Middle Of First Grade Research Articles

Preschool morphological awareness contributes to word reading at the very earliest stages of learning to read in a transparent orthography.

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether morphological awareness measured before children are taught to read (Kindergarten in Israel) predicts reading accuracy and fluency in the middle of first grade, at the very beginning of the process of learning to read pointed Hebrew – a highly transparent orthography, and whether this contribution remains after controlling for phonemic awareness. In a longitudinal design, 680 Hebrew-speaking children were administered morphological and phonemic awareness measures at the end of the preschool year (before they were taught to read) then followed up into first grade when reading was tested in mid-year. The results indicated that even at this early point in learning to read a transparent orthography, preschool morphological awareness contributes significantly to both reading accuracy and reading fluency, even after partialling out age, non-verbal general ability, and phonemic awareness. The current results extend the Functional Opacity argument (Share, 2008) which proposes that at the initial stages of reading acquisition, when children still have incomplete mastery of some aspects of the spelling-sound system, non-phonological sources of information about word identity such as morphology can assist in the decoding process. The practical implications of these results with regard to early reading instruction are discussed.

Mastery of structured quantities like finger or dice patterns predict arithmetic performance.

In the present study, we investigated whether structured quantities like finger or dice patterns are enumerated better than unstructured quantities because they may not require counting. Moreover, we hypothesized children's mastery of structured quantities to predict their later arithmetic performance longitudinally. In particular, we expected that children more proficient in enumerating structured quantities early in their numerical development, should develop more effective calculation strategies later because they may rely on counting less. Therefore, we conducted a longitudinal study (including 116 children, 58 girls) over the course of about 7months from preschool (at about 6years of age) to the middle of first grade. Results showed that structured quantities were indeed enumerated more accurately and faster than unstructured quantities in preschool. Additionally, we observed significant associations of enumeration of structured and unstructured with children's addition performance in first grade. However, regression analysis indicated only enumeration of structured but not unstructured quantities to significantly predict later addition performance. In sum, this longitudinal study clearly indicates that mastery of structured quantities seems to be beneficial for children's development of basic arithmetic abilities.

An Investigation of Gender Differences in Reading Development among Russian Students: Challenges and Perspectives

The role of gender in early reading development in Russian students was investigated. The longitudinal study was conducted from the middle of preparatory pre-school year to the middle of first grade. The rate and accuracy of reading words and pseudo-words of different length and degree of difficulty were measured in five successive measures. Gender is a term used to describe socially constructed roles for women and men. It is an acquired identity that is learned, changes over time, and varies widely within and across cultures. In contrast, the term sex is used to indicate the biological differences between men and women. The role of gender in community of the Russian federation development was not adequately investigated. It is clear that all this determines the specific course of socio-political processes among the Muslim Ummah, forms peculiar trends in their development. Questions related to the study of demographic predictors of political processes, as applied to the Muslim community of Russia, only partially became the subject of research in a number of works of Russian scientists. Foreign literature has addressed some aspects of this topic only occasionally in studies. The study was carried out on the basis of the analysis of statistical data of Russian organizations, a secondary analysis of materials from published Russian and foreign publications. In the course of the work, ideas were formed about the nature of the main demographic trends in the Muslim community of Russia, including in the regional context. The study of the data obtained made it possible to determine the nature of the impact of demographic processes in the Muslim environment on the socio-political sphere of Russian society. The results obtained are consistent with the conclusions of a number of researchers and expand the existing understanding of the nature of demographic processes among Muslims and the specifics of their influence in Russian society.

Early identification and intervention for children with initial signs of reading deficits - A blinded randomized controlled trial

Early identification of reading disorder (RD) can prevent a “wait-to-fail” situation and can increase the efficacy of subsequent interventions. In this study we identified children in the middle of first grade of German elementary schools who were at risk for RD and evaluated a subsequent phonics intervention. We assessed 234 children and randomly allocated those performing below the 30th percentile in a short standardized reading speed test to a six-week phonics (n = 29) or blinded motor control intervention (n = 26). Both interventions were implemented at school three times a week in small groups. Results showed that the first graders who had received the phonics instruction improved significantly in reading ability compared to the control group. Moreover, significantly more children in the control group exhibited RD than in the phonics group. This study provides the basis for developing school-based early identification and intervention programmes to remediate reading deficits and prevent RD.

The effects of public pre-kindergarten attendance on first grade literacy achievement: a district study

This study investigated the link between public pre-kindergarten attendance and first grade literacy achievement in the United States. Participants (N = 1056; first grade children from one mixed-urban city in Virginia in 2012–2013) had either attended district-provided public Pre-K or had not attended formal or institutional preschool of any kind. Significant effects were found on each literacy measure in both the beginning and the middle of first grade (avg. ES = .32 and predicted gain of 13%). On average, Pre-K attendees were meeting reading benchmarks in the beginning and middle of first grade, while the no-preschool group was reading below the benchmarks during both time points. Findings strengthen the evidence base for the ability of public Pre-K to improve children’s literacy achievement in first grade while also describing a transferable example of universal Pre-K at the district level which policy-makers and practitioners may wish to consider.

Crossing the bridge to elementary school: The development of children’s working memory components in relation to teacher-student relationships and academic achievement

Working memory is important for a variety of life domains, including for children’s school functioning. As such, it is crucial to understand its development, antecedents and consequences. The current study investigates the development of different working memory components (phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive), the influence of different aspects of the teacher-student relationship (closeness, conflict, dependency) and its predictive value for academic achievement (reading, spelling, mathematics) across the transition from kindergarten to first grade. The sample consisted of 107 kindergarten children. Working memory tasks were administered at the end of kindergarten and first grade. Teachers reported on teacher-student relationship quality in the middle of first grade. Standardized tests were used to assess academic achievement at the end of first grade. Results indicate moderate to large increases in the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad and large gains in the central executive. Dependency of the student towards the teacher significantly predicted visuospatial sketchpad performance at the end of first grade. Reading was significantly predicted by the visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop in kindergarten, while for spelling the visuospatial sketchpad was important. Finally, mathematics was predicted by performance on the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. The current study indicates the importance of the affective quality of the teacher-student relationship for working memory performance, which in turn is important for academic achievement. It is therefore critical to attend to the early detection and prevention or intervention of working memory problems in the classroom in order to prevent future academic problems. Additionally, maintaining a positive relationship with students and encouraging their independent exploration may be important when preventing such problems, complementary to cognitive or other types of training and intervention.

Longitudinal Associations Between Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Development of Executive Functioning Across the Transition to First Grade.

The current study investigates how children's amount of daily physical activity relates to subcomponents of executive functions, the cognitive processes needed for goal-directed behavior. Previous studies rarely determined this association at the subcomponent level and did not explicitly examine the period when children make the transition to first grade, despite its importance for the development of executive functions. In a sample of 54 children, working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility were thoroughly measured at the subcomponent level at the end of kindergarten and first grade. In the middle of first grade, children wore a pedometer for 7 consecutive days. Regression analyses showed that performance on a measure of the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and fluency was predicted by children's amount of daily physical activity after controlling for initial task performance. The development of the visuospatial sketchpad (working memory), the central executive (working memory), and fluency (cognitive flexibility) might be improved by increasing the amount of time being physically active. However, as other subcomponents of executive functioning were not affected, the role of other aspects of physical activity, such as intensity and content, in the development of executive functions should be further investigated.

PATHS in Croatia: A school-based randomised-controlled trial of a social and emotional learning curriculum.

This study represents the first rigorous evaluation of a social-emotional learning curriculum, PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies; Kusché & Greenberg, 1994), in elementary schools in Croatia. This study randomly assigned 29 schools to receive the universal preventive intervention or continue with usual practices. Within those schools, this study included 57 classrooms and 568 children. Teachers rated nine child behaviours in the middle of first grade (pre-intervention) and near the end of second grade (post-intervention). Hierarchical linear models, nesting children within classrooms, revealed few changes in behaviour across the sample as a whole or among higher risk children. However, there were changes on eight of the nine behaviours for lower risk children. The findings are considered in the context of the classroom culture and teachers' preparation and readiness to implement a social-emotional learning curriculum in Croatia. This study highlights the need to supplement universal preventive interventions with selective preventive interventions that can provide more intensive and targeted skill practice for higher risk children. This study also highlights the nuanced effects of a universal preventive intervention in helping different children in different ways.

The stability of gender-related differences in early reading development in Polish children

The role of gender in early reading development in Polish children was investigated. The longitudinal study was conducted from the middle of preparatory pre-school year to the middle of first grade. The rate and accuracy of reading words and pseudo-words of different length and degree of difficulty were measured in five successive measures. The same children 64 (40 girls and 24 boys) took part in each assessment. The aim was to analyse the stability of gender-related differences. The studies showed that gender significantly differentiates children in the early development of reading skills in favour of girls. Differences in the rate of reading between children appeared to be stable in the period covered by the study. Whereas differences in the accuracy of reading diminished considerably in the last, fifth measure falling in the middle of first grade.

Predicting early spelling difficulties in children with specific language impairment: A clinical perspective

This study focused on the precursors of spelling difficulties in first grade for children with specific language impairment (SLI). A sample of 58 second-year kindergartners in The Netherlands was followed until the end of first grade. Linguistic, phonological, orthographic, letter knowledge, memory, and nonverbal-reasoning skills were considered as precursors, as was spelling level at an earlier point in time. Spelling difficulties at the end of first grade were most accurately identified by letter knowledge at the beginning of first grade and word spelling at the middle of first grade. It is concluded that spelling development in children with SLI can be seen as an autocatalytic process in which, without intervention, poor spellers generally remain poor spellers, and good spellers remain good spellers. A focus on early spelling intervention is thus emphasized.

Characteristics of early spelling of children with Specific Language Impairment

The present study investigated active grapheme knowledge and early spelling of 59 first grade children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Speed, nature, and knowledge transfer of spelling acquisition were taken into account. Four orthographic characteristics that influence early spelling, namely, ‘Type of Grapheme’, ‘Grapheme Position’, ‘Number of Graphemes’, and ‘Word Structure’ were examined at the middle and at the end of first grade. At the beginning of first grade when children were between 71 and 97 months, they performed well below national norms on assessment of active grapheme knowledge. The delay in word spelling persisted, but decreased between the middle and the end of first grade. Despite this delay, the findings suggest that characteristics of early spelling for children with SLI are rather similar to those of children with typical language development. For example, children with SLI represented more graphemes at the end of first grade than at the middle of first grade, found it easier to represent the initial grapheme in words than the final or medial grapheme (Grapheme Position), were more successful spelling shorter than longer words (Number of Graphemes), and spelled words with simple structures (CVC) more accurately than those with complex structures (CVCC and CCVC; Word Structure). Finally, participants demonstrated that they can use known graphemes to spell words, but the transfer between active grapheme knowledge and word spelling was not always stable.Learning outcomes: As a result of this activity, readers will be able to explain the speed and the nature of spelling acquisition of children with SLI. As a result of this activity, readers will be able to explain what skills are most important for teachers to practice with children with SLI to improve the spelling skills of these children.

Working memory and individual differences in mathematics achievement: A longitudinal study from first grade to second grade

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between working memory and individual differences in mathematics. Working memory measures, comprising the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the central executive, were administered at the start of first grade. Mathematics achievement was assessed 4 months later (at the middle of first grade) and 1 year later (at the start of second grade). Working memory was significantly related to mathematics achievement in both grades, showing that working memory clearly predicts later mathematics achievement. The central executive was a unique predictor of both first- and second-grade mathematics achievement. There were age-related differences with regard to the contribution of the slave systems to mathematics performance; the visuospatial sketchpad was a unique predictor of first-grade, but not second-grade, mathematics achievement, whereas the phonological loop emerged as a unique predictor of second-grade, but not first-grade, mathematics achievement.

Predicting First–Grade Math Achievement from Developmental Number Sense Trajectories

Number sense development was tracked from the beginning of kindergarten through the middle of first grade, over six time points. Children ( n= 277) were then assessed on general math achievement at the end of first grade. Number sense performance in kindergarten, as well as number sense growth, accounted for 66 percent of the variance in first–grade math achievement. Background characteristics of income status, gender, age, and reading ability did not add explanatory variance over and above growth in number sense. Even at the beginning of kindergarten, number sense was highly correlated with end of first–grade math achievement ( r= 0.70). Clarifying the observed slope effect, general growth mixture modeling showed that children who started kindergarten with low number sense but made moderate gains by the middle of kindergarten had higher first–grade math achievement than children who started out with similarly low number sense with flat growth. The majority of children in the low/flat growth class were from low–income families. The findings indicate that screening early number sense development is useful for identifying children who will face later math difficulties or disabilities.

Concurrent Criterion-Related Validity of Early Literacy Indicators for Middle of First Grade

The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent criterion-related (or convergent) validity of first grade measures from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2002). The DIBELS subtests of Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency, Oral Reading Fluency, Retell Fluency, and Word Use Fluency were administered to 213 first graders in the middle of the school year, along with the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997), a norm-referenced test with documented technical adequacy. Results from correlation, regression, and factor analyses indicated that the DIBELS subtests of Oral Reading Fluency and of Nonsense Word Fluency had the strongest associations with the TOWRE subtests.

Beginning Reading Intervention as Inoculation or Insulin

This study examined the first-grade reading progress of children who participated in an intensive beginning reading intervention in kindergarten. Specifically, the study investigated whether kindergarten intervention could prevent first-grade reading difficulties, or produce an "inoculation" effect, for some children under certain instructional conditions. Participants included children at risk for developing reading difficulties who received a 7-month beginning reading intervention in kindergarten. In October of first grade, 59 children who had achieved criterion levels on measures of phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge were randomly assigned to one of two types of first-grade reading instruction: (a) code-based classroom instruction and a supplemental maintenance intervention, or (b) only code-based classroom instruction. February posttest measures assessed oral reading fluency, word reading, nonword reading, and comprehension. Between-group analyses indicated that instructional groups did not differ on any posttest measure. The students' absolute levels of achievement were compared to national and local normative samples. These results indicated that between 75% and 100% of students in both conditions attained posttest levels and demonstrated growth comparable to their average-achieving peers. These results support the hypothesis that strong responders to kindergarten intervention can experience an inoculation effect through the middle of first grade with research-validated classroom reading instruction.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Children

If children are marked as at age 10, again at 14, and again at 16, their motivation will die, and they will spiral downward. They will be robbed of an education and marked forever as failures who have no worth. Surely, Ms. Holbrook suggests, this is not what the Massachusetts board of education intended when it ordered all Massachusetts special-needs students to take the MCAS. SARAH is in fourth grade. She's the daughter of two professional parents and has an older brother, whom she lovingly describes as a pain in the neck. Every time she writes an entry in her journal, she's eager to include one of her brother's adventures. Her teacher has taught her to start each entry with a line that grabs the reader's attention. My, what a week this has been! or You're not going to believe what my brother did this time! Sarah loves to write, always filling a page or two with ease. She's bright and clever, eager and creative. Her words are engaging and her stories pull you in. But Sarah can't read her own writing, and I can't either. She brings her weekly journal to my special education resource room each Thursday, and together we labor over the confusion of half words and reversed letters. The sentences are literally endless, with that one capital and maybe that final period. In the middle are wonderful ideas, but we can't figure out where they start and end. Little by little, word by word, Sarah and I piece together the writing. She says, Oh yes, I remember, that's the word uncle. My uncle had a flat tire. And I ask, Sarah, could that be the word Was your dog shaking? The story takes form, but Sarah's luster is fading. She knows her failings. She knows that, as hard as she tries, she can't spell or read like other students. She knows that, as fast as these stories emerge, she can't reread them. Ideas start and stop in her mind, but she can't find them on her paper. Sarah has a learning disability that affects all that she does during the school day. Social studies, science, and math all require reading and writing, which Sarah labors over daily. School is a struggle from beginning to end, but Sarah perseveres with the support of her family and teachers. Sarah has been tested, and her intellectual potential is above average. Through a series of subtests that involve verbal and nonverbal tasks, it's discovered that Sarah has the learning potential of students her age and older. However, on certain tasks that involve the perception of visual information, her brain confuses the images. It's particularly evident when she encounters symbols. When asked to reproduce those skewed images in writing, her brain once again confuses the message. Her coordination is weak, and the letters are labored and poorly formed. Her writing is a series of words with omitted, misordered, or illegible letters. In terms that we can relate to, Sarah reads, spells, and writes like a student at the end of first grade. She has the interests, experiences, and enthusiasm of a 10-year-old, but her work in school is that of a 7-year-old. When Sarah was in kindergarten, her ability to master readiness skills was strong. She was well socialized and had good background information from an enriched home life and some preschool experience. Her parents and teachers were prepared for her to experience school success in all ways. However, by the middle of first grade, Sarah's progress was slowing. As the demands of decoding the symbols for letters and numbers increased, Sarah was not moving forward. Her peers were already building an automatic sight vocabulary and were playing with the phonic units of reading and spelling. All this eluded Sarah. She was struggling with the basic deciphering of the very direction of the symbol or with associating a cluster of visual information (letters) with its meaning as a word. By the end of first grade, it was recommended that Sarah get the help of a remedial reading teacher. …

Growth modeling of phonological awareness.

In a longitudinal study following prereading kindergartners through first grade, the variables verbal memory, IQ, and speech perception (SP) together predicted 26% of growth in and 42% of the final status of phonological awareness (PA). The correlation between initial status and growth in PA was .51, suggesting that those who begin with high PA develop that skill more quickly than those who begin with lower PA. Although those low and high in SP in kindergarten had substantially different word-decoding scores by the middle of first grade (low: M = 6.8 words; high: M = 18.1 words), this difference was no longer significant once phonological processing was controlled, suggesting that the effect of SP on word decoding is mediated by phonological processing ability.

72 Addition Facts Can Be Mastered by Mid-Grade 1

We made it fun and made it work! Children in our first-grade classes mastered 72 of the 100 addition facts by the middle of first grade. The facts learned were of four types: “count ons” (facts having addends of 1, 2, or 3), “zero” facts, 10 sums, and doubles. Mastery was defined as a twosecond response to a given addition fact. The school district also lent its support and gave permission to delay the formal teaching of subtraction until the second semester. The foHowing sequence of activities serves as an outline of the approach that was taken.