The Education system in Germany recently invested five billion euro in digital infrastructure for about 40 000 schools. Therefore, this mixed-method study explored the relationship between integrating educational technology in mathematics education and the mathematics achievement of Grade 4 German students. Descriptive statistics and two-level…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been researching the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) on educational processes, and factors supporting or impeding the pedagogical use of ICT, since the late-1980s. More recently it has turned its attention to investigating ICT-related…

Lexical development of bilingual children is influenced by a number of input factors. In the present study, early lexical skills of 25-month old children growing up with Turkish and German were assessed. Parents of 92 children filled out a newly developed list for productive Turkish vocabulary, as well as a vocabulary list for German. A parental…

The development of preschoolers' language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as most studies (a) investigate the effects on lower level language (LLL; e.g., vocabulary, grammar), but not the effects on higher level language (HLL; e.g., comprehension monitoring,…

Several studies have revealed the cognitive and linguistic benefits of balanced bilingualism, but the research on balanced biliteracy is still in its initial stages (Marinis et al. submitted. "Biliteracy Education Impacts on Cognition Selectively"). This study investigates the positive effects of balanced biliteracy on the development of…

International study results point to potential negative associations of time spent in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres in the first 3 years of a child's life and socio-emotional outcomes. However, the transferability of international results to the German ECEC system and the impact of characteristics of the home learning…

Home literacy environment (HLE) makes an important contribution to children's reading acquisition in early years. Even though some research on children's perception exists, children's reports about HLE have been neglected. The present study focuses on N = 281 six-year-old's reports about HLE and its influences on literacy enjoyment, frequency, and…

This paper focuses on the influence of socio-economic risk factors and different aspects of the home learning environment in early childhood on children's language competencies (vocabulary and grammar skills). The assumption is that children with more risk factors have lower competencies, but the home learning environment (measured by everyday…

Children's fine motor skills (FMS) are being increasingly recognized as an important aspect of preschool development; yet, we know very little about the experiences that foster their development. We utilized a parent-administered children's fine and gross motor activities questionnaire (MAQ) to investigate links with FMS. We recruited a sample of…

Academic language has been shown to significantly contribute to success across school subjects. However, to date, there are no empirical studies addressing its development across primary school age. The present study investigated the growth of academic vocabulary and influential conditions from Grades 2 to 4 based on a newly developed and…

The present study examines the impact of family risk factors (e.g., migration background, poverty) in early childhood on children's numeracy skills during preschool in Germany, and if these relations are mediated through the quality of the home learning environment. The data used for this research were collected using the longitudinal study…

Background: Although various studies on general language performance have investigated determinants of students' reading comprehension (e.g., reading amount), they have paid insufficient attention to how students perceive parental values influence their language-related values and behaviour--and, as a consequence, their performance. This is…

The main aim of this study was to determine the factors that affect the environmental literacy (EL) of 15-year-old students in Germany. The data were based on findings from the PISA 2015 of German students (n = 6.504), which were published on the official PISA site (http://www.pisa.oecd.org). According to the results, there was a positive and…

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…

Background: Numerous studies have investigated the relationships between various student, home and contextual factors and reading achievement. However, the relationship between such factors and reading attitudes has been investigated far less, despite the fact that theoretical frameworks of large-scale assessments and school effectiveness research…