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The present study compares two methods for assessing peer influence: the longitudinal actor-partner interdependence model (L-APIM) and the longitudinal social network analysis (L-SNA) Model. The data were drawn from 1,995 (49% girls and 51% boys) third grade students (M[subscript age] = 9.68 years). From this sample, L-APIM (n = 206 indistinguishable dyads and n = 187 distinguishable dyads) and L-SNA (n = 1,024 total network members) subsamples were created. Students completed peer nominations and objective assessments of mathematical reasoning in the spring of the third and fourth grades. Patterns of statistical significance differed across analyses. Stable distinguishable and indistinguishable L-APIM dyadic analyses identified reciprocated friend influence such that friends with similar levels of mathematical reasoning influenced one another and friends with higher math reasoning influenced friends with lower math reasoning. L-SNA models with an influence parameter (i.e., average reciprocated alter) comparable to that assessed in L-APIM analyses failed to detect influence effects. Influence effects did emerge, however, with the addition of another, different social network influence parameter (i.e., average alter influence effect). The diverging results may be attributed to differences in the sensitivity of the analyses, their ability to account for structural confounds with selection and influence, the samples included in the analyses, and the relative strength of influence in reciprocated best as opposed to other friendships.

It has repeatedly been found that temperamental inhibition and low academic achievement are associated with each other: children with cautious and wary or shy behaviour are at risk for low academic achievement. Several suggestions about the mechanism behind this association have been made, these highlighting for example, the fewer learning opportunities of cautious and wary children and more negative interaction between teachers and inhibited children. However, the empirical studies about these mechanisms are rare and, thus, they have remained unclear. This study examined whether children's maths-related self-concept of ability acts as a mediator between their temperamental inhibition and maths performance. 156 children (M[subscript age] 7.25 years) were followed during the first grade of primary school. Children's temperamental inhibition was assessed in the beginning of Grade 1. Their maths performance was tested twice, in the beginning and at the end of Grade 1, and their self-concept of ability was measured at the end of Grade 1. The research question was analysed using structural equation modelling. The results showed that children's self-concept of ability did mediate the association between temperamental inhibition and maths performance at Grade 1: that more inhibited children feel they are less capable and competent in maths than less inhibited children, and this contributes to their poorer maths performance. The findings highlight that it is important for teachers and other practitioners to be aware of this effect of temperamental inhibition on self-concept and put effort on promoting positive views of children's competencies and abilities.

The present study investigated the role of parenting stress in early adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behavior and, particularly, the moderating effect of maternal affection on these associations. The data of 992 early adolescents (x-bar[subscript age]=12.71; 454 girls) and their mothers during the transition from primary school to lower secondary school were analyzed. The results showed that when maternal affection was low, parenting stress was not related to the changes in early adolescents' externalizing or internalizing behavior. In contrast, when maternal affection was high, low parenting stress related to a decrease and high parenting stress to an increase in such behavior. The results were statistically significant and stronger for internalizing behavior; for externalizing behavior, they were marginally significant but showed the same pattern. Overall, the results support the idea that maternal affection provides a context which intensifies (rather than ameliorates) the influence of parenting stress on early adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behavior.

This study examined the development of adolescents' self-concept of ability in mathematics and literacy during secondary school, and the role that mothers' and fathers' beliefs concerning their child's abilities play in this development. Also examined was whether the role of mothers' and fathers' beliefs about their adolescent child's ability in mathematics and literacy differs according to the adolescent's gender and level of performance. A total of 231 adolescents and their mothers and fathers were followed up across secondary school. The results showed, first, that adolescents' self-concept of ability declined slightly from grade 7 to grade 9 in both mathematics and literacy. Second, mothers' and fathers' beliefs about their adolescent child's abilities in grade 7 predicted the child's subsequent self-concept in grade 9, but only in mathematics. Third, the role of mothers' beliefs in their child's self-concept of mathematics ability was found to be stronger among high-performing than low-performing adolescents.

In order to advance our understanding of educational processes, we present a tutorial of intraindividual variability. An adaptive educational process is characterised by stable (less variability), and a maladaptive process is characterised by instable (more variability) learning experiences from one learning situation to the next. We outline step by step how we specify a multilevel structural equation model of state, trait and individual differences in intraindividual variability constructs, which can be appropriately fitted to intraindividual data (e.g., time-points nested in persons, intensive longitudinal data). In total 285 primary school students' (Years 5 and 6) completed the Learning Experience Questionnaire using handheld computers, on average 13.6 learning episodes during one week (SD = 4.6; Range = 5-29; nepisodes = 3,433). We defined mean squared successive differences (MSSD) for each manifest indicator of task difficulty, competence evaluation and intrinsic motivation. We also demonstrate how to specify multivariate models for investigating convergent validity of the variability constructs. Overall, our study provides support for intraindividual variability as a construct in its own right, which has the potential to provide novel insight into students' learning processes.

Mathematical difficulties have been distinguished as mathematics learning disability (MLD) and persistent low achievement (LA). Based on 1,880 Finnish children who were followed from kindergarten (age 6) to fourth grade, this study examined the early risk factors for MLD and LA. Distinct groups of MLD (6.0% of the sample) and LA (25.7%) children were identified on the basis of their mathematics performance between first and fourth grades with latent class growth modeling. Impairment in the same set of cognitive skills, including language, spatial, and counting skills, was found to underlie MLD and LA. The finding highlights the importance of monitoring mathematical development across the early grades and identifying early cognitive precursors of MLD and LA for screening and intervention efforts.

We investigated the extent to which home literacy activities during the preschool year would predict the development of children's language and literacy skills in primary school, in a highly transparent Finnish language. Also, the correlates of maternal literacy activities during preschool were examined. Literacy and language skills of 1,880 children (6-year-olds at the baseline) were tested at 5 time points from the beginning of preschool to the end of Year 2; mothers filled in questionnaires at the end of preschool. The results showed that home teaching of reading at preschool age predicted children's emergent literacy (letter knowledge, word reading fluency) in primary school, while shared reading predicted oral language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension). Moreover, early letter knowledge was related to both the maternal teaching of reading and shared reading, while maternal beliefs and expectations about their children's schooling and competence were associated with more frequent engagement in the teaching of reading.

Background: Children who are not accepted in their peer group are at risk of developing internalizing problem behaviors. It is possible, however, that supportive parenting can provide a buffer against the detrimental effects of low peer acceptance. Objective: This study examined maternal and paternal affection and psychological control as moderators of the association between children's peer acceptance during the critical transition to primary school and level and subsequent development of internalizing problem behaviors from first to sixth grade. Method: A total of 608 children (264 girls, 344 boys) were rated by their teachers on their internalizing problems in grades 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Children's peer acceptance was measured in the first grade using a sociometric nomination procedure. At the same time point, mothers (n = 432) and fathers (n = 281) completed questionnaires measuring their levels of affection and psychological control. Results: The results of latent growth curve modelling showed, first, that on average children's internalizing problems decreased over the school years. Second, peer acceptance was associated with the development of internalizing problems: the higher the peer acceptance, the bigger the decrease--and the lower the peer acceptance, the smaller the decrease--in the level of internalizing problems across time. However, high maternal affection provided a buffer against this impact of low peer acceptance. Among boys, low levels of maternal psychological control also provided a buffer against the effects of low peer acceptance. No significant results were found on the moderating role of fathers' parenting styles. Conclusion: Overall, the results suggested that mothers' emotionally sensitive and supporting caregiving may protect children from the harmful long-term effects of low peer acceptance.

Background: Prior research has shown that engagement plays a significant role in students' academic learning. Aims: The present study sought to expand the current understanding of students' engagement by examining how situational engagement during a particular lesson is associated with the observed teacher-student classroom interactions (i.e., emotional support, instructional support, and classroom organization) in the same lesson. Sample: The participants were 709 Grade 7 students (47.7% girls) from 59 classrooms in 26 lower secondary schools and 51 teachers. Methods: The data consisted of 155 video-recorded lessons (90 language arts and 65 mathematics lessons) coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System -- Secondary (CLASS-S) observational instrument. Students' self-ratings of their situation-specific engagement were collected using the mobile-based In Situations (InSitu) Instrument at the end of each lesson. The data were analyzed with cross-classified two-level hierarchical modelling. Results and conclusions: The results indicated that emotional support in the classroom was positively associated with students' emotional engagement and help-seeking, whereas classroom organization was associated with students' behavioural and cognitive engagement. Overall, the findings provide novel evidence suggesting that students' engagement can be fostered by supportive teacher-student interactions.

School bullying is associated with externalizing and internalizing problems, but little is known about whether reading difficulties also play a part. We asked how, in Grades 1 and 2, word reading skills and externalizing/internalizing problems predict the degree to which students are involved in bullying in Grade 3. Using a sample of 480 Finnish children (M age = 7 years 2 months at the beginning of the study), developmental profiles were identified using mixture modeling based on reading skills, as well as externalizing and internalizing problems. In Grade 3, one fifth of the students were involved in bullying as victims, bullies, or bully/victims. Poor readers with externalizing/internalizing problems were most involved as bullies and bully/victims but not as victims. Average readers with externalizing/internalizing problems were also involved in bullying, whereas students with only reading difficulties were not. Skilled readers displayed little externalizing/internalizing problems and were not involved in bullying.

The aim was to examine reading comprehension among elementary school students in two shallow orthographies, Estonian and Finnish. Participants were 619 Estonian children (50% boys) and 292 Finnish children (52% boys) whose reading comprehension was assessed in first, second, third, and sixth grades. The results showed that reading comprehension among Estonian and Finnish children was at a similar level by the end of first grade but Finnish children started to have better performance from second grade onward. These findings suggest that the roots of Finnish students' strong reading skills are nurtured from the very beginning of elementary school. The potential cross-country differences in reading instruction are discussed.

This cross-lagged longitudinal study examines the evocative impact of a child's psychological adjustment on teachers' affective response and instructional support for a child, and the influence this support and response has on the child's subsequent adjustment. A hundred and seventeen Finnish teachers self-rated the instructional support they gave, and the affect they experienced while teaching 307 children from school grades 1, 2 and 3. Teachers also rated the level of prosocial and externalizing problem behaviour among children. Results showed that the more children exhibited externalizing problem behaviour in grades 1 and 2, teachers not only did provide more instructional support for them a year later but, at the same time, they reported feeling less positive affect. Low levels of positive affect were also reported by teachers a year later with regard to children who had received more instructional support from them in grades 1 and 2.

This study investigated the cross-lagged associations between teacher-student relationships and problem behaviors in a sample of 440 Finnish students (half of them identified as being at risk of reading difficulties). The degree to which these associations were moderated by a child's gender, academic performance, risk for reading difficulties, parental education, and having the same teacher over 2 years was examined. The teachers evaluated the students' problem behaviors and reported closeness and conflict with a particular student. The results showed that the higher the students scored on externalizing problems in Grade 4, the more conflict teachers reported 2 years later. Moderator analyses revealed that internalizing problems predicted higher levels of closeness for boys only. Conflict predicted internalizing problems among students who had the same teacher across the 2 years. The results emphasize the importance of investigating the transactional links in different subgroups.

This study investigated longitudinal associations between mathematics- and literacy-related causal attributions and self-concepts of ability among Finnish adolescents (N = 237). Questionnaires were administered to adolescents in Grades 7 and 9 to obtain information on their causal attributions and self-concepts of ability. The results showed that adolescents attributed their successes and failures in a self-consistent way. Specifically, self-concepts of ability predicted subsequent causal attributions in both school subjects. In mathematics, a higher self-concept of ability contributed to more self-enhancing and self-protective attributions. However, in both school subjects, a lower self-concept of ability contributed to more maladaptive attributions.

We examined the prevalence of comorbidity of dysfluent reading and math skills longitudinally in a representative sample (N = 1,928) and the stability of comorbid and single difficulties from first to fourth grades. The findings indicated that half the children who showed very low performance in one skill also evidenced low or very low performance in the other. Comorbid difficulties had somewhat higher prevalence in third and fourth graders than in first and second graders. The stability of comorbid difficulties was found to be established from Grade 2 onward, but the stability of single difficulties increased steadily across grades. Overall, the findings emphasize the relatively strong stability of comorbid difficulties after the second grade and underscore the need for close monitoring of, and support for, both skills as opposed to just one.

The aim of this study was to examine the role of mothers' (language minority mothers, LM, n = 49, and Finnish-speaking mothers, MP, n = 368) parenting styles and maternal help with their children's homework in the children's (mean age 11.43 years) literacy skills at fourth grade in Finland. In addition, the moderating effect of a child's gender on this relationship was investigated. The results showed that the LM mothers used psychological control more than MP mothers. Furthermore, the more LM mothers used warmth and psychological styles of parenting, the more they helped their daughters, not sons, with homework. MP mothers' parenting styles did not relate to their children's reading and spelling skills. LM maternal behavioral control parenting styles were positively related, and psychological control was negatively related to children's reading skills through help with homework. Maternal help negatively related to children's reading skills in both groups. This research provides also new information to teachers and educators who work in multicultural teams. Because our findings could be applied in the educational settings of multilingual students, they are likely to be of great interest to the visionary scientists, researchers, teachers, and trainees.

The longitudinal relations of domain-general and numerical skills at ages 6-7 years to 3 cognitive domains of arithmetic learning, namely knowing (written computation), applying (arithmetic word problems), and reasoning (arithmetic reasoning) at age 11, were examined for a representative sample of 378 Finnish children. The results showed that domain-general skills, including spatial visualization, language, rapid automatized naming, and working memory, contributed independently to arithmetic learning. These relations were mostly mediated via basic number competence (i.e., counting sequence and number system knowledge), although spatial visualization remained predictive of arithmetic outcomes. The findings underscore a similar developmental course of arithmetic learning across different cognitive domains where domain-general skills build a launchpad for advanced arithmetic via enhancing basic number competence.

This longitudinal study from Grades 1 to 4 investigated (a) the extent to which children select peers based on similarity in reading skills and (b) the extent to which children are influenced by the level of their peers' reading skills. The sample consisted of 1003 Finnish children in Grades 1-4, for whom reading fluency and comprehension were assessed. The same children were interviewed about their self-concept of reading ability at the end of kindergarten. The results of social network analysis showed that children had a tendency to choose new friends based on earlier similarity in reading fluency but not in reading comprehension. Furthermore, children became more similar to their friends in reading fluency and reading comprehension. Children with a high self-concept of reading ability and high reading fluency were particularly likely to be positively influenced by peers with high reading fluency.

Background: Task avoidance is a significant predictor of literacy skills. However, it remains unclear whether the relation between the two is reciprocal and whether it is affected by the type of literacy outcome, who is rating children's task avoidance, and the children's gender. Aim: The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the cross-lagged relations between teacher and parent ratings of children's task avoidance and different literacy skills. Sample: One hundred and seventy-two Greek children (91 girls, 81 boys) were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Methods: Children were assessed on reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling to dictation. Parents and teachers rated the children's task-avoidant behaviour. Results: Results of structural equation modelling showed that the cross-lagged relations varied as a function of the literacy outcome, who rated the children's task avoidance, and children's gender. Earlier reading and spelling performance predicted subsequent parent-rated task avoidance, but parent-rated task avoidance did not predict subsequent reading and spelling performance (with the exception of spelling in Grade 3). Teacher-rated task avoidance and reading fluency/spelling had a reciprocal relationship over time. In addition, the effects of teacher-rated task avoidance on future spelling were significantly stronger in boys than in girls. Conclusions: This suggests that poor reading and spelling performance can lead to subsequent task avoidance in both classroom and home situations. The fact that task avoidance permeates across different learning environments is alarming and calls for joint action from both parents and teachers to mitigate its negative impact on learning.

The present study reports on the psychometric properties of the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM) in Finnish and Estonian first and third grade classrooms. The observation data were collected from 91 first grade teachers and 70 third grade teachers. Teachers' curriculum goals, teaching experience and the classroom size were measured also. The results of confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of the three-factor model (management, climate, and instruction) for each dimension--child-centred, teacher-directed, and child-dominated--in both grades. The reliability of the dimensions and sub-scales was good, and some evidence was also found for criterion validity. The findings imply that ECCOM is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring teaching practices in primary school.

Research Findings: The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which the quality of teacher-child interactions and teachers' self-reported curriculum emphases are related to children's reading skill development during their 1st school year. To accomplish this, we assessed the reading skills of 1,029 Finnish children (M age = 85.77 months) twice during Grade 1, and the children's teachers (n = 91) completed questionnaires concerning their literacy-related curriculum emphases. In addition, teacher-child interactions in terms of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support were observed in 29 classrooms. The results of multilevel modeling showed that a high global quality of teacher-child interactions was positively associated with improved children's reading skills at the end of Grade 1. In addition, a teacher emphasis on comprehension and production skills was related to better reading skills via teacher-child interactions. Domain-specific analyses revealed that emotional support and classroom organization in particular were related to better reading skills. Practice or Policy: The present study adds to previous research by showing that children had better reading skills at the end of their 1st school year in classrooms in which the teachers were warm, responsive, and sensitive to children's needs and provided well-planned activities, clear rules, and expectations for behavior.

The majority of previous research on academic skills, self-concept of ability and interest has deployed the variable-oriented approach and focused on self-concept, or ability, or interest only. This study examined the patterns and dynamics of pattern change in Finnish children's word reading skill, self-concept of ability and interest from kindergarten to Grade 2. Six groups of children were identified by using the I-states as objects analysis (ISOA) procedure: (a) low skills, negative self-concept but high interest; (b) high skills but low interest; (c) average; (d) high skills, positive self-concept and high interest; (e) low skills, negative self-concept and low interest; and (f) positive self-concept but low interest. The typically occurring transitions between groups were characterised by changes in either reading-related interest or simultaneously in self-concept and skills. Gender, risk for reading difficulties (RD), being an early reader, mother's level of education and home literacy environment predicted group membership in kindergarten, and gender, RD risk, being an early reader, and mother's level of education also predicted transitions between groups.

This study focuses on parents' and teachers' perceptions of practices aimed at easing the transition to formal schooling (e.g., familiarization with the school, discussions about the school entrants). A total of 230 preschool teachers, 131 elementary school teachers, and 2,662 mothers and fathers filled in a questionnaire containing items on how important they considered different preschool-school transition practices. The participants considered the various transition practices to be at least somewhat important. On average, familiarization with the school was considered to be most important, whereas teacher co-operation and joint writing of curricula were considered to be least important. The perceptions of the participant groups differed from each other significantly in almost all practices. We suggest that the information on school entrants should be transferred within joint meetings between transition partners and other professionals whenever possible.

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the extent to which primary school text comprehension predicts mathematical word problem-solving skills in secondary school among Finnish students. The participants were 224 fourth graders (9-10 years old at the baseline). The children's text-reading fluency, text comprehension and basic calculation ability were tested in grade four. In grade seven and nine, their skills in solving mathematical word problems were assessed. Overall, the results showed that text comprehension in grade four of primary school predicts math word problem-solving skills in secondary school, after controlling for text-reading fluency and basic calculation ability. Among boys, good text comprehension skills in grade four predicted good math word problem-solving skills in grade seven. Among girls, good text comprehension skills in grade four predicted their subsequent mathematical word problem performance in grade nine. The practical implications of the results are discussed as well.