Research consistently documents that girls outperform boys in literacy achievement, yet, when considering the starting point--early literacy--we do not have consensus on the origin, meaningful nature, or persistence of such differences. In this two-part study analyzing 5,816 Norwegian students (48.1% girls, average age of 6.1 years), we first…

Purpose: We investigated the roles of leisure reading and word reading ability in vocabulary and reading comprehension development in 598 adolescents at ages 10, 11, and 12 (285 girls, 313 boys). Method: Structural equation modeling was used to test whether word reading was associated with vocabulary and reading comprehension: a) directly; b)…

This project tested the effects of adding instruction of trios of children in patterning, mathematics, early literacy, or social studies to ongoing instruction in kindergartens. Children were randomly assigned to trios which were randomly assigned to one of four kinds of instruction. A quarter of the trios received patterning instruction with a…