This paper used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N = 1,258) to examine the influence of hilevels of cognitive stimulation from mothers, fathers, and childcare providers at 24 months and children's pre-academic skills at 48 and 60 months in two parent families. Results from path analysis showed direct positive effects of…

Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to…

This study examined relations between parenting, shared reading practices, and child development. Participants included 28 children (M = 24.66 months, SD = 8.41 months) and their parents. Measures included naturalistic observations of parenting and shared reading quality, assessments of child cognitive and language development, and home reading…

Language plays a critical role in theory of mind (ToM) development, particularly the understanding of false beliefs (FB). Further, there is some evidence that the development of FB is important for metalinguistic development, such as the understanding of homonyms and synonyms. However, there is debate regarding the nature of this relationship.…

Babbling between the ages of 8 and 19 months was examined in 19 children, 13 of whom were at high risk for reading disorder (RD) and 6 normally reading children at low familial risk for RD. Development of syllable complexity was examined at five periods across this 11-month window. Results indicated that children who later evidenced RD produced a…

During the last 2 decades, major advances have been made in understanding the development of executive functions (EFs) in early childhood. This article reviews the EF literature during the preschool period using an integrative framework. The framework adopted considers EF to be a unitary construct with partially dissociable components (A. Miyake…

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation…

Reports the results of pilot testing the use of a scale of cognitive clarity for beginning readers based on the writings of John Downing. (AEA)

Determines the nature and role of knowledge constructed by the child at the very beginning of his or her contact with printed words, i.e., during the logographic phase. Indicates that the letters in a word serve as its identifying visual properties as long as, for the child, the sole function of the written language is to encode meaning. (SG)

Contends that Jean Piaget's theories may be helpful in three areas of reading instruction: (1) when reading instruction should begin and how it should proceed, (2) the effect of the mature reader's cognitive development on comprehension, and (3) how the theories can help to refine reading theory. (FL)

Reviews the literature concerning the importance of a child's oral language in learning to read. (JM)

Argues that Piaget's cognitive stage theory complements psycholinguistic theories of fluent reading by clarifying how readers acquire and then use prior knowledge. Suggests that, in this light, teachers may want to rearrange the order and manner in which they present units from basal readers. (FL)

Metalinguistic cognition is the ability to think about language, to comment on it, to produce it, to comprehend it, and to manipulate language as an object with many identifiable and functional parts. It appears that metalinguistic skill development is related to cognitive development and is dependent on metalinguistic awareness which runs…

Establishes a developmental perspective for using caption books (picture books with short language captions closely related to simple pictures), then details how the books can be used in the classroom. (FL)

The dimensions that interact during reading acquisition include properties of texts, the acquisition of reading skills and strategies, the development of cognitive and language skills, the influence of instruction, and the effects of motivational, cultural, and language variables. Discusses how these interactions may occur and describes three…