Set for variability (SfV) is an oral language task that requires an individual to disambiguate the mismatch between the decoded form of an irregular word and its actual lexical pronunciation. For example, in the task, the word wasp is pronounced to rhyme with clasp (i.e. /waesp/), and the individual must recognize the actual pronunciation of the…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (NICHD SECCYD), we used 2-level random effects models to examine whether the quality of school and home environments during elementary school moderated associations between pre-K quality and math, reading, and vocabulary…

Inference making is fundamental to the construction of a coherent mental model of a text. We examined how vocabulary and verbal working memory relate to inference development concurrently and longitudinally in 4- to 9-year-olds. Four hundred and twenty prekindergartners completed oral assessments of inference making, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary…

Drawing on Geary's (1995) evolution-based model of cognitive and academic development, this study investigated the relation between biologically primary skills (vocabulary, executive functions, and visual-spatial processing) and subsequent word reading and calculation. It also examined the extent to which these relations were mediated by…

The two major determinants of reading comprehension are language comprehension and decoding, but prior studies of the development of reading comprehension from an early age show inconsistent results. To clarify these inconsistencies we report a 6-year longitudinal study (starting at Age 4 years) where we control for measurement error and track the…

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

No previous empirical study has investigated whether the learning disabilities (LD) identification decisions of proposed methods to operationalize processing strengths and weaknesses approaches for LD identification are associated with differential treatment response. We investigated whether the identification decisions of the…

Predictors of age 10 spelling and reading comprehension skills in both Chinese and English from vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and word reading at age 8 were tested in this longitudinal study of 141 Hong Kong Chinese children learning to read English as a second language. The correlation between…

This longitudinal study examined the process of English reading comprehension at age 11 years for 173 low-achieving Spanish-speaking children. The influence of growth rates, from early childhood (age 4.5 years) to pre-adolescence (age 11 years), in vocabulary and word reading skills on this complex process were evaluated with structural equation…

Familial/individual predictor variables related to reading disability were assessed, using 66 lower-to-upper-middle-class second graders. Subjects were evaluated as preschoolers, at age 60 months, and at the end of grade 2. Familial reading problems and individual differences in vocabulary, phonological awareness, and early literacy skills were…