Purpose: This study examines the development of narrative microstructure elements of productivity, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity in the oral story production of preschool- and school-age Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children. It also explores the effects of story task complexity on the target microstructural features. Method: This study…

Cross-language transfer happens in bilingual reading development. However, little is known about whether L1 affects L2 spelling development. In addition, longitudinal studies are needed to examine the L1-L2 relations developmentally from the beginning of literacy learning. We tested whether and which Chinese (L1) literacy-related skill(s) in…

This study aims to compare auditory temporal processing and phonological processing across locations and age levels and to test the direct and indirect effects of auditory temporal and phonological processing on proficiency in Chinese character reading. We recruited 108 typically developing children -- 25 and 24 kindergarteners from Taiwan and…

The genetic factor structure of a range of learning measures was explored in twin children, recruited in preschool and followed to Grade 2 ("N"?=?2,084). Measures of orthographic learning and word reading were included in the analyses to determine how these patterned with the learning processes. An exploratory factor analysis of the…

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to identify the developmental trajectories of impulsive behavior among 378 Finnish children who were followed from kindergarten to 4th grade. In addition to ratings of children's impulsivity, the analyses included measures of motivation, cognitive skills, socioemotional adjustment, and…

The concept of "Home Learning Environment" (HLE) covers activities in a family providing intellectual stimulation for a child, such as reading to him or her or visiting libraries. Numerous studies have shown an association between HLE and children's cognitive development. In this longitudinal study, we focus on HLE as a predictor for…

It is often assumed that differences in teacher characteristics are a major source of variability in children's educational achievements. We examine this assumption for early literacy achievement by calculating the correlations between pairs of twin children who either shared or did not share a teacher in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2.…

In this study, predictors of reading and spelling difficulties among children learning more transparent (Norwegian/Swedish) and less transparent (English) orthographies were examined longitudinally from preschool through Grade 2 using parallel versions of tests. A series of logistic regression analysis indicated three main findings. First,…