A national-level dataset (n = 7770) at grade 1 of primary school is re-analyzed to study preconditions in proficiency in mathematical concepts, operations and mathematical abstractions and thinking. The focus is on those pupils whose preconditions are so low that they are below the first measurable level of proficiency in the common framework with…

At the beginning of primary school, young children need to adapt academically, socially, and emotionally to their new school environment. Enjoying going to school and becoming socially integrated are important preconditions for successful learning. However, children from disadvantaged families have fewer resources and receive less support, and…

Children are very curious about the world around them. You may find them peering at tadpoles in a pond, counting ants on a log, or wondering about the stars, the sun, and the moon. I have been asked many times: Is the moon really made of cheese? Do astronauts live on the moon? Why does the moon look different every time I look up? Introducing…

In recent years, there has been considerable growth in evidence that open-ended, challenging, and autobiographical tasks may provide better opportunities to evidence how young children exhibit metacognition and self-regulation. This research examines possible differences in children's metacognition and self-regulation between two ecological valid…

The current quantitative study, a naturalistic field experiment, was conducted in a public primary school in Soweto, Johannesburg, with the objective to examine how children's achievement on four assessments at the beginning of Grade R, namely their numeracy, their mathematics-specific vocabulary, their executive functions, and their logical…

This study aims to make a comparison of various lessons' mean exam scores achieved at the first, second, third and fourth grade by students who started elementary school at 60-66 months and those who started at or above 69 months as these students started the elementary school at the same time after an amendment in elementary education law in…

While there is consensus that self-corrections (SCs) ought to be coded as part of oral reading assessments, less agreement exists as to what, if any, role self-correcting plays in reading development. The purpose of this study was to address limitations of prior research and provide a more statistically accurate estimate of the role of SC in early…

This study investigates the relationship between children's subitizing activity and their construction of arithmetic units. In particular, the study hypothesizes a positive association between children's construction of subitized units and their construction of arithmetic units, and hypothesizes that children who can subitize larger units, such as…

Background: Spelling is a prevalent strategy to teach children to read. However, research on the mechanism underlying the contribution of spelling to reading comprehension in Chinese children is limited. Methods: The primary aim of this study was to investigate the concurrent and longitudinal associations between spelling and reading comprehension…

This study examined the role of teacher expectations in the emerging gender gaps in reading and mathematics in the first year of schooling. Therefore, we first investigated whether boys and girls differ in their vulnerability to teacher expectancy effects. Second, we analysed whether gender-specific effects of teacher expectations contribute to…

Reading a word requires several component processes. The dual route cascaded (DRC) model provides a characterization of these component processes and their involvement in different reading routes. We tested how relevant precursor skills associated with these component processes predict the use of the sublexical and lexical route in beginning…

Introduction: This study analyses the predictive role of several specific components of early numerical skills on the fluency calculation. Method: A total of 122 students (Mean age = 69.89 months; SD = 3.44), 54 girls and 68 boys participated in the study. The early numeracy skills were assessed by the end of pre primary school education, and…

This study examines primary-school children's beliefs about their school performance at the end of their first school year in Finland and feedback that they have received, and furthermore possible gender differences between these beliefs. Children from Grade 1 (N = 544), approximately 7 years old, were interviewed. The data were assessed using…

In the present study, we designed a dynamic measure to assess emerging morphological awareness in Chinese children and examined its concurrent and longitudinal relations with character recognition. The initial question of the dynamic assessment of morphological awareness (DAMA) task asked children to judge whether the first morphemes in a pair of…

This report describes the impact of the 2021 AISD multilingual summer school program on incoming kindergarten and 1st-grade emergent bilingual students' (N = 933) fall academic performance. Relative to matched comparison groups, students who attended summer school were significantly more likely to score on-track on TX-KEA in kindergarten. While…