Teacher judgments of students' reading abilities in the elementary grades have been researched extensively, but less is known about how middle school teachers judge their students' word reading, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Such information could be useful when determining which students and reading components would be reasonable…

This study examined the extent to which classroom quality (emotional and instructional climate) moderates the associations between teachers' beliefs about children, self-efficacy, and children's early language gains (receptive and expressive vocabulary). The study employed multilevel modeling with 606 preschool teachers and 2,536 preschool…

The current study aims to examine the way in which teachers' and children's perceptions about their relationships influence children's emergent literacy skills. Participants were 913 children and 114 kindergarten teachers within 72 preschool centers from Greece. The measures used were the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS), the Child…

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk for exclusion from play with their peers due to difficulty with communication skills. Video augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technology has the potential to support communication within the context of play using videos with integrated visual scene displays. This…

With nearly half of all children under age six living in poverty, it is imperative to explore the development of income-related childhood aggression. Here, we specifically examine how family socioeconomic status (SES) relates to children's physical and relational aggression, and how this relation may be moderated by burgeoning social cognition.…

This study examined the associations of preschool children's executive function (EF) and learning behaviour (CLB) with their concurrent academic skills and the role of CLB as a mediator for the EF-academic skills link. One hundred seventy-nine children were assessed on EF and math and literacy skills. Parents and teachers completed a questionnaire…

Purpose: Dialect-shifting has shown promise as an effective way to improve academic outcomes of students who speak nonmainstream dialects such as African American English (AAE); however, limited studies have examined the impacts of an interprofessional approach with multiple instructional methods. In this study, we developed a dialect-shifting…

Based on a theoretical model of instructional quality this study investigates the influence of different dimensions of instructional quality in the school entrance phase on students' language development taking into account child and family background factors as well as structural characteristics of the classroom and teacher's educational beliefs.…

Research suggests that children with behavioural difficulties exhibit "positive illusory bias" (PIB), in which they overestimate their competencies leading to a perception of self that is more positive than the perceptions held by their peers, parents or teachers. However, research to date has focused on children of elementary school age…

Research Findings: A social validity measure was used to examine 56 bilingual preschool teachers' perceptions and acceptability of an interactive shared book reading vocabulary intervention implemented in English with Spanish-speaking preschool children (N = 334) in a dual language program model. Social validity outcomes indicated that bilingual…

Background: Recent studies have suggested that teachers' psychological attributes can be an indicator of teacher quality (Rimm-Kaufman and Hamre in "Dev Psychol" 45(4):958-972. doi: 10.1037/a0015861 , 2010), and teachers' child-centered beliefs have been associated with children's academic achievement (Burchinal and Cryer in "Early…

Research Findings: This study of kindergarten monolingual and Dual Language Learners (DLLs) (N=263; mean age = 63.40 months) and their teachers (N=27) found significant mean differences in the observed quality of language interactions in classrooms with differing proportions of DLLs. Teachers instructing in classrooms with higher numbers of DLLs…

Shy children are less likely to interact with peers and teachers, ask questions, and participate in classroom activities. Children low in attention and inhibitory control also perform worse academically. Although research indicates children's relationships with teachers may be protective for children at risk for academic difficulties, less is…

Teacher-child relationships have been linked to children's classroom engagement and to academic achievement. However, researchers have paid minimal attention to individual child factors that predict the development of these relationships. In the current study, we examined executive function (EF) prior to school entry as a predictor of…

Preschool teachers have important impacts on children's academic outcomes, and teachers' misperceptions of children's academic skills could have negative consequences, particularly for low-income preschoolers. This study utilized data gathered from 123 preschool teachers and their 760 preschoolers from 70 low-income, racially diverse centers.…