Cultural influences on the relation between executive functions and academic achievement

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to examine which of the components of executive functions (EF)—inhibition, shifting, and working memory—predict reading and...     

Teacher attributions of student failure and teacher behavior toward the failing student

The aim of this study was to examine the relation between teacher attributions of student school failure and teacher behavior toward the failing student. A structural equation model was proposed and its ability to fit the data was tested. It was found that teachers tend to behave in ways that indicate more pity and less anger when they attribute a student's low achievement to her or his low abilities, whereas they express more anger when attributing low achievement to the student's low effort. In contrast to previous research that argues in favor of anger as a high ability cue, this study has found that the presence of anger was associated with a teacher tendency to give‐up efforts to help the student improve. This giving‐up behavior was negatively related to the tendency of the teachers to accept some responsibility for the student failure. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How Well Do Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming Correlate With Chinese Reading Accuracy and Fluency? A Meta-Analysis

Previous meta-analyses on the relationship between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and reading have been conducted primarily in English, an atypical alphabetic orthography. Here, we aimed to examine the association between phonological awareness, RAN, and word reading in a nonalphabetic language (Chinese). A random-effects model analysis of data from 35 studies revealed a moderate relationship of phonological awareness with reading accuracy (r = .36) and reading fluency (r = .39). RAN also correlated significantly with reading accuracy (r = –.38) and reading fluency (r = –.51), but its relationship varied as a function of test type (graphological RAN correlated more strongly with reading than nongraphological RAN) and reading outcome (RAN correlated more strongly with reading fluency than reading accuracy). Age/grade and dialect (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) did not influence the size of the correlations. Taken together, the findings of this meta-analysis suggest that phonological awareness and RAN are universal correlates of word reading.     

Examining the effects of home literacy and numeracy environment on early reading and math acquisition

The present study examined how the home literacy and numeracy environment in kindergarten influences reading and math acquisition in grade 1. Eighty-two Greek children from mainly middle socioeconomic backgrounds were followed from kindergarten to grade 1 and were assessed on measures of nonverbal intelligence, emergent literacy skills, early math concepts, verbal counting, reading, and math fluency. The parents of the children also responded to a questionnaire regarding the frequency of home literacy and numeracy activities. The results of path analyses indicated that parents’ teaching of literacy skills predicted reading fluency through the effects of letter knowledge and phonological awareness. Storybook exposure predicted reading fluency through the effects of vocabulary on phonological awareness. Finally, parents’ teaching of numeracy skills predicted math fluency through the effects of verbal counting. These findings suggest that both the home literacy and the home numeracy environments are important for early reading and math acquisition, but their effects are mediated by emergent literacy and numeracy skills.     

Bullying and empathy: a short‐term longitudinal investigation

The aim of this study was to test the direction of effect in the relationship between bullying and empathy. The participants were 205 sixth‐grade students, randomly selected from urban and rural schools in Cyprus. A six‐month, two‐time‐point longitudinal design was used in which the participants completed the bullying subscale of the Revised Bullying and Victimisation Questionnaire (BVQ‐R) and the Basic Empathy Scale. The results of this study showed that bullying at Time 1 negatively predicted the affective component of empathy at Time 2. Moreover, children’s affective empathy at Time 1 negatively predicted bullying at Time 2. The results of this study indicate towards a reciprocal model of understanding the relationship between bullying and empathy.     

Effects of Home Literacy,Parents' Beliefs,and Children's Task-Focused Behavior on Emergent Literacy and Word Reading Skills

We examined the effects of home literacy (shared book reading, teaching activities, and number of books), children's task-focused behavior, and parents' beliefs and expectations about their child's reading and academic ability on kindergarten children's (N = 61) phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge and on Grade 1 word reading. The results showed that, after controlling for nonverbal IQ and vocabulary, home literacy instruction prior to kindergarten, parents' beliefs about their children's reading ability, and children's task-focused behavior were significant predictors of two or more of the dependent variables. Storybook reading did not account for unique variance in any of the dependent variables.