This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional…

Theory of mind has received intensive attention in research as an important skill to develop. Furthermore, recent evidence indicates its role in discourse comprehension. In the current study, we examined the mediating role of theory of mind in the relations of foundational language and cognitive skills (working memory, attentional control,…

The importance of early vocabulary development to later reading comprehension has been well-established. However, there have been a number of criticisms that the assessments typically used to measure oral vocabulary knowledge do not adequately capture the complexity of this construct. This conceptual review works towards a more robust theoretical…

Research consistently shows that adults engaged in tutored acquisition benefit from explicit instruction in several linguistic domains. For preschool children, it is often assumed that such explicit instruction does not make a difference. In the present study, we investigated whether explicit instruction affected young learners in acquiring a…

This article examines factors that promote active multilingualism. For this purpose, the "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test" was used with 48 children. Their results were linked to a parental questionnaire designed to evaluate the children's linguistic input in their immediate environment. The study shows that, besides a minimum amount of…

The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the dimensionality of language ability for young children (4-8 years) from prekindergarten to third grade (n = 915), theorizing that measures of vocabulary and grammar ability will represent a unitary trait across these ages, and to determine whether discourse skills represent an additional…

Prior research on reading difficulties has mainly focused on word decoding problems. However, there exists another group of children -- poor comprehenders (PCs) -- who have normal word decoding abilities but difficulties in reading comprehension. Less is known about PCs especially in non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese. This study identified…

Since the early 2000s, much emphasis has been placed on adopting the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method in the Korean K-12 context, however, such efforts have been largely unsuccessful. In order to shed light on some of the reasons for such failures, this study examined the impact of short-term professional development (PD) on primary…

Research Findings: The present study compared effects of explicit instruction on and practice with the phonological form of words (form-focused instruction) versus explicit instruction on and practice with the meaning of words (meaning-focused instruction). Instruction was given via interactive storybook reading in the kindergarten classroom of…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade," is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The guide suggests…

The present study used individual growth modeling to examine the role of specific forms (i.e., receptive, expressive, and definitional vocabulary and grammatical skill) and levels of oral vocabulary skill (i.e., 25th, 50th, or 75th percentile) in phonological awareness growth during the preschool and kindergarten years. Sixty-one,…

This study investigates 2-5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children's interpretation of the disjunction word "huozhe" ("or") in two positions in "ruguo" ("if")-conditional statements, i.e., in the antecedent clause versus in the consequent clause. The findings from three experiments show that the meanings…

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical utility of the narrative scoring scheme (NSS) as an index of narrative macrostructure for young school-age children. Method: Oral retells of a wordless picture book were elicited from 129 typically developing children, ages 5-7. A series of correlations and hierarchical regression equations were completed using…

Purpose: In this study, the authors sought to determine whether a combination of English-language measures and a parent questionnaire on first-language development could adequately discriminate between English-language learners (ELLs) with and without language impairment (LI) when children had diverse first-language backgrounds. Method:…

Grounded in research and practical expertise, this volume helps K-6 teachers skillfully support all of their English language learners (ELLs)--from a single student to an entire classroom. Ideas for teaching ELLs across different grade and proficiency levels include ways to link instruction to students' lived experiences, use a variety of…