The purpose of this study was to examine the directionality of the relationship between text reading prosody and reading comprehension in the upper grades of primary school. We compared 3 theoretical possibilities: Two unidirectional relations from text reading prosody to reading comprehension and from reading comprehension to text reading prosody…

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural…

Incidental word learning is influenced by context, task, and reader characteristics. The present study aimed to determine the contribution and interactions of these factors for fifth-grade students. The focus was on contextual differences: words' meanings are inferred from local or global contexts. This effect was tested as a function of task: gap…

We compared students from schools with an enriched school library--that is, one with a larger and more up-to-date book collection--with students from schools with a typical school library. We tested effects of an enriched school library on reading motivation, reading frequency, and academic skills. Fourth- and fifth-grade students of 14 schools…

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of music education, in particular music composition as a classroom activity for fifth- and sixth-graders. The intervention (experimental condition) focused on a three-step-model for music composition, based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory of education, and has been…

This article presents empirical evidence challenging the received wisdom that a nonword-reading deficit is a characteristic trait of disabled readers. On the basis of 2 large-scale empirical studies using the reading-level match design, we argue that a nonword-reading deficit is the consequence of normal developmental differences in word-specific…

Kindergarten children at risk of developing language problems were administered the Florida Kindergarten Screening Battery. A principal components analysis revealed a verbal and a visual-spatial component and subsequent discriminant function analyses a high verbal/low visual-spatial group (LAL: Latent L) and a high visual-spatial flow verbal group…