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…

Both reading and language experiences contribute to vocabulary development, but questions remain as to what effect each has and when. This article investigates the effects that reading, telling and sharing a story have on vocabulary acquisition. Children (N = 37) were told nine stories in a randomized, single-blind and counterbalanced 2 × 3 mixed…

Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group).…

This longitudinal study combined, in a single study, different aspects of children's knowledge about mental phenomena and thus could investigate relations among the development of language, theory of mind, and later metamemory. In total, 183 German children were tested at ages 3, 4, and 5. Each time of testing included a set of theory-of-mind…

Investigated four to six year olds' understanding of cognitive cuing in two experiments that used a strategic interaction paradigm. (PCB)

Two studies examined short- and long-term effects of phonological awareness training on reading and spelling of German kindergartners. Found no long-term effects on reading and spelling skills beyond first year of elementary school. Determined that training affected phonological awareness skills but not phonological processing, letter knowledge,…

Assesses developmental changes in verbal memory from the beginning of elementary school to late adolescence on the basis of data from the Munich Longitudinal Study. Suggests that overall, individual differences in verbal memory performance develop very early in life and are relatively unaffected by differences in educational experiences. (Contains…

Examines the impact of migration on the personality and character formation of migrant children in comparison with native-school children. Of migrant children, finds a drop in school-related self-confidence and a short-term interruption of personality stablization. Patterns of student characteristics, grades, and achievement tests demonstrate…

Children were tested at ages four and six for recall of clusterable objects under play and sort conditions. Conceptual clustering predicted recall performance of six-year olds in both conditions and of four-year olds in the sort condition. The stability of memory variables was low with the exception of free recall. (BC)