According to the Simple View of Writing, four primary skills are necessary for successful writing (Berninger & Amtmann, 2003; Berninger & Winn, 2006). Transcription skills (e.g., handwriting, spelling) represent lower-order cognitive tasks, whereas text generation skills (e.g., ideation, translation) represent higher-order…

We discuss a component-based, developmental view of text writing fluency, which we tested using data from children in Grades 2 and 3. "Text writing fluency" was defined as efficiency and automaticity in writing connected texts, which acts as a mediator between text generation (oral language), transcription skills, and writing quality. We…

Silent reading fluency has received limited attention in the school-based literatures across the past decade. We fill this gap by examining both oral and silent reading fluency and their relation to overall abilities in reading comprehension in fourth-grade students. Lower-level reading skills (word reading, rapid automatic naming) and vocabulary…

This study evaluated two 20-week reading interventions for pupils entering secondary school with reading difficulties. The interventions were delivered by trained teaching assistants (three 35-min sessions per week). 287 pupils (ages 11-13) from 27 schools were randomly allocated to three groups: reading intervention (targeting word recognition…

Emerging evidence suggests that children's sensitivity to suprasegmental phonology such as stress and timing (i.e., prosodic sensitivity) contributes to reading. The primary goal of this study was to investigate pathways of the relation of prosodic sensitivity to reading (word reading and reading comprehension) using data from 370 first-grade…

Fluent readers can read connected text with accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Without practice, automaticity cannot develop in reading, and readers must focus their attention on decoding, limiting their ability to simultaneously comprehend. Researchers have traditionally assumed that fluency and comprehension have a unidirectional relationship…

This study determined the working memory (WM) components (executive, phonological short-term memory [STM], and visual-spatial sketchpad) that best predicted mathematical word problem-solving accuracy in elementary schoolchildren (N = 392). The battery of tests administered to assess mediators between WM and problem-solving included measures of…

The current article examines what factors explained the success of a reading program delivered by older adult volunteers to at-risk early readers. The article also examines the direction of the relationship over time (both direct and mediated) between reading achievement, frequency of reading at home, and academic self-beliefs. Two hundred and…

Although the effects of achievement goals and working memory on academic performance are well established, it is not clear whether they jointly affect academic performance. Children from Primary 4 and 6 (N = 608) were administered (a) measures of working memory and updating from the automated working memory battery and a running span task, (b)…

This study investigated the effects of broad cognitive abilities derived from the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) taxonomy, together with the effect of the general factor ("g"), on Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, Second Edition (WIAT-II) reading achievement. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and commonality analyses were applied to the…

Background: Exposure to mathematical pattern tasks is often deemed important for developing children's algebraic thinking skills. Yet, there is a dearth of evidence on the cognitive underpinnings of pattern tasks and how early competencies on these tasks are related to later development. Aims: We examined the domain-specific and domain-general…

Although mathematical pattern tasks are often found in elementary school curricula and are deemed a building block for algebra, a recent report (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008) suggests the resources devoted to its teaching and assessment need to be rebalanced. We examined whether children's developing proficiency in solving algebraic…

In this study, the authors used structural equation modeling to investigate relationships between ability constructs from the "Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition" (WISC-III; Wechsler, 1991) in explaining reading and mathematics achievement constructs on the "Wechsler Individual Achievement Test" (WIAT;…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of three subskills associated with word decoding. The skills utilized for this study were phonological, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and orthographic processing. To do this, six separate models were utilized to define different ways that these three subskills (represented as factors)…

This study employed observed factor index scores as well as latent ability constructs from the "Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition" (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003) in estimating reading and mathematics achievement on the "Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition" (WIAT-II; Wechsler, 2002). Participants…