Search

Purpose: Using data from 1,868 children from the US, Australia, and Sweden who took a 10-word spelling test in kindergarten and a standardized spelling test in Grades 1, 2, and (except for the Australian children) Grade 4, we examined two questions. First, does the quality of a child's errors on the kindergarten test help predict later spelling performance even after controlling for the number of correct responses on the kindergarten test? Second, does spelling develop at a faster pace in Swedish than in English? Method: We measured kindergarten error quality based on the number of letter additions, deletions, and substitutions by which each error differed from the correct spelling. Using mixed-model analyses, we examined the relationship of this and other variables to later spelling performance. Results: Kindergarten error quality contributed significantly to the prediction of later spelling performance even after consideration of the number of correct spellings in kindergarten and other relevant variables. The Swedish children showed more rapid growth in spelling than the U.S. and Australian children, a difference that may reflect the greater transparency of sound-to-spelling links in Swedish. Conclusion: Information from a spelling test that is typically discarded--information about the nature of the errors--has value.

Background: Children with speech sound difficulties often require educational psychology services, yet systematic reviews examining the association between these difficulties and language or reading problems are lacking. This metaanalysis examines whether these children are at higher risk of language and reading difficulties compared to their peers. Method: The study analyzed 290 effect sizes from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that compared language and reading skills between children with speech sound difficulties and controls. Additionally, we evaluated 37 effect sizes from correlational studies in general populations to examine the relationship between speech sound skills and language or reading skills. Results: Children with speech sound difficulties showed significant concurrent language (Hedges' g = --0.60) and reading (Hedges' g = --0.58) problems. Correlational studies also demonstrated a relationship between speech sound skills and language (r = .23) and reading (r = .23) skills. Phonological awareness and study quality were significant moderators. Longitudinal studies showed persistent or increasing group differences over time in language (Hedges' g = --0.85) and reading (Hedges' g = --0.50). These findings were consistent regardless of the severity or types of speech sound difficulties, nonverbal IQ, country, age, and publication year. However, a precision-effect test and the precision-effect estimate with standard errors analysis suggested a potential decrease in effect size due to publication bias from small sample sizes in primary studies. Conclusion: Children with speech sound difficulties are at an increased risk of language and reading difficulties, emphasizing the need for broader language assessments and early interventions to mitigate future academic difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning the relationships between letters and sounds is a key component of early literacy development and a central aim during the first year of school. Introducing one new letter a week is the most common approach in many countries, but little is known about how the pace of letter instruction contributes to the development of early literacy skills. This study used a natural experiment to investigate how a faster pace of letter instruction influences the development of letter knowledge, word reading, and spelling during the first year of school. Regression analysis showed that a faster pace yielded significantly better results for all outcome measures, and logistic-regression models showed that the lowest-performing children benefited more than the highest-performing one from a faster pace. The study concludes with a discussion of those novel findings and suggestions about their implications for teaching practice.

We investigated the double-deficit hypothesis (DDH) in samples of U.S. (N = 489), Australian (N = 264), and Scandinavian (N = 293) children followed from preschool to grade 2. Children were assigned to double deficit, single deficit and no deficit subtypes in preschool, kindergarten, and grade 1 and compared on reading and spelling in grades 1 and 2. In most analyses, the double deficit subtype scored significantly lower in reading and spelling than the single deficits, a pattern of findings that was identical across samples. Moreover, across countries, RAN deficits showed a stronger effect on reading whereas PA deficits showed stronger effects on spelling. Overall, the results supported the basic premises of the DDH suggesting that the double deficit subtype represents the most impaired readers, and that RAN and PA are separable deficits with different effects on reading and spelling. The results also supported a universal view of literacy development, with similar predictive patterns of DDH subtypes across orthographies.

In this study, the relationship between latent constructs of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) was investigated and related to later measures of reading and spelling in children learning to read in different alphabetic writing systems (i.e., Norwegian/Swedish vs. English). 750 U.S./Australian children and 230 Scandinavian children were followed longitudinally between kindergarten and 2nd grade. PA and RAN were measured in kindergarten and Grade 1, while word recognition, phonological decoding, and spelling were measured in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. In general, high stability was observed for the various reading and spelling measures, such that little additional variance was left open for PA and RAN. However, results demonstrated that RAN was more related to reading than spelling across orthographies, with the opposite pattern shown for PA. In addition, tests of measurement invariance show that the factor loadings of each observed indicator on the latent PA factor was the same across U.S./Australia and Scandinavia. Similar findings were obtained for RAN. In general, tests of structural invariance show that models of early literacy development are highly transferable across languages. (Contains 9 tables.)

In this study, predictors of reading and spelling difficulties among children learning more transparent (Norwegian/Swedish) and less transparent (English) orthographies were examined longitudinally from preschool through Grade 2 using parallel versions of tests. A series of logistic regression analysis indicated three main findings. First, phonological awareness as a predictor of reading difficulties in the Scandinavian sample was time-limited to Grade 1, but remained as a significant predictor in the English-speaking sample. Second, phonological awareness predicted spelling difficulties similarly across orthographies. Third, preschool and kindergarten RAN was a significant predictor of reading and spelling difficulties at both Grades 1 and 2 across orthographies. The authors conclude that phonological awareness diminishes as a predictor of reading difficulties in transparent orthographies after the first years of schooling, that RAN is a better long-term predictor of reading difficulties, and that phonological awareness is associated with spelling difficulties similarly in transparent and opaque orthographies. (Contains 6 tables.)

The importance of cognitive and language skills on reading and spelling development were investigated in a cross-linguistic longitudinal study of 737 English-speaking children (US/Australia) and 169 Scandinavian children (Norway/Sweden) from preschool to Kindergarten and Grade 1. The results revealed that phonological awareness and print knowledge were the strongest predictors of early reading and spelling across orthographies. The contribution from rapid naming to literacy development was low in Kindergarten, but similar to that of phonological awareness and print knowledge in Grade 1. The present study identified a significant difference across orthographies in the effects of print knowledge and general verbal ability on spelling in Kindergarten. However, this pattern was explained by cultural rather than orthographic differences. The results indicate that cognitive and language skills underlying early reading and spelling development are similar across alphabetic orthographies.

This narrative review aims to present and discuss the Norwegian school system as a context for inclusive education. Despite its clear political intentions, Norway lacks a common definition of inclusion and has limited insight into the quality of inclusive practices that are commonly implemented for students with special education needs (SEN) and the results of such practices. This study reveals that students with SEN are often educated in segregated settings and by staff lacking educational competence. Hence, future policy actions should prioritize the development of a common terminology and a report system that includes students with SEN. As SEN resources in Norway are allocated based on a lack of satisfactory learning outcomes from mainstream education and often result in segregated actions, an increased focus on school society, learning environments, educational practices, and individual learning outcomes is required. Additional research is needed to identify practices that can promote high-quality inclusion of students in Norwegian schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We first present a selection of vignette examples from empirical psychological research to illustrate how the phenomenon of metaemotion (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996; Mendonça, 2013) is studied within different domains of psychology. We then present a theoretical distinction which has been made between three facets of metacognition, namely metacognitive experiences, metacognitive knowledge, and metacognitive strategies (e.g., Efklides, 2008; Flavell, 1979). Referring back to the vignette examples from metaemotion research, we argue that a similar distinction can be drawn between three facets of metaemotion, namely metaemotional experiences, metaemotional knowledge, and metaemotional strategies. We argue that this distinction clarifies some of the unresolved issues in metaemotion research, and therefore has important implications for the study of metaemotion, both methodologically and theoretically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]