Girls are more likely than boys to use counting strategies rather than higher-level mental strategies to solve arithmetic problems. Prior research suggests that dependence on counting strategies may have negative implications for girls' later math achievement. We investigated the relation between first-grade girls' verbal and spatial skills and…

A latent profile analysis approach was used to examine the developmental profiles of task-avoidant behaviour and reading skills in Grades 1 and 2, as well as their antecedents in kindergarten. The participants in this study were 448 children. Four different developmental profiles of task-avoidant behaviour and reading skills were identified. Our…

This study examined the extent to which first grade teachers adapt their reading instruction to the literacy skills of particular children in their classroom, and investigated whether teacher and classroom characteristics influence such adaptation. Three hundred seven Finnish children were tested with regard to their literacy skills at the end of…

Unique contributions of Big Five personality factors to academic performance in young elementary school children were explored. Extraversion and Openness (labeled "Culture" in our study) uniquely contributed to academic performance, over and above the contribution of executive functions in first and second grade children (N = 446). Well…

The present study investigated the extent to which mothers' support for their children's sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness predicts their children's interest in math and reading, and also their mastery orientation, during the transition to primary school. One hundred fifty-two children were examined twice during their first grade year…

We investigated the relations of L2 (i.e., English) oral reading fluency, silent reading fluency, word reading automaticity, oral language skills, and L1 literacy skills (i.e., Spanish) to L2 reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking English language learners in the first grade (N = 150). An analysis was conducted for the entire sample as well as…

This study aims to validate a teacher-report measure of children's task-avoidant behavior, namely the Behavioral Strategy Rating Scale (BSRS), in a sample of 352 Finnish children. In each of the four waves from Kindergarten to Grade 2, teachers rated children's task-avoidant behavior using the BSRS, children completed reading and mathematics…

In this study, the relationship between latent constructs of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) was investigated and related to later measures of reading and spelling in children learning to read in different alphabetic writing systems (i.e., Norwegian/Swedish vs. English). 750 U.S./Australian children and 230…

Children's symbolic number sense was examined at the beginning of first grade with a short screen of competencies related to counting, number knowledge, and arithmetic operations. Conventional mathematics achievement was then assessed at the end of both first and third grades. Controlling for age and cognitive abilities (i.e., language, spatial,…

The aim of the longitudinal intervention study was to build a model of predictive values of reading fluency in three contrastive reading groups: remedial and computer-assisted remedial reading intervention, and mainstream instruction, to identify the most effective type of intervention for children with different profiles of compromised…

This longitudinal study examined how children's early numeracy assessed in kindergarten predicts their mathematical performance in the first grade, after controlling for the effects of age, gender, and parents' education. The participants were 212 Finnish children (107 girls and 105 boys). At the time of the first assessment (kindergarten), the…

The purpose of this study was to determine if event-related potential (ERP) data collected during three reading-related tasks (Letter Sound Matching, Nonword Rhyming, and Nonword Reading) could be used to predict short-term reading growth on a curriculum-based measure of word identification fluency over 19 weeks in a sample of 29 first-grade…

Counting abilities have been described as determinative precursors for a good development of later arithmetic abilities. Mastery of the stable order, the one-one-correspondence and the cardinality principles can be seen as essential features for the development of counting abilities. Mastery of the counting principles in kindergarten was assessed…

This study focused on unprompted changes in children's analogical reasoning on geometric tasks and the additional effect of a short training procedure. Participants were 36 grade 1 level children (M = 6;8 years) divided over a not-trained and a trained condition. The study was a 5-sessions migrogenetic procedure, with a follow-up test session…

Genetic and environmental influences on early reading and spelling at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1 were compared across three twin samples tested in the United States, Australia, and Scandinavia. Proportions of variance due to genetic influences on kindergarten reading were estimated at 0.84 in Australia, 0.68 in the U.S., and 0.33 in…