Purpose: This study examines the extent to which the Home Literacy Environment (HLE) as measured by reading habits and resources, library use, and subscriptions or materials, as well as parental reading beliefs predict both language skills (i.e., vocabulary) at kindergarten and students' trajectories of growth from kindergarten (K) to grade 3…

This study investigated the relative importance of three subdomains of early number competence (number, number relations, and number operations) in predicting later mathematics achievement in cross-sequential samples of pre-K, kindergarten (K), and first graders (N=150 at each grade). OLS-regression analyses showed that each subdomain predicted…

Preschool improves children's kindergarten readiness, but the cognitive outcomes of preschool enrollees and nonenrollees tend to converge partially or fully in elementary school. In older programs, most of this convergence occurs in kindergarten (Li et al., 2016), but evidence from today's programs is sparse. Using data on 4,971 children who…

Several mental health programs have been developed in clinics and transported into schools, which has great potential for increasing access to intervention for students who may not be otherwise served. However, such programs may lack consideration of the complexity and constraints of schools, including the diversity of student needs and…

We investigated the dimensionality and relations between L1 (a speaker's first language) and L2 (a speaker's second language) writing skills in narrative and informational genres and higher order cognitive skills--inference, perspective taking, and comprehension monitoring--for Spanish-English dual language learners in primary grades. Dimensions…

Within the context of the Direct and Indirect Effects Model of Writing (Kim & Park, 2019), we examined a dynamic relations hypothesis, which contends that the relations of component skills, including reading comprehension, to written composition vary as a function of dimensions of written composition. Specifically, we investigated (a) whether…

In current multi-tier models, students who are not responsive to universal instruction receive supplementary support. Despite most students having co-occurring academic and behavior challenges, their needs are often addressed through separate academic or behavior interventions. This approach may not only be costly for schools, but it also fails to…

Many studies conducted in the last decades report that very few elementary-grades students understand the meaning of = in mathematics, and that upper-elementary students do not understand it any better than the lower-elementary students do. Using data from thousands of Florida elementary students, we show that students in Florida perform ten to…

School psychologists are encouraged to empower parents to be active partners in their child's education, including providing social-emotional supports. Typical parent engagement efforts involve trying to get parents to attend school meetings, which may overlook other ways parents can meaningfully support students. The current study examined…

This study investigated the utility of including teacher-reported callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors in the assessment of disruptive behaviors in school-based research. Participants included 138 first- and second-grade children (68% male; 76% eligible for free or reduced-price lunch; 61% Black, 9% Latinx, 23% White, and 7% multiracial) who…

This study examined the amount and types of narrative instruction (i.e., story comprehension, oral storytelling, and story writing instruction) that general education English language arts teachers provide to students in Grades 1 through 4. The research team conducted 121, [approximately]30-minute classroom observations. Educators were asked to…

Research Findings: The present study examined the extent to which instructional practices, including curriculum, in pre-K through third grade are vertically aligned. Attention was directed to teachers' grouping practices, academic content, and pedagogical methods given their importance for students' learning. Variable- and person-centered analyses…

The purpose of this paper is to describe what we know and what we still need to learn about literacy intervention for children who experience significant difficulties learning to read. We reviewed 14 meta-analyses and systematic reviews of experimental and quasi-experimental studies published in the last decade that examined the effects of reading…

Student problem behaviors in early elementary school have been associated with increased teacher burnout, negative emotions, and stress, along with negative student outcomes, including increased risk of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs). This study examined the impact of BEST in CLASS--Elementary (BEST in CLASS-E), a teacher-delivered Tier…

Despite focused efforts, achievement gaps remain a problem in the America's education system, especially those between students from higher and lower income families. Continued work on reducing these gaps benefits from an understanding of students' reading and math growth from typical school instruction and how growth differs based on initial…