Many studies demonstrate that detecting statistical regularities in linguistic input plays a key role in language acquisition. Yet, it is unclear to what extent statistical learning is involved in more naturalistic settings, when young children have to acquire meaningful grammatical elements. In the present study, we address these points, by…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate bidirectional associations between peer acceptance and both emotion and effortful control during kindergarten (N = 301). In both the fall and spring semesters, we obtained peer nominations of acceptance, measures of positive and negative emotion based on naturalistic observations in school (i.e., classroom,…

Research Findings: Using data from 3,250 participants in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, we used structural equation modeling to investigate whether family routines (e.g., bedtime routine, reading routine) established in preschool predict children's school readiness (i.e., academic skills, social-emotional skills, and…

We employed data from a longitudinal investigation of over 1,000 children who participated in Tulsa's universal school-based pre-K program in 2005, and path modeling techniques, to examine the contribution of pre-K classroom quality to both kindergarten- and middle-school academic skills. We also examined gender and income-related differences in…

Substantial evidence has established that individual differences in executive function (EF) in early childhood are uniquely predictive of children's academic readiness at school entry. The current study tested whether growth trajectories of EF across the early childhood period could be used to identify a subset of children who were at pronounced…

Research Findings: This study examines the amount of attention to print paid by Taiwanese mothers and children during joint book reading over time and the relationship between the use of print referencing by Taiwanese mothers and the print concepts skills of their children measured at age 3;0. A total of 42 Taiwanese mother-child pairs from…

Although good visual capacity is essential for children's learning, we have limited understanding of the various visual functions among school starters. In order to extend this knowledge, a small-scale study was undertaken involving 24 preschool children age 5-6 years who completed a test battery originally designed for visual impairment…

To act and think, children and adults are continually required to ignore irrelevant visual information to focus on task-relevant items. As real-world visual information is organized into structures, we designed a feature visual search task containing 3-level hierarchical stimuli (i.e., local shapes that constituted intermediate shapes that formed…

The present study investigated the general cognitive determinants of alphabetic letter knowledge. It involved 60 French kindergarten children (mean age: five years six months). Two test batteries were used: the CMS to evaluate general cognitive abilities (memory, attention, and learning), and the LKT to assess letter knowledge and its various…

Research Findings: Home-based involvement--defined as the actions parents take to promote children's learning outside of school--is often the most efficient way for low-income parents to be involved with their children's education. However, there is limited research examining the factors predicting home-based involvement at kindergarten entry for…

Research Findings: This study investigated how mean classroom-level shyness scores moderated the impacts of "INSIGHTS" into "Children's Temperament" on instructional support and students' math and reading skills in kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms. "INSIGHTS" is a temperament-based social-emotional learning…

This study examined the relation between the performance in a visual search task and reading ability in 92 third-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. The visual search task, which is considered a measure of visual-spatial attention, accounted for unique variance in Chinese character reading after controlling for age, nonverbal intelligence,…

New developments in the kindergartens in Greece have necessitated the availability of assessment tools that cover a wide range of children's skills and competencies that are related to the promotion of children's learning and development. The present study focuses on children's approaches to learning and aims to provide evidence for the Greek form…

The present longitudinal study used a social-ecological framework to explore the extent to which peer victimization and aggression were associated with changes in concentration problems and emotion regulation among elementary students in general versus special education, while accounting for student demographics and school contextual factors. Data…

One of the greatest challenges of an elementary school teacher is equipping students with comprehension strategies that transfer to all content areas. With stable levels of reading achievement over the last two decades in the United States, it is necessary that further research be conducted on methods of increasing students' comprehension…