Preschool teachers' literacy-related beliefs and literacy knowledge relate to their educational practices and preschoolers' literacy skills. In this light, we explored how preschool teachers' beliefs regarding early literacy and its promotion predict their knowledge, reflected in how they evaluate three young children's writing products and their…

Preschool children often confuse letters with their mirror images when they try to read and write. Mirror confusion seems to occur more often in line with the direction of script (e.g., left-to-right for the Latin alphabetic script), suggesting that the processing of letter orientation and text directionality may be interrelated in preliterate…

Fine motor skills (FMS) are among the most studied nonlinguistic factors influencing early literacy acquisition. Although developmental studies have often supported the presence of a relationship between FMS and emergent literacy, the underlying mechanisms have not always been adequately explored. In this study, we used structural equation…

In the digital age, handwriting literacy has declined to a worrying degree, especially in non-alphabetic writing systems. In particular, Chinese (and also Japanese) handwriters have suffered from character amnesia ([Chinese characters omitted]), where people cannot correctly produce a character though they can recognize it. Though character…

We examined the associations between teachers' knowledge of language and literacy constructs, perceived ability to teach early literacy skills, instructional practice, and students' early reading outcomes. The results showed that teacher knowledge predicted quality of instruction, but neither quality of instruction nor teacher knowledge were…

Most children across the world learn to read and write in non-alphabetic orthographies such as abjads (e.g., Arabic), abugidas (e.g., Ethiopic Ge'ez), and morphosyllabaries (e.g., Chinese). However, most theories of reading, reading development, and dyslexia derive from a relatively narrow empirical base of research in English--an outlier…

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the underlying assessment structure of the Derivational Morphology Task (DMORPH) and (b) investigate the relation of the DMORPH to vocabulary and reading comprehension outcomes with a sample of struggling adult readers. Specifically, participants included 218 struggling adult readers enrolled in adult…

There is widespread concern about declining literacy skills in recent young Japanese. The present study investigated how higher-level reading and writing proficiencies are underpinned by basic literacy skills in Japanese adolescents. From a large database of the most popular literacy exams in Japan, we retrospectively analyzed word- and text-level…

This study examines the intricate relationships between home language use, oral language skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and receptive vocabulary), and literacy skills (word reading and spelling) in English and Chinese among young bilinguals. The sample includes 249 first-grade and 263 third-grade bilingual students in…

This study examined the heterogeneity of early literacy profiles of English learners and non-English learners. Utilizing a latent profile analysis, the degree to which distinct learner profiles emerged was examined using code-based and language-based measures administered in the beginning of first grade. Participants included 11,803 English…

There is good evidence that high-quality instruction targeting reading-related skills in the classroom leads to gains in reading. However, considerably less is known about the possible efficacy of "remote" instruction. This study evaluated the efficacy of an interactive evidence-based language-rich literacy programme. 184 children were…

Early literacy and writing development are inter-related, yet predictors of beginning writing are less well studied than beginning reading. This study investigated contributions of school-entry name-writing to writing skills after 1 and 2 years of school in New Zealand above and beyond school-entry oral language and early literacy skills.…

Literacy skills are important for children's development. The present study explored the effectiveness of a parent coaching approach on the reading and spelling skills and compared cognitive-linguistic skills performances between Chinese children with and without dyslexia. Participants were 33 children with dyslexia and 77 children without…

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the Early Grade Writing Assessment for Kindergarten (EGWA-K), which is grounded in foundational literacy skills, for its validity and diagnostic accuracy in identifying children at risk of developing early learning disabilities in writing (LDW). To the best of our knowledge, no such tool exists for…

In this study, we examined the relationship between phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA), and character reading in Chinese kindergarten children. One hundred and twenty children were assessed in each of their three years at the kindergarten, with 12-month intervals in between. Using cross-lagged panel modeling, we found that:…