This study investigated the impact of second language (L2) lexical quality on L2 reading comprehension in bilingual primary education. The participating children were taught in the L2 English for 30-50% of the time and the remaining time in their L1 Dutch. Seventy-three pupils from four different schools were assessed in the L2 on vocabulary,…

Purpose: Our 1-year longitudinal study tracked the development of cognate awareness among second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of French in French immersion in Grades 1 and 2 to explore the impact of orthographic overlap and cognate status (true vs. false) on children's ability to recognize cognate relationships. We also assessed the…

Purpose: Oral narrative, or storytelling, skills may constitute a linguistic strength for African American children, with implications for academic and social well-being. Despite this possibility, few studies have examined individual differences in oral narrative skill among African American children. To address this gap in the literature, this…

It is common in intervention research to use measures of working memory either as an explanatory or a control variable. This study examines the contribution of cognitive abilities, including verbal working memory (WM) and attention, to language performance in first- and second-grade children. We assessed children (N = 414) on two forms of verbal…

This study investigated the stability of latent classes of students with learning disabilities among a heterogeneous sample of elementary-aged children whose first language is Spanish. To this end, children (N = 284) in Grades 1, 2, and 3 at Wave 1 (Year 1) were administered a battery of vocabulary, reading, math, and cognitive measures…

Purpose: Researchers have developed a constellation model of decodingrelated reading disabilities (RD) to improve the RD risk determination. The model's hallmark is its inclusion of various RD indicators to determine RD risk. Classification methods such as logistic regression (LR) might be one way to determine RD risk within the constellation…

In this article we present a new method for estimating children's total vocabulary size based on a language corpus in German. We drew a virtual sample of different lexicon sizes from a corpus and let the virtual sample "take" a vocabulary test by comparing whether the items were included in the virtual lexicons or not. This enabled us to…

This study investigated the prevalence and stability of latent classes among elementary-aged English learning (EL) children whose first language is Spanish. To this end, EL children (N = 267) in Grades 1, 2, and 3 at Wave 1 (Year 1) were administered a battery of vocabulary, reading, math, and cognitive measures (short-term memory, working memory,…

Purpose: This study examines the extent to which the Home Literacy Environment (HLE) as measured by reading habits and resources, library use, and subscriptions or materials, as well as parental reading beliefs predict both language skills (i.e., vocabulary) at kindergarten and students' trajectories of growth from kindergarten (K) to grade 3…

Computer programming for young children has grown in popularity among both educators and product developers, but still relatively little is known about what skills children are developing when they code. This study investigated N = 57 Kindergarten through second grade children's performance on a programming assessment after engaging in a 6-week…

This study investigated contributors of English reading comprehension outcomes among predominantly U.S.-born 1st- and 3rd-grade (N = 73) dual language learners (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking, low-income homes who attend English-only instructional schools in the Southern region of the United States, which is experiencing historic rates of school-age…

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…

Purpose: This study investigated cumulative effects of language learning, specifically whether prior vocabulary knowledge or special education status moderated the effects of academic vocabulary instruction in high-poverty schools. Method: Effects of a supplemental intervention targeting academic vocabulary in first through third grades were…

Although substantial research indicates motivation contributes significant variance to reading comprehension in upper elementary students, research with students in primary grades has focused, instead, on the relation of motivation to word reading. Assessment of reading motivation in 68 first and second graders indicated word and nonword reading…

The internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model (Marsh, "Am Educ Res J" 23:129-149, 1986) conceptualizes students' self-concepts as being formed by dimensional as well as social comparison processes. In the present study, the I/E model was tested and extended in a sample of elementary school children. Core academic skills of…