Literacy acquisition is a complex process with genetic and environmental factors influencing cognitive and neural processes associated with reading. Previous research identified factors that predict word reading fluency (WRF), including phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and speech-in-noise perception (SPIN). Recent…

Research on monolingual children has shown that listening comprehension is predicted by a range of language and cognitive skills; less is known about predictors of listening comprehension in bilingual children and about the role of language input. This study presents longitudinal data on predictors of English listening comprehension in 100…

Research on elementary schoolteachers' beliefs about dual language development and its relation to English learners' (ELs) achievement is scant, despite the increasing representation of ELs in US classrooms. To address this gap, this study investigates: (1) teacher beliefs about ELs' dual language development and (2) associations between teacher…

There is resounding evidence of the existence of direct precursors of written language, most specifically phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, and oral comprehension. The initial differences identified in the development of written language precursors are directly related to subsequent students' academic trajectories.…

This article describes the lexical and syntactic development of written narratives in 24 deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students aged between 8 and 18 and takes into account how their varying linguistic backgrounds may predict their written performance. All participants use spoken Swedish, but the study also considers their proficiency in Swedish…

This study examines whether children's decontextualized talk--talk about nonpresent events, explanations, or pretend--at 30 months predicts seventh-grade academic language proficiency (age 12). Academic language (AL) refers to the language of school texts. AL proficiency has been identified as an important predictor of adolescent text…

It is common in intervention research to use measures of working memory either as an explanatory or a control variable. This study examines the contribution of cognitive abilities, including verbal working memory (WM) and attention, to language performance in first- and second-grade children. We assessed children (N = 414) on two forms of verbal…

This study investigated endogenous and exogenous predictors of early literacy in Turkish-speaking children. Whether children's language and working memory performances (as the endogenous factors) and home literacy environment (as the exogenous factor) in the beginning of kindergarten predict the children's current and year-end early literacy…

Perspective taking is a fundamental skill that helps us to understand others' thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Past studies have shown that there were significant relations between young children's perspective taking abilities and age, gender, formal schooling and socioeconomic status. The present study was conducted to investigate the…

Purpose: There is conflicting evidence regarding effects of bilingualism on inhibition, and the mechanisms that might underlie the effects remain unclear. A prominent account views additional demands on structural language use in bilinguals as being at the root of bilingual effects on inhibition. In this study, we tested the novel hypothesis that…

Background: Fathers are increasingly acknowledged as active participants in rearing young children, yet few observational measures recognize gender-differentiated parenting and can be used by practitioners and researchers to assess and improve fathers' parenting capacity in playful settings, in order to inform program effectiveness. Two potential…

Empirical studies investigating supplemental reading interventions for students with or at risk for reading disabilities in the early elementary grades have demonstrated a range of effect sizes. Identifying the findings from high-quality research can provide greater certainty of findings related to the effectiveness of supplemental reading…

Using nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort (n = 2,798), this study examined patterns of absenteeism and their consequences through the transition to kindergarten. Overall, children were less likely to be absent in kindergarten than from Head Start at ages 3 and 4. Absenteeism was fairly stable…

Purpose: This study investigated the longitudinal development of 2 important contributors to reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary skills. The primary interest was to examine the trajectories of the 2 skill areas from preschool to 3rd grade. Method: The study involved a longitudinal sample of 420 children from 4 sites. Language skills,…

The two major determinants of reading comprehension are language comprehension and decoding, but prior studies of the development of reading comprehension from an early age show inconsistent results. To clarify these inconsistencies we report a 6-year longitudinal study (starting at Age 4 years) where we control for measurement error and track the…