One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children's skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading…

This study examined the effect of pre-reading vocabulary instruction on learners' attention and vocabulary learning. We randomly assigned participants (L1 = 92; L2 = 88) to one of four conditions: pre-reading instruction, where participants' received explicit instruction on six novel items and read a text with the items repeated eight times;…

Research has documented various family and individual risk factors associated with severe conduct problems, but little is known about the developmental origins of children who engage in both aggressive and prosocial interactions with others. The present study utilized growth-mixture modeling to identify distinct trajectories of physical aggression…

The present study used multiple regression to determine the predictive value of Kindergarten phonemic awareness, rapid serial naming, letter knowledge, and cognitive ability for predicting first-grade word reading and fluency. Participants were 131 first-grade students from a mid-Atlantic school system. A combination of predictor variables was…

Reading skills are core competencies in children's readiness to learn and may be particularly important for children in foster care, who are at risk for academic difficulties and higher rates of special education placement. In this study, prereading skills (phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and oral language ability) and kindergarten…

Analysis of data from 96 children in a longitudinal study found that foundation skills in speech perception and language as well as family demographics and home environmental variables were related to and predicted later reading scores. Event related potential measures of speech perception immediately after birth also predicted reading scores,…

This longitudinal study followed reading progress in 208 children with language impairments (either specific or nonspecific) compared to normal and low IQ controls from kindergarten through fourth grade. Children with language impairment in kindergarten, especially nonspecific language impairment, were at high risk of reading disabilities in…

At 30 months, children who were later considered dyslexic were deficient in length, sytactic complexity, and pronunciation of spoken language. At three years, children were deficit in receptive vocabulary and object-naming, and at five years, in phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge. These deficits were not found in normal reading children…

A study was conducted to determine the attitudes and preferences of 38 intellectually gifted intermediate grade students toward their recreational reading habits. The students' parents also were surveyed to describe the children's reading readiness development. The results showed that the students preferred books over other materials, liked…

Data collected during the standardization of the 1976 Metropolitan Readiness Tests (MRT) were examined to provide information on sex differences in prereading skills. The MRT are designed for administration either at the beginning of kindergarten or between kindergarten and first grade. Performance on the six subtests and the total test on both…