Purpose: Both fictional oral narrative and expository oral discourse skills are critical language competencies that support children's academic success. Few studies, however, have examined African American children's microstructure performance across these genres. To address this gap in the literature, the study compared African American…

Academic underachievement, as measured on standardised assessments, is commonly reported among students on the autism spectrum. However, little is known about the factors that predict academic (under)achievement, limiting the development of effective and targeted interventions. This study explored teacher ratings of academic skills and enabling…

Setting the age for starting elementary students at 60 months old has been a hotly debated topic in Turkey since the Grand National Assembly passed an education reform bill as Law No. 6287, known to the public as the "4+4+4 regulation." At the outset of its implementation, students who started first grade in school year 2012-2013 had an…

The internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model (Marsh, "Am Educ Res J" 23:129-149, 1986) conceptualizes students' self-concepts as being formed by dimensional as well as social comparison processes. In the present study, the I/E model was tested and extended in a sample of elementary school children. Core academic skills of…

We present the results of a longitudinal study of the formation of graphomotor skills in elementary school children between the ages of seven and nine (students in the first and second grades). Patterns in how the skills under investigation develop in normal children and those with learning disabilities were revealed using a computerized survey of…

The study examines whether elementary school students in Taiwan who had received Montessori education achieved significantly higher scores on tests of language arts, math, and social studies than students who attended non-Montessori elementary programs. One hundred ninety six children in first, second, and third grade participated in the study.…

This study examined the development of school-related causality beliefs which are children's generalized perceptions of the utility or power of different categories of specific means in producing school outcomes. Based on the action theory perspective, we analyzed the developmental model of these beliefs as well as the trajectories of the…

This study identifies individual, family, and school factors associated with student mobility. Specifically, for Grade 5 students, parents alive and school location were associated with transfer. For students in Grade 7, gender differences, levels of achievement, feelings about school, number of household tasks, distance to school, and parental…

Metacognitive Performance of four groups of students (hearing high-achieving, hearing average-achieving, hearing underachieving, and deaf and hard of hearing) in first through third grade in the United Arab Emirates was examined and compared. Metacognition was measured using analyses of pictures depicting real-life problematic events, situations,…

A program of research was conducted to define the most crucial aspects of print awareness and to develop a tool to measure the resulting construct, validate the instrument, and explore the role print awareness plays in the acquisition of young children's literacy skills. Four basic concepts concerning print that are necessary to give print…

How children's achievement attributions were influenced by age, attentional focus, and success/failure was studied in 151 students in grades two, three, five, and six. For older children, self-focus enhanced internal attributions for success, while task-focusing did so for younger children, who were more likely to attribute success/failure to…

In this article, the authors explore the sources of gender variations in African American middle school students' academic performance. The roots of Black males' underachievement are of particular interest. Because middle schools are essential links in the sequence of opportunities to learn, it is imperative to understand the social and…

Bright second grade students (mean IQ 120) who were randomly placed in either interage or traditional classes were given sentence completion tests and a uses test in an effort to assess the subjects' attitudes toward school, sense of responsibility, self concept, and creative thinking ability. The California Achievement Test was given in October…

The developmental pattern in the relationships among mothers' beliefs about structure, autonomy, control, and intelligence was studied, addressing: (1) how mothers' scaffolding beliefs and conceptions of intelligence are related; (2) the relationship of these maternal beliefs to children's age and achievement; and (3) the relationship between…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in attitude toward and achievement in science between boys and girls in grade two (n=129) and in grade five (n=154) and to compare the differences found for elementary school students to those found previously for middle school students. For this study, "attitude toward science" was…