Theoretical work has suggested close associations between morphological awareness (MA) and reading skills in Chinese; however, the nature and direction of these time-ordered links are little known. This study examined the interplays of MA and reading skills using a continuous-time modeling approach to three waves of two-year longitudinal data from…

Aims: The purpose of this study was to understand the frequency of reflex retention as well as the correlation between primitive reflex activity and scholastic performance. This quantitative correlational study involved 24 kindergartners and 29 first-graders (31 males and 22 females), aged 5-7 years, who were typically developing. Researchers…

Background: Well-being is a key aspect of children's education, yet measurement issues have limited studies in early primary school. Aims: The current 12-month longitudinal study assesses the temporal stability of child- and parent-reported school well-being and examines developmental links with academic self-concept and parent-rated prosocial…

Most studies have concentrated in assessing students' overall attitudes towards science, mathematics, and engineering/technology or the attitude towards individual STEM domain. The present research aims to explore primary students' gender and grade differences of their STEM domain-specific attitudes including self-efficacy and expectancy-value…

Previous research has reported the long-lasting effects of children's early adjustment to formal schooling on their later academic lives. However, little has been studied on whether father and teacher communication styles perceived by children during their early school years are comparable. This study explored the relationship between father and…

Background: Recent research suggested fluent processing as an explanation on why number sense contributes to simple arithmetic tasks--'Fluency hypothesis'. Aims: The current study investigates whether number sense contributes to such arithmetic tasks when other cognitive factors are controlled for (including those that mediate the link); and…

Background: Visual motor integration plays an important role in academic skills of learners in the early school years and can have an impact on their overall academic performance. Aim: This study aimed to determine the influence of socio-economic status (SES) on changes in visual-motor integration, visual perception and motor coordination over a…

Poor reading has been linked to negative outcomes on a wide range of emotional-behavioural dimensions in children. However, little is known about the time course of these associations. In this study we analyse data from a sample of Finnish children (N = 199; 106 boys) which included measures of reading fluency in grade 1 (age 7 or 8), and…

Parents provide motivational and cognitive support within the same interaction, yet researchers have investigated these separately. We examined two key aspects of parental support, praise (motivational support) and spatial language (cognitive support), from fathers and mothers during three tasks with their first-grade children (6-7-year-olds; N =…

This study investigated associations between quality of the teacher-student relationship (closeness and conflict) and teachers' (N = 48) visual focus of attention in Grade 1 classrooms in fall and spring, and it explored to what extent students' (N = 650) gender and task-avoidant behaviour moderated the associations. Results showed first that…

This cross-sectional research was conducted to probe how 626 Taiwanese children's conceptions of learning differ by age and gender via drawing. Participants were from the kindergarten, the first grade, and the third grade. A coding scheme categorizing the people, learning domain, and place in the drawings was developed. Chi-square tests were then…

Background: Previous research showed a significant association between mathematics and working memory (WM). However, evidence regarding the different effects of verbal and visuospatial WM on mathematical abilities was very limited. Aims: The current research aims to explore the relationship between verbal and visuospatial WM with mathematical…

Purpose: The present meta-analysis sought to investigate the effects of phonemic awareness instruction provided to children suspected of having a reading disability. Method: Seven databases were systematically searched, and 1,643 unique manuscripts were reviewed for inclusion. Data were extracted from 138 included manuscripts to evaluate the use…

Despite nearly forty years of research on the summer reading loss phenomenon, defined as the backsliding in reading achievement that may occur during the summer when students were not enrolled in school, consensus remains elusive regarding the most effective way to mitigate reading regression. This quantitative, non-experimental research study…

Purpose: This study examines the development of narrative microstructure elements of productivity, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity in the oral story production of preschool- and school-age Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children. It also explores the effects of story task complexity on the target microstructural features. Method: This study…