Emirati children's reading skills have consistently lagged behind global standards on international standardized tests. Given the United Arab Emirates's Vision 2031, which aims for a world-class education system, and given the importance of Arabic literacy in preserving national identity and cultural heritage, there is an urgent need to…

Mathematical competence in middle childhood predicts socioeconomic status in adulthood. Therefore, it is important to understand the components that constitute mathematical competence from kindergarten to sixth grade. Using an analytical approach, in this article, I identify three components: understanding numbers, understanding mathematical…

Early mathematics knowledge is a strong predictor of later academic achievement, but children from low-income families enter school with weak mathematics knowledge. An early math trajectories model is proposed and evaluated within a longitudinal study of 517 low-income American children from ages 4 to 11. This model includes a broad range of math…

There is considerable variation in state policies related to the certification required for teachers in kindergarten and first grade, and relatively little is known about these policies' effects on student learning. This study considers whether children who have kindergarten and first-grade teachers with certification in early childhood education…

Recent evidence suggests that early natural number knowledge is a predictor of later rational number conceptual knowledge, even though students' difficulties with rational numbers have also been explained by the overuse of natural number concepts--often referred to as the natural number bias. Hannula and Lehtinen ("Learn Instr"…

The transition to elementary school is accompanied by increasing demands for children to regulate their attention and behavior within the classroom setting. Executive control (EC) may be critical for meeting these demands; however, few studies have rigorously examined the association between EC and observed classroom behavior. This study examined…

Context: Emerging research indicates parental educational attainment is not always stable over time, particularly among young adults with lower levels of income and educational attainment. Though increases in postsecondary education are often highlighted as a route to greater earnings among higher-income students, it is unclear whether increases…

This study considers whether children who have kindergarten and first grade teachers with certification in early childhood education experience greater gains in reading and math achievement compared to children whose teachers have only elementary education certification. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), the study…

Elementary education has theoretical underpinnings based on cognitive psychology. Ideas from cognitive psychologists such as James, Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky coalesce to form constructivism (Cooper, 1993; Yager, 2000; Yilmaz, 2011). Among others, the Montessori Method (1912/1964) is an exemplar of constructivism. Currently, public education in…

Teachers' attitudes towards inclusion are important as they have the primary responsibility of implementing inclusive education. Attitudes at the beginning of teaching careers are likely to predict future attitudes. Some studies show a drop in attitudes after leaving university education. Using the Teachers' Attitudes Towards Inclusion (Amended)…

Two experiments investigated the effects of strategy knowledge and strategy training on the working memory (WM) performance in children (ages 10-11) with and without reading disabilities (RD). Experiment 1 examined the relationship between strategy knowledge (stability of strategy choices) and WM performance as a function of initial, gain (cued),…

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal childhood resilience study which investigated the relationship between resilience-related beliefs and positive child development. Three waves of data collection (T1, T2, and T3) were completed in January 2005, July 2005, and January 2006 with a sample of 843 grade 4 pupils, drawn from six primary…

Comorbidity between SLI and dyslexia is well documented. Researchers have variously argued that dyslexia is a separate disorder from SLI, or that children with dyslexia show a subset of the difficulties shown in SLI. This study examines these hypotheses by assessing whether family history of dyslexia and speech and language difficulties are…

Relatively little research has explored whether schools differ in their effectiveness for different group of pupils (e.g. by ethnicity, poverty or gender), for different curriculum subjects (e.g. English, mathematics or science) or over time (different cohorts). This paper uses multilevel modelling to analyse the national test results at age 7 and…

Second- and third-graders (N=94) from a suburban New Jersey school who had taken the Boehm test of Basic Concepts as kindergartners were given the Stanford Achievement Test, Form W. The obtained grade scores in each subject area were then correlated with the Boehm Test scores. (Author)