Children’s oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3?years of reading instruction

This research investigated the link between oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Study 1 consisted of 61 children (M = 6:1 years) who had experienced 1 year of reading instruction on average. Children’s story retelling was scored for memory and narrative quality. The quality of children’s narratives correlated positively with their reading skill at this age, but narrative quality did not uniquely predict their reading skill 1 year later. Study 2 consisted of 39 children (M = 7:0 years) who had experienced 2 years of reading instruction on average. At this age, the quality of children’s narratives uniquely predicted their reading skill concurrently and 1 year later, even after controlling for their receptive vocabulary and early decoding. These findings have implications for theories of the oral language foundations of reading and for assessment in the early years of reading instruction.     

Self-report of ADHD symptoms in university students: cross-gender and cross-national prevalence

Little research has examined the structure and prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in university students, including whether symptom structure conforms to the bidimensional (i.e., inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity) conceptualization of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMV-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) and whether self-reported symptoms vary across gender and country. A sample of 1,209 university students from three countries (Italy, New Zealand, and the United States) completed a 24-item self-report measure (the Young Adult Rating Scale) tapping ADHD symptomatology. Factor analyses within the U.S. and New Zealand samples supported a bidimensional symptom structure, whereas weaker support for this conceptualization was provided by the Italian sample. Participants did not vary significantly by gender in symptom report; however, Italian students reported significantly more inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms than students from the United States, and students from New Zealand reported more inattention symptoms than students from the United States. The prevalence of self-reported ADHD symptoms beyond DSM-IV thresholds for diagnosis ranged from 0% (Italian women) to 8.1% (New Zealand men). The implications of these results for the use of DSM-IV criteria in identifying university students with ADHD are discussed.     

Links between early oral narrative and decoding skills and later reading in a New Zealand sample*

Abstract

We examined earlier oral narrative and decoding and later reading in two samples spanning the first four years of reading instruction. The Year 1 sample (n = 44) was initially assessed after one year of instruction (M = 6; 1 years) and followed through their third year (M = 8; 1 years); the Year 2 sample (n = 34) assessed after two years of instruction (M = 7; 0 years) and followed to their fourth year (M = 9; 0 years). Oral narrative and decoding were assessed initially, oral reading, retell, and maze fluency, plus reading age, obtained at outcome. For the Year 2 sample, oral narrative and decoding contributed to oral reading and comprehension two years later. For the Year 1 sample, decoding contributed to most reading outcomes, with narrative quality uniquely predicting Year 3 retell fluency. Post-hoc exploratory analyses suggest story memory indirectly contributed to Year 3 reading via Year 2 retell.     

Children learning to read later catch up to children reading earlier

Two studies from English-speaking samples investigated the methodologically difficult question of whether the later reading achievement of children learning to read earlier or later differs. Children (n = 287) from predominantly state-funded schools were selected and they differed in whether the reading instruction age (RIA) was either five or seven years. Study 1 covered the first six years of school following three cohorts across a two-year design. Analyses accounted for receptive vocabulary, reported parental income and education, school-community affluence, classroom instruction, home literacy environment, reading self-concept, and age. The earlier RIA group had initially superior letter naming, non-word, word, and passage reading but this difference in reading skill disappeared by age 11. In Study 2, the decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension performance of 83 additional middle school-age children was compared. The two groups exhibited similar reading fluency, but the later RIA had generally greater reading comprehension. Given that the design was non-experimental, we urge further research to better understand developmental patterns and influences arising from different RIAs.     

Elementary school parent engagement efforts: Relations with educator perceptions and school characteristics

School efforts to engage parents are posited to influence whether and how they are involved in their children's schooling. The authors examined educators' engagement efforts in beginning reading, their subjective evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about parent involvement, in two stratified samples of New Zealand elementary school educators. They explored whether educators' ratings supported multidimensional and multitiered theoretical models of engagement. The authors invited responses from elementary principals and teachers, given their different roles in the nested ecology of schools and relationships with parents, and examined associations between pairs of principals and teachers working in the same school. Finally, the authors examined relations among educators' engagement efforts, evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about involvement, and school characteristics including community socioeconomic status, size of school population, ethnic composition of school population, community size, and geographic region.