the pandemic were more effective, but meetings via zoom, WhatsApp groups and telephone were not very productive. According to Aslanargun (2007: 121), teacher-family cooperation is especially important for the academic and personality development of the child. This process must be managed in a healthy and efficient manner. However, it has been observed that this cannot be achieved in remote communication. It can also be interpreted that this situation causes fatigue in teachers.
In the evaluation of literacy teaching, it is done with one-to-one dictation and reading exercises before the pandemic. However, it has been revealed that these applications are not very effective in live lessons, families are very much involved and a full evaluation cannot be made. It can be commented that the use of different assessment methods in online courses may be more effective. It is important to restructure the evaluations to cover all conditions, especially since the increased anxiety, fatigue and stress during the quarantine processes will affect children (Sarı, 2020).
Finally, teachers' suggestions about literacy teaching in emergency distance education such as the pandemic were evaluated. Teachers have listed suggestions such as providing technological and teaching methods to families, training on online tools for children and families, preparing online materials for teachers, technological infrastructure support for families, and language support for immigrant students. Finally, it was stated that distance education is not suitable for the 1st grades and that this level should be kept separately and continue education in crisis situations such as pandemics.

Recommendations
The 1st Grade period, which covers a very important step such as the first meeting with the school, is a very important process for both students, teachers and parents. In order for this process to be healthy during crisis periods such as pandemics, some measures should be taken. First of all, it is very important to give preliminary information so that parents can use technology in distance education and literacy teaching, as well as contribute to literacy teaching. In addition, families with insufficient financial situation can be identified and technological infrastructure support can be provided. Finally, students from immigrant families who will start their 1st grade can be provided with Turkish education one year in advance, and they can be ready for 1st grade.
Suggestions to researchers for other studies to be carried out can be listed as follows; in addition to qualitative research on the subject, quantitative research can also contribute to the drawing of the general framework of the subject. In addition, it can be thought that studies comparing the situation of 1st grade students who learned to read and write during the pandemic process in their 2nd grade will also contribute to the field.