Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort (2010-2011), this study is the first to investigate predictors of kindergarten science achievement and growth across elementary school--English language proficiency (ELP), executive functioning, math and reading achievement, parent-engaged science and math activities, and classroom…

The influence of individual difference variables on second language (L2) listening comprehension has been an area of research that has been gaining renewed attention in recent years. The current study investigated the effects of two cognitive variables, aptitude and metacognitive awareness, on 107 native-Korean, English as a foreign language…

Despite much attention having been paid to foreign language (FL) reading and related variables such as self-efficacy, relatively few studies have focused on young learners, and even fewer on storybooks, arguably the commonest genre read by children worldwide for language learning. As FL learning commences at a young age in many contexts globally,…

Purpose: The primary aims of this study were to: (1) to describe average change in the writing quality of fifth grade students from the fall and spring of the school year; (2) examine relations between linguistic features and writing quality rating; and (3) test for differential growth between groups of students who differ in linguistic and…

Within the same learning context, learners' outcomes in terms of oral fluency vary greatly. This study tracked the relative contributions that first language (L1) and initial second language (L2) fluency skill and working memory (WM) made to L2 fluency development. We assessed the performance of French-speaking Grade 6 learners' (n = 47, mean age:…

Although numerous studies show that intelligence, measured by various tests, is a significant predictor of school achievement, this cognitive variable can only explain about 50% of the variance. It is also known that communicative language ability represents an important basis for learning subject content in the early period of formal education.…

Using kindergarten up to fourth-grade data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (2010--2011 cohort), we investigated systematic variability in English language learners' (ELLs; n = 303) mathematics growth as well as relations of kindergarten language growth and working memory (WM) to ELLs' mathematics growth. Using growth mixture modeling,…

Previous studies offer mixed evidence regarding whether a unified model of reading comprehension predictors applies to Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and English Speakers (ESs), or whether distinctive models across language groups are empirically supported. The present study adds another dimension to this body of work by examining multiple reading…

As the theme of the 2022 annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, cultivating equitable education systems has gained renewed attention amid an increasingly diverse society. However, systemic inequalities persist for traditionally underserved student populations. As a way to better address diverse students' needs, it is of…

Academic language skills support mid-adolescents' comprehension of the language of school texts. To date, scarce research has explored associations between dual academic language skills and reading comprehension among mid-adolescent dual language immersion (DLI) students. This study examined individual differences in Spanish and English academic…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship of language proficiency (WIDA) on the performance of third, fourth, and fifth grade English language learners who were administered the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments during the 2017-2018 assessment year. The Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) reading and…

The current study examined the proficiency of Israeli adolescents in reading single words in English, which is taught as a foreign language, and what language skills predict individual variability. Parallel measures of word reading, phonology, decoding, morpho-syntax and vocabulary in Hebrew and English were administered to 217 adolescents in 8th…

Researchers attempting to show that music has positive effects on children need to understand and control for preexisting differences between those who do and do not select into musical participation in the first place. Within a large-scale, communitywide, prospective, longitudinal study of predominantly low-income, ethnically diverse students (N…

Despite a longstanding awareness of academic language as a pedagogically-relevant research area, the construct of academic language proficiency--understood as a more comprehensive set of skills than just academic vocabulary--has remained only vaguely specified. This study examines the potential--for both research and practice--of a more inclusive…

The relation of rapid automatised naming (RAN) to word recognition may depend on the phonological regularity of the orthography. This study examined differential contributions of RAN to reading and writing in Korean alphabetic Hangul, logographic Hanja (Chinese) and English as a second language among 73 fifth graders in Korea across 1?year. RAN…