This study investigates the impact of the MindPlay Reading program on student literacy achievement in Dayton City Schools, Ohio, during the 2021-2022 academic year. A correlational analysis was conducted in collaboration with LXD Research to examine the relationship between MindPlay usage and student outcomes on literacy assessments. The sample…

We investigated the relations among theory of mind (ToM), mental state talk, and discourse comprehension. Specifically, we examined the frequency of mental state talk in children's oral recall of narrative texts and informational texts as well as relations among ToM, mental state talk (inclusion of mental state words in the recall of narrative and…

Research Findings: Research with older children and adults reliably demonstrates that individuals raised in poverty tend to evaluate concerns related to moral concerns (i.e., related to harm, welfare, and justice) differently than do wealthier individuals. However, little work has examined these patterns in young children. Children (N=214, Mage =…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a skill of social cognition recently of interest to literacy researchers. This article presents initial findings from a pilot study investigating the use of ToM to teach theme identification and theme statement formation to beginning readers who are less-skilled in comprehension. The authors designed a brief, 1:1 listening…

Background: Writing involves multiple processes, drawing on a number of language, cognitive, and print-related skills, and knowledge. According to the Direct and Indirect Effects model of Writing (DIEW; Kim & Park, 2019, "Reading and Writing," 32, 1319), these multiple factors have hierarchical, interactive, and dynamic relations.…

We investigated the contributions of multiple strands of factors--individual characteristics (struggling reader status, working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, knowledge-based inference, theory of mind, comprehension monitoring), a text feature (narrative vs. expository genre), and question types (literal and inferential)--to one's…

We investigated 2 hypotheses of a recently proposed integrative theoretical model of reading, the direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER; Kim, 2017b, 2019): (a) hierarchical relations and (b) dynamic relations (or differential relations) of skills to reading comprehension. Students were assessed on reading comprehension, word reading,…

We investigated the contributions of multiple strands of factors--individual characteristics (struggling reader status, working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, knowledge-based inference, theory of mind, comprehension monitoring), a text feature (narrative vs. expository genre), and question types (literal and inferential)--to one's…

We investigated 2 hypotheses of a recently proposed integrative theoretical model of reading, the direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER; Kim, 2017b, 2019): (a) hierarchical relations and (b) dynamic relations (or differential relations) of skills to reading comprehension. Students were assessed on reading comprehension, word reading,…

In an attempt to broaden participation in STEM, a new type of high school is emerging, high schools which include a focus on engineering, have few or no academic admission criteria, and actively involve students of all levels of ability, known as Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs). One aspect of successful ISHSs includes the intentional and…

Theory of Mind (ToM), as a relevant aspect in children's socio-cognitive development, has been widely studied. Some results have suggested that bilingual children have an advantage over their monolingual peers in development of ToM. However, there is less research regarding the predictive role of ToM in performance of oral and reading…

Research has documented various family and individual risk factors associated with severe conduct problems, but little is known about the developmental origins of children who engage in both aggressive and prosocial interactions with others. The present study utilized growth-mixture modeling to identify distinct trajectories of physical aggression…

Montessori classrooms vary in the degree to which they adhere to Maria Montessori's model, including in the provision of materials. Specifically, some classrooms use only Montessori materials, whereas others supplement the Montessori materials with commercially available materials like puzzles and games. A prior study suggested such…