Games are frequently used to promote math learning, yet the competitive and collaborative contexts introduced by games may exacerbate gender differences. In this study, 1st and 2nd grade children in the U.S. (ages 5-8; N = 274; 70% White, 15% Asian, 2% Black, 1% Native American, 14% mixed or other race; 17% Hispanic) played either a competitive,…

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…

Three hundred and ninety-one children (195 girls; M[subscript age] = 9.56 years) attending Grades 1 and 5 completed implicit and explicit measures of math attitudes and math self-concepts. Math grades were obtained. Multilevel analyses showed that first-grade girls held a strong negative implicit attitude about math, despite no gender differences…

This study examined children's expectancies about interactions with own- and other-gender peers. Goals were to examine expectancies about the outcomes related to own- versus other-gender group interactions, assess cohort and temporal changes in expectancies, and assess the effect of expectancies on school-related outcomes. Students in second and…

Nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 (n = 14,370) were used to examine the grade-level and cumulative outcomes of school absenteeism between kindergarten and fifth grade for students' school performance in the United States. Students who were more frequently absent in any year of…

This study examines associations between leisure reading and reading skills in data of 2,525 students followed from age 7 to 16. As a step further from traditional cross-lagged analysis, a random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to identify within-person associations of leisure reading (books, magazines, newspapers, and digital…

This study explores the co-development of two related but separate reading skills, reading fluency and reading comprehension, across Grades 1-4. A bivariate biometric dual change score model was applied to longitudinal data collected from 1,784 twin pairs between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Grade 1 skills were influenced by highly overlapping…

This study examined the associations between intrinsic motivation and achievement in mathematics in a sample of 1,478 Canadian school-age children followed from Grades 1 to 4 (ages 7-10). Children self-reported their intrinsic motivation toward mathematics, whereas achievement was measured through direct assessment of mathematics abilities.…

Although the research literature regarding language growth trajectories is burgeoning, the shape and direction of English Language Learners' (ELLs) language growth trajectories are largely not known. This study used growth curve modeling to determine the shape of ELLs' language growth trajectories across 12,248 oral narrative language samples…

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…

Panel mediation models and fixed-effects models were used to explore longitudinal relations among parents' reactions to children's displays of negative emotions, children's effortful control (EC), and children's math achievement (N = 291; M age in fall of kindergarten = 5.66 years, SD = 0.39 year) across kindergarten through…

How does understanding the decimal system change with age and experience? Second, third, sixth graders, and adults (Experiment 1: N = 96, mean ages = 7.9, 9.23, 12.06, and 19.96 years, respectively) made number line estimates across 3 scales (0-1,000, 0-10,000, and 0-100,000). Generation of linear estimates increased with age but decreased with…

Three models of the prospective relations between child maladjustment and peer victimization are examined: (a) internalizing results directly from victimization, (b) internalizing leads to victimization, and (c) physical aggression fuels retaliatory victimization that leads to increases in internalizing over time. Data came from assessments of…

This longitudinal study examined different explanations for negative associations between aggression and academic achievement using data collected from 403 children from low-income families followed from kindergarten or first grade (ages 6 and 7 years) through fifth grade (ages 10-11 years). Most results of growth curve analyses examining change…

Two experiments examined kindergartners', first graders', and second graders' numerical estimation, the internal representations that gave rise to the estimates, and the general hypothesis that developmental sequences within a domain tend to repeat themselves in new contexts. Development of estimation in this age range on 0-to-100 number lines…