Before formal instruction, preschoolers represent words in print in various degrees of conventionality. Unlicensed letters are letters that have no connection to the word that the child is aiming to write; they are neither licensed by phoneme-grapheme rules nor by orthographical representations in the mental lexicon. In the current paper, we…

The "recycling hypothesis" posits that the word recognition system is built upon minimal modifications to the neural architecture used in object recognition. In two masked priming lexical decision studies, we examined whether "mirror generalization," a phenomenon in object recognition, occurs in word recognition. In Study 1, we…

In this study, we compared children's and adults' ability to accurately identify target words in written minimal pairs (WMPs) with graphemically similar letters while accounting for factors such as gender, similarity of the middle letter in WMPs, mono- versus dimorphemic WMPs, number of syllable, homography, and imageability. Fifty children and…

This study examined the nature of young children's literacy interest, the predictability of literacy interest for early literacy skills, and gender differences in literacy interest using a sample of Head Start children (N = 263). Literacy interest was compared across parent-, teacher-, and child-reported measures of literacy activity participation…

Academic feedback has a direct impact on students' effort decisions and academic performance. However, the grades that are reported to students are often based on institutional or instructor preferences, with entities adopting a discrete or fine grading scale. In this study, we utilize a field experiment to assess how a Letter (LGS) or Numerical…

This study assessed 266 young children's (mean age = 55.41 months, SD = 4.70 month) writing skills (name writing and letter writing), and decoding skills (letter knowledge, letter-word identification, and phonological awareness), and investigated whether children learn letter writing from their own names, and whether children's gender is related…

Early identification of children at risk of developing reading difficulties is crucial for effective interventions. While orthographies and educational contexts differ, predictors included in early at-risk screening tend to remain rather homogeneous across countries. In this study, we compared longitudinal prediction patterns of being among the 20…

Boys' relatively poor progress in writing development is of particular concern in education with both cognitive and social factors proposed as possible accounts of this discrepancy. This study examined whether differences in cognitive skills such as handwriting and spelling or phonological processing abilities could explain gender differences in…

Research consistently documents that girls outperform boys in literacy achievement, yet, when considering the starting point--early literacy--we do not have consensus on the origin, meaningful nature, or persistence of such differences. In this two-part study analyzing 5,816 Norwegian students (48.1% girls, average age of 6.1 years), we first…

One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children's skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading…

Language abilities in preschool years, including those measured with letter knowledge, are predictors of reading development in later school years. The aim of this study was to investigate variation in children's language abilities before they started school in relation to gender and neighborhood level socioeconomic status (SES). Schools from…

What happens in the early years of a child's life has a profound impact on the rest of their life. This significant and influential phase in visual, language and emotional development lays the foundation for lifelong health, learning and earning potential. In August 2021 National Literacy Trust commissioned Savanta ComRes to conduct a survey of…

Relational screening from descriptive screening models was used in this study in which legibility and speeds of writings of primary school students with respect to writing disposition and different writing styles were examined. A sample of 325 children in the 4th and 5th grades attending schools in the Kdz. Eregli participated into the study.…

This study reports the dimensionality and measurement invariance of a modified version of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Preschoolers (PALS PreK). Practical constraints of conducting child assessments created an opportunity to develop a modified PALS PreK. The sample consisted of 1,168 children tested in a Southwestern state in…

The purpose of this study was to identify the types of early reading tasks with which final year (5-6 year olds) Jamaican basic school children are struggling that place them at-risk for reading difficulties. A sample of 409 (224 females, 185 males) children in the final year of basic school were tested using measures of language development,…