The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to examine the impact of school closure on beginning-of-the-year readiness for third-grade students in a rural Northeastern North Carolina school district. The research compared third-grade students' beginning-of-the-year reading readiness during the 2019-2020 school year to third-grade students' beginning-of-the-year reading readiness in 2020-2021 following school closure. School districts across North Carolina closed their doors to face-to-face instruction on March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This forced schools to educate students remotely for three months. With summer vacation included in the timeline, students were not in school for face-to-face learning for a total of at least five months. A comparison was made using third-grade students' local i-Ready beginning-of-the-year reading diagnostic and the North Carolina Beginning of Grade test given in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 to see if there was a significant difference in the results. The findings will be used to identify students at risk of not reaching proficiency at the end of grade three. Findings may help with establishing targeted interventions and informing the educational community of the impact of school closure on beginning-of-the-year readiness on third-grade students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]