This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment…

In this study, we investigated developmental aspects of eye movements during reading of three languages (English, German, and Finnish) that vary widely in their orthographic complexity and predictability. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules are rather complex in English and German but relatively simple in Finnish. Despite their differences in…

Prosodic awareness (the rhythmic patterning of speech) accounts for unique variance in reading development. However, studies have thus far focused on early readers and utilised literacy measures which fail to distinguish between monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. The current study investigated the factors that are specifically associated with…

Background: Strong associations between infant vocabulary and school-age language and literacy skills would have important practical and theoretical implications: Preschool assessment of vocabulary skills could be used to identify children at risk of reading and language difficulties, and vocabulary could be viewed as a cognitive foundation for…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD are at risk of psycho-social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio-emotional problems. This article by Janet Hoskin and Angela Fawcett, both from the University of Swansea, describes how 34…

How to compute and report subscores for a test that was originally designed for reporting scores on a unidimensional scale has been a topic of interest in recent years. In the research reported here, we describe an application of multidimensional item response theory to identify a subscore structure in a test designed for reporting results using a…

The vast majority of second language (L2) vocabulary research focuses on learners' knowledge of isolated word forms. However, it is unclear to what extent this knowledge can be used as an indicator of knowledge in context (i.e. reading and listening). This study aims to shed light on this issue by comparing ESL learners' knowledge of the meaning…

It is well-established that language skills are amongst the best predictors of educational success. Consistent with this, findings from a population-based longitudinal study of parents and children in the UK indicate that language development at the age of two years predicts children's performance on entering primary school. Moreover, children who…

Games Based Learning needs to be linked to good learning theory to become an important educational intervention. This study examines the effectiveness of a collection of computer games called Neurogames®. Neurogames are a group of computer games aimed at improving reading and basic maths and are designed using neuropsychological theory. The…

This study investigated the phonological awareness skills of a group of deaf adolescents and how these skills correlated with decoding skills (single word and non-word reading) and receptive vocabulary. Twenty, congenitally profoundly deaf adolescents with at least average nonverbal cognitive skills were tested on a range of phonological awareness…

Following the development and standardization of the British Sign Language (BSL) Receptive Skills Test (Herman et al., 1999), the test was made widely available to professionals working with deaf children. Test users were asked to return completed score-sheets on individual children they had tested in order to compare a selection of children from…

In this paper we evaluate the labour market value of basic skills in the UK, focusing on the wage and employment returns to having better literacy and numeracy skills. We draw on literacy and numeracy assessments undertaken by all cohort members of the UK 1970 British Cohort Study. The data used are very rich and allow us to account for potential…