Research Findings: Fluent and legible handwriting is associated with longer texts and higher text quality and is therefore an important goal in the primary school curriculum. While girls' handwriting tends to be more proficient than boys', potential differences in the correlates of girls' and boys' early handwriting are poorly understood. In this…

"Research Findings:" Executive Function (EF) and Early Math (EM) are foundational skills for children's school success. Interventions have shown to foster these skills, but their effectiveness in less developed countries remains unknown. This study examined the initial efficacy of an eight-week EF and an EM skills program for young…

Research Findings: There are sparse data on children's use of executive function (EF) and spatial skills in block play. However, there are important implications for studying EF and spatial skills with blocks across cultures, especially regarding best practices for supporting social-cognitive development in under-resourced populations and…

Research Findings: The Children's Social Understanding Scale (CSUS) assesses young children's theory of mind (ToM). The current study adapted the parent version of the CSUS-short form to Turkish and examined its utility, for the first time, as an assessment tool for teachers. The associations of parent and teacher reports of the CSUS-short form…

The current randomized control trial evaluated the effectiveness of a new social-emotional learning (SEL) program, I Can Succeed for Preschools (ICS-PS). ICS-PS aims to improve preschoolers' social/interpersonal, emotional, and academic skills in an integrative way, focusing on children's core executive functions (EFs). The various components of…

Research Findings: This study investigated the bidirectional relations among paired associate learning (PAL), language-specific skills and Chinese word reading in kindergarten children from second year (K2) to third year (K3). We tested 204 children on four mapping conditions of PAL (i.e., visual-verbal, verbal-verbal, visual-visual, and…

Nowadays, classrooms include children coming from a wide range of cultures and speaking different languages. Teachers are therefore challenged to create appropriate learning opportunities for very diverse children. The current study examined the unique contribution of general classroom interaction, individual teacher-child interactions and…

Research Findings: Children differ in their ability to adapt to elementary school. Yet, the family factors that foster a successful transition to elementary school are less well understood. Family cohesion as an indicator of a positive emotional climate within families may play an important role for children's ability to adapt to school. Thus,…

Research Findings: Community-based playgroups in low-and-middle-income countries increase access to early learning at lower cost than centers. However, evidence of effectiveness is limited. The effects of one, two, or three playgroup sessions per week on children's performance on the Early Learning Outcome Measure (ELOM) (n = 112; baseline M…

Research Findings: The study investigated whether preschool code-related home literacy experiences had direct associations with regular and irregular word reading in the first year of primary school as well as exploring whether there were indirect associations between these experiences and later word reading via children's language skills or…

Research Findings: This study examined the contributions of motor skills and executive function (EF) to early achievement. Participants were 7,797 children (3,889 girls) between 36 and 72 months of age from 6 countries in East Asia and the Pacific. Fine and gross motor skills, EF, language and literacy achievement, and mathematics achievement were…

Research Findings: Promoting inhibitory control in preschoolers could increase the likelihood of positive developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, to date only a limited number of studies have focused on inhibitory control training, reporting mixed results. To examine the efficacy and the transfer effects of the training on preschoolers, seven…

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's early attainment, and the roles of preschool attendance and executive function (EF) in this association. Participants were 3,331 children (1,584 girls) ranging in age from 36 to 71 months from Cambodia, Mongolia, and Vanuatu.…

Research Findings: Optimal sleep is important for children's learning and development. "Sleep disordered breathing" (SDB) refers to a spectrum of conditions from simple snoring to obstructive sleep apnea that is common in childhood and interrupts sleep. We examined pathways between SDB and academic performance of children (N = 163, M…

The present study investigated gender differences in social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and socioemotional skills and examined the relationships among this knowledge and these skills by gender. Participants were 134 Chinese children (68 boys, M age = 3.80; 66 girls, M age = 3.89) and their parents…