Research has established the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and children's reading development. However, the theoretical mechanisms underlying the association between them have yet to be fully understood. Moreover, few previous studies exploring the mechanisms tapped both first language (L1) and second language (L2) at the same time. In…

The authors tested theoretically driven predictions as to the ways in which syntactic awareness, or awareness of word order within sentences, might contribute to reading comprehension, the end goal of reading development and instruction. They conducted a longitudinal study of 100 English-speaking children followed from Grade 3 to 4. Children…

This study compared how lexical quality (vocabulary and decoding) and executive control (working memory and inhibition) predict reading comprehension directly as well as indirectly, via syntactic integration, in monolingual and bilingual fourth grade children. The participants were 76 monolingual and 102 bilingual children (mean age 10 years,…

The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of transcription skills, oral language skills, and executive functions to growth in narrative writing between fourth and sixth grade. While text length and story content of narratives did not increase with age, syntactic complexity of narratives showed a clear developmental progression. Results…

The present study is a four-year longitudinal study examining the important predictors of writing of 340 Chinese children in elementary grades. Children's transcription skills (handwriting skills and spelling), and syntactic skills in grade 1 were significant predictors of text writing in grade 1-4 while ideation in grade 1 only contributed to…

The relationships of reading-related skills (rapid naming, morphological awareness, syntactic skills, discourse skills, and verbal working memory) and word reading to reading comprehension were examined among 248 Chinese fourth graders in Hong Kong. Multiple regression analysis results showed that syntactic skills (word order knowledge,…

Examines the role of metalinguistic abilities in the initial stages of learning to read. Indicates that children's ability to acquire low-level metalinguistic skills depends in part on their level of operativity, and that phonological and syntactic awareness play more important roles in beginning reading than does pragmatic awareness. (JK)