Background: Oral comprehension difficulties are prevalent in preschool children with language difficulties and are frequently the target of speech and language therapy (SLT) intervention. To support the implementation of research to practice, there is a need to identify effective interventions for this population and to describe their components.…

The current study examined to what extent face and speech processing interact with each other and whether they enhance or impair the processing of the other in 5-year-olds (n = 51) and adults (n = 34). Using a computer-based speeded sorting task allowed to directly test the influence of auditory speech on face processing and the influence of face…

The nationally funded Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) programme aimed to design, deliver and evaluate interventions to improve a range of outcomes for children growing up in areas of low socio-economic status (SES). A key focus for many PEI programmes was to improve the oral language abilities of children, recognising its important link to…

Children's language development can reflect the developmental process of children's cognition and social emotions. The present study focuses on preschool children's conversational competence and narrative competence, aiming at exploring developmental features of preschool children's pragmatic competence through analyzing data from self-built oral…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the efficacy of the Teaching Early Literacy and Language (TELL) curriculum package for low-income preschoolers was impacted by participant characteristics and variables associated with implementation. In a follow-up to a randomized controlled trial (Gray et al., 2024), data was…

This study describes the early writing environments of 16 preschool classrooms in China and 155 Chinese preschoolers' early writing skills as assessed through name writing, word dictation, and early composing tasks. The classroom early writing environment consists of children's accessibility to writing materials, and teachers' writing instruction.…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of the Teaching Early Literacy and Language (TELL) curriculum package for improving the early literacy and oral language skills of preschoolers from low-income families. Method: In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), TELL was implemented in 30 TELL and 28 business-as-usual classrooms.…

The home environment and experiences before a child enters formal schooling have a significant impact on their educational progress and results. Most research in this area has been conducted in Western countries and may differ across different countries and cultures. The purpose of this study is to investigate how literacy skills are developed in…

Background: Oral language competence provides children with an essential foundation for academic achievement and emotional well-being, yet many children enter school with delayed language and those living in economically disadvantaged areas are at disproportionate risk of experiencing language difficulties. A tiered system, offering high-quality…

The development of 4- to 6-year-olds' narrative skills was investigated in relation to their receptive vocabulary, grammar, and home literacy environment. At Time One, 82 children aged 4 to 6 years completed standardised assessments of cognitive ability, vocabulary, and grammar. Narrative production and comprehension were assessed by the narration…

During the last decades, global interest in learning English as a foreign language has increased, encouraging countries to include it in school education. This trend was followed by the Chilean Ministry of Education, which suggests teaching English based on a communicative approach starting in early childhood education. To foster students'…

Languages differ in their realization of the subject argument: non-null-subject languages, like English, require subjects to be phonologically overt; rather, null-subject languages, like Greek, allow the subject to be overt or null. This cross-linguistic difference can lead to the transfer of grammatical properties across languages during…

This study aims to document the implementation of sign bilingualism and co-enrollment education in a kindergarten in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, to identify the major characteristics of the programme, and to report findings of children's language in terms of vocabulary and surveys on the views and attitudes of the stakeholders of the…

It has been more than 50 years since Clay (1966) first introduced the concepts about print (CAP). Emergent readers, aged 4-5, must acquire an understanding of basic and hierarchical concepts of letters, words, and sentences; they must also learn basic knowledge about texts and books; they must develop an awareness of book orientation,…

Bilingual children, the majority of whom are Spanish-English learners, now constitute over a third of the preschool population in the United States (Migration Policy Institute, 2021). Bilingual children and their families face multiple barriers to high-quality early childhood education, which are largely due to the underutilization of culturally…