One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children's skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading…

As research evidence for the facilitative effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension has been accumulating, research and pedagogical interests in prereading strategies such as prediction and schema[superscript activation] are increasing. Yet, little research evidence of how actual performance on such tasks may be related to reading…