Children develop linguistic competencies during interactions with more knowledgeable others. Consequently, one way to support this development is by enhancing the home literacy environment (HLE) in which children live. In this study a non-intensive intervention procedure was developed to improve HLE and linguistic competencies of 125 German…

Early linguistic competencies are necessary prerequisites for later reading and writing abilities and thus for a successful school career. Various child and family characteristics have been identified as important predictors of children's linguistic abilities, such as intelligence or the "home literacy environment" (HLE). Therefore, one…

The concept of "Home Learning Environment" (HLE) covers activities in a family providing intellectual stimulation for a child, such as reading to him or her or visiting libraries. Numerous studies have shown an association between HLE and children's cognitive development. In this longitudinal study, we focus on HLE as a predictor for…

This article reports the first findings of the Wurzburg Longitudinal Memory Study, which focuses on children's verbal memory development, particularly the acquisition of memory strategies. At the beginning of the study, 100 kindergarten children (mean age 6-and-1/2 years) were tested on various memory measures, including sort--recall, text recall,…