Background: Risk factors for poor school functioning rarely occur in isolation, but instead are likely to cluster together. As they accumulate, cumulative risk theory (CRT) predicts that the likelihood of negative outcomes increases, often disproportionately. Aims: We build upon and extend previous research by (i) examining two critical aspects of…

Background: Traditional measures of school readiness are labour-intensive and do not assess family support. Aims: The current study used the newly developed Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI: Hughes, Daly, Foley, White and Devine 2015) to examine 6-month longitudinal stability and change in teachers' ratings of young children's school…

Background: It is widely recognized that effective interventions for poor reading involve training in phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge, linked in the context of reading books. From the applied perspective, it is important to gather data on the effectiveness of different forms of implementation of literacy support within this framework.…

To test interrater reliability on the Infant Rating Scale (an assessment instrument for screening educationally "at risk" young children), two teachers completed the scale for the same group of pupils. The reported level of interrater reliability was considered very satisfactory. (Author/MJL)

Scores obtained by English preschoolers on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) indicated social class and sex differences in performance. Comparison of results with American MSCA norms showed English children performing consistently better than Americans on cognitive tasks. The MSCA was found useful for measuring English children's…