Purpose: Using data from 1,868 children from the US, Australia, and Sweden who took a 10-word spelling test in kindergarten and a standardized spelling test in Grades 1, 2, and (except for the Australian children) Grade 4, we examined two questions. First, does the quality of a child's errors on the kindergarten test help predict later spelling…

Statistical views of reading highlight the link between proficient literacy and the assimilation of various regularities embedded in writing systems, including those in the mapping between print and meaning. Still, orthographic-semantic (O-S) regularities remain relatively understudied, with open questions regarding 3 issues: (a) how O-S…

Stability is an important underlying assumption in any form of assessment-supported decision-making. Since early years development is frequently described as unstable, the concept plays a central role in the discussion surrounding early years assessment. This paper describes stability as a set of assumptions about the way individual scores change…

The development of beginning decoding and encoding skills is influenced by linguistic skills as well as executive functions (EFs). These higher-level cognitive processes include working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, and individual differences in these EFs have been shown to contribute to early academic learning. The present study…

This study explored the development of Ecuadorian Kindergartners' spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) during the kindergarten year, as well as the contribution of early numerical abilities to this development. One hundred Kindergartners coming from ten classrooms received two SFON tasks, one at the beginning and one at the end of the school…

Experts claim that individual differences in children's formal understanding of mathematical equivalence have consequences for mathematics achievement; however, evidence is lacking. A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted with a diverse sample of 112 children from a midsized city in the Midwestern United States (M[subscript age] [second…

The development of beginning decoding and encoding skills is influenced by linguistic skills as well as executive functions (EFs). These higher-level cognitive processes include working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, and individual differences in these EFs have been shown to contribute to early academic learning. The present study…

Purpose: The goal was to determine whether interactive book reading outcomes for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were affected by manipulation of dose (i.e., the number of exposures to the target word during a book reading session) and dose frequency (i.e., the number of repeated book reading sessions) and whether pretreatment…

While preschool-aged children display some skills with quantitative relations, later learning of related fraction concepts is difficult for many students. We present two studies that investigate young children's tendency of Spontaneous Focusing On quantitative Relations (SFOR), which may help explain individual differences in the development of…

In light of emerging evidence suggesting that the affective quality of parent-child relationships may relate to individual differences in young children's executive functioning (EF) skills, the aim of this study was to investigate the prospective associations between attachment security in toddlerhood and children's EF skills in kindergarten.…