The authors report data from a longitudinal study that addresses the relations between working memory capacity and reading comprehension skills in children aged 8, 9, and 11 years. At each time point, the authors assessed children's reading ability, vocabulary and verbal skills, performance on 2 working memory assessments (sentence-span and digit…

Significant controversy exists about the nature of phonological awareness, a causal variable in reading acquisition. In 4 studies that included 202 5- to 6-year-old children studied longitudinally for 3 years, 123 2- to 5-year-old children, 38 4-year-old children studied longitudinally for 2 years, and 826 4- to 7-year-old children, the authors…

The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model explains a seemingly paradoxical pattern of relations between math and verbal self-concepts and corresponding measures of achievement, extends social comparison theory, and has important educational implications. In a cross-cultural study of nationally representative samples of 15-year-olds from…

According to self-determination theory (R. M. Ryan & E. L. Deci, 2000), supports for autonomy and competence are essential for growth and well-being in any learning environment. Educational contexts differ in their relative support for these 2 needs. The authors examined the role of autonomy and competence in 2 German and 2 American university…

Growth in Test of Cognitive Skills (TCS) scores and Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) reading, math, and total achievement scores from 3rd to 10th grade was studied in 328 public school students in a middle-class suburban community. Surprisingly, groups differing in ability and achievement in 3rd grade made parallel progress over time,…

Past research has indicated an association between parents' beliefs and adolescent children's self-perceptions of ability and has shown the importance of accounting for parents' gender-stereotyped beliefs when examining boys' and girls' self-perceptions of math-science ability. The current study extends these findings by examining the longitudinal…

The Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) contains 54 items that are posited to tap 11 dimensions of reading motivation. The structural validity of the MRQ was investigated with 2 samples: (a) 328 students in Grades 3-5 from 2 suburban mid-Atlantic elementary schools and (b) 735 students in Grades 3-5 in 2 suburban southwestern elementary…

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd- and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading…

The authors examined the views of parents and teachers regarding beginning reading instruction using the questionnaire Approaches to Beginning Reading and Reading Instruction (ABRRI). Parents also rated the importance of 9 developmental areas, including literacy, and the extent to which home and school were responsible for each. Two components…

The effect of bilingualism on the development of phonological awareness of Chinese children was investigated in 2 studies comparing bilingual speakers of both Cantonese and Mandarin with monolingual speakers of Mandarin. Cantonese-speaking children had developed more advanced onset and rime awareness by 2nd grade as they learned Mandarin in school…

The authors examined the developmental relations between language acquisition and emergence of reading prior to formal literacy instruction. Sixty-one Finnish-speaking children were followed up once a year from infancy to school start (1 year 0 months-7 years 3 months). Before entering first grade, 43% of the children were classified as emergent…

College students learned how to design the roots, stem, and leaves of plants to survive in five different virtual reality environments through an agent-based multimedia educational game. For each student, the agent used personalized speech (e.g., including I and you) or nonpersonalized speech (e.g., 3rd-person monologue), and the game was…

The relationship among Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing scores of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and the Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Achievement (WJ-R) were examined with a sample of 1,559 students aged 5-17 years. Participants were part of the CAS standardization sample and closely represented the…

What role can emotions play in informing readers' interpretations of poems? This think-aloud study, with an experimental design, featured 10 college freshmen randomly assigned to 2 groups. The think-aloud (TA) group verbalized thoughts while reading 2 poems, and the think-and-feel-aloud (TFA) group voiced both thoughts and feelings. Participants…

In this 2-year longitudinal study (n=242), the authors examined relations of having a reciprocated friend and characteristics of a reciprocated friend to students' social and academic adjustment to middle school. With respect to having a friend, 6th-grade students without friends showed lower levels of prosocial behavior, academic achievement, and…