Transactional relations between children's positive social interaction skills, school engagement, and academic achievement were examined using a longitudinal panel model across the transition from preschool to first grade. Participants were Head Start children (N = 241; 49% girls, M age = 53 months, range 45-60); 78% were Mexican/Mexican-American;…

The present study explored the reading skills of a sample of 48 adults enrolled in a basic education program in northern Florida, United States. Previous research has reported on reading component skills for students in adult education settings, but little is known about eye movement patterns or their relation to reading skills for this…

Pathways of relations of language, cognitive, and literacy skills (i.e., working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, inference, comprehension monitoring, word reading, and listening comprehension) to reading comprehension were examined by comparing four variations of direct and indirect effects model of reading. Results from 350…

An emerging body of research has evaluated the role of growth mindset in educational achievement, yet little work has focused on the unique role of mindset to standardized reading outcomes. Our study presents four key outcomes in a sample of 195 fourth-grade students. First, we evaluated the dimensionality of general and reading-specific mindset…

Research findings: This study investigated how mean classroom-level shyness scores moderated the impacts of "INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament" on instructional support and students' math and reading skills in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. "INSIGHTS" is a temperament-based social- emotional learning intervention…

As policy-makers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund two, rather than one year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer one year of Head Start followed by one year of pre-k. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma…

Using a large, longitudinal data set that represents 701 state-funded pre-k classrooms and over 2,900 children enrolled in 11 states, the current study examined two hypotheses: (1) children would be perceived to be better adjusted at the beginning of pre-k when rated by a same-race teacher than by a different-race teacher, and (2) children would…

This study evaluated the effects of a mathematics software program, the Building Blocks software suite, on young children's mathematics performance. Participants included 247 Kindergartners from 37 classrooms in 9 schools located in low-income communities. Children within classrooms were randomly assigned to receive 21 weeks of computer-assisted…

The current study evaluated the initial efficacy of three intervention programs aimed at improving school readiness in preschool children with externalizing behavior problems (EBP). Participants for this study included 45 preschool children (76% boys; M[subscript age] = 5.16 years; 84% Hispanic/Latino background) with at-risk or clinically…

This study tested whether individual executive function (EF) tasks were better characterized as formative or reflective indicators of the latent construct of EF. EF data that were collected as part of the Family Life Project (FLP), a prospective longitudinal study of families who were recruited at the birth of a new child (N = 1,292), when…

The present study used a randomized control trial to examine the effects of a widely-used multi-component Tier 2 type intervention, Passport to Literacy, on the reading ability of 221 fourth graders who initially scored at or below the 30th percentile in reading comprehension. Intervention was provided by research staff to groups of 4-7 students…

The relations among various spatial and mathematics skills were assessed in a cross-sectional study of 854 children from kindergarten, third, and sixth grades (i.e., 5 to 13 years of age). Children completed a battery of spatial mathematics tests and their scores were submitted to exploratory factor analyses both within and across domains. In the…

(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to understand if inclusion of computer activities and videos for pre-K and kinder students, with opportunities to view these videos again at home, providing a repeated learning experience with language concepts and vocabulary, improved young students' early reading skill. (Methods) The study followed one…

Selecting assessments for adults who struggle with reading can be difficult because few literacy measures used by reading researchers have been normed on this population, leaving uncertainty regarding the validity of these tests for adult learners. This study focused on the performance of 116 adults reading between the 3rd and 8th grade levels on…

Early mathematics knowledge is a strong predictor of later academic achievement, but children from low-income families enter school with weak mathematics knowledge. An Early Math Trajectories model is proposed and evaluated within a longitudinal study of 517 low-income American children from age 4 to 11. This model includes a broad range of math…