Purpose: Two types of orthographic knowledge were examined: i) knowledge of permissible letter combinations (general orthographic knowledge) and ii) knowledge of whole words (word-specific orthographic knowledge), to gain further insights into the relationship of general and word-specific orthographic knowledge with literacy skills. Method:…

Based on the relationships motivation theory, it can be assumed that social interactions in elementary school are essential for students' development and especially for their school success. Thus, this study examined how vital social resources, more precisely social interactions with peers and teachers, are for two central aspects of school…

Technologies that enable individualization for students have significant potential in special education. Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) refers to digital assessments that automatically adjust their difficulty level based on students' abilities, allowing for personalized, efficient, and accurate measurement. This article examines whether CAT…

Vocabulary knowledge is one of the most important elements of reading comprehension. Text coverage is the proportion of known words in a given text. We hypothesize that text comprehension increases exponentially with text coverage due to network effects and activation of prior knowledge. In addition, the lexical threshold hypothesis states that…

Academic language and its associations with school success have been established in many prior studies. However, the scholarship lacks research on the mechanisms that constitute these relations. This study investigates the mediating role of motivational-­affective variables, specifically reading self-concept and reading enjoyment, in relations…

One shared goal of classroom instruction is to support students' reading competence as a key skill of school success and participation in daily life. Yet, teaching that addresses multilingual students' language-related resources to support reading is rare. In this study, we enriched reciprocal teaching with elements of linguistically responsive…

Trend results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show a decline from 2001 through 2016 in most countries in fourth graders' and their parents' reading attitudes, as measured by students like reading and parents like reading scale scores. Average students like reading scale scores, as reported by the students…

Previous research has shown that parental involvement at home seems to be socio-economically stratified. To study this stratification, recent research has drawn a distinction between early and late parental literacy activities at home. Early parental literacy activities at home happen before primary school, whereas late parental literacy…

Previous studies have established the relationship between behavioral problems and specific learning disorders (SLD); however, the exact mechanism by which behavioral disorders impact SLD remains unclear. This longitudinal study used the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to investigate how parents' judgment of children's behavioral problems changed…

We examined the contribution of rapid automatized naming (RAN) components (articulation time, pause time, and pause time consistency) to reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling in a sample of 257 German children (139 boys, 118 girls; M[subscript age] = 5.60 years, SD = 0.31) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. In kindergarten,…

This study investigates consistent and inconsistent respondents to mixed-worded questionnaire scales in large-scale assessments. Mixed-worded scales contain both positively and negatively worded items and are universally applied in different survey and content areas. Due to the changing wording, these scales require a more careful reading and…

It is well-documented that academic achievement is associated with students' self-perceptions of their academic abilities, that is, their academic self-concepts. However, low-achieving students may apply self-protective strategies to maintain a favorable academic self-concept when evaluating their academic abilities. Consequently, the relation…

As reading and reading assessment become increasingly implemented on electronic devices, the question arises whether reading on screen is comparable with reading on paper. To examine potential differences, we studied reading processes on different proficiency and complexity levels. Specifically, we used data from the standardization sample of the…

The Student Background survey administered along with achievement tests in studies of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement includes scales of student motivation, competence, and attitudes toward mathematics and science. The scales consist of positively- and negatively keyed items. The current research…

This study examined a theoretical model hypothesizing that reading strategies mediate the effects of intrinsic reading motivation, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension. Using path analytic methods, we tested the direct and indirect effects specified in the hypothesized model in a sample of 1105 fifth-graders. In…