Which childhood predictive indices forecast reading and writing skills in school-age children: a systematic review.

Learning to read and write are essential academic skills that children develop during their early years of primary school. These skills are supported by various predictive indices that emerge in early childhood. This review has three main goals: to identify which factors are closely examined as predictors for reading and writing, specifically decoding and encoding skills, in different populations and languages (Objective 1); to assess the longitudinal relationship between these predictors and reading and writing skills (Objective 2), considering difficulties or disorders in these areas (Objective 3), during school-age.

Relationship between lexical, reading and spelling skills in bilingual language minority children and their monolingual peers.

This study was conducted on a population of primary school children including bilingual language minority (BLM) children with L2-Italian and a variety of languages as L1 (e.g., Chinese, Albanian, Latin), and Italian-speaking monolingual children.

Influence of Lexical Development on Reading and Spelling Skills: Effects of Enhancement on Second-Grade Children in Primary School.

Previous studies suggest that lexical competence is an important factor that influences reading skills and spelling accuracy in primary school children. Understanding the relationship between these skills will provide valuable insights to improve reading and writing enhancement and intervention strategies. The aim of this pre-post longitudinal study is to examine the effectiveness of an enhancement program, in which there are activities proposed through a narrative and metacognitive methodology, designed to develop the cognitive processes of lexical acquisition and its effects on reading and writing ability.

Semantic fluency in 3-6 years old preschoolers: which executive functions?

Semantic Fluency (SF) increases with age, along with the lexicon and the strategies to access it. Among the cognitive processes involved in controlling lexical access, Executive Functions (EF) play an essential role. Nevertheless, which EF, namely inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, are specifically tapped by SF during preschool years, when these basic EF components are developing and differentiating, is still unknown.

The role of preschoolers' home literacy environment and emergent literacy skills on later reading and writing skills in primary school: A mediational model.

The importance of the quality of home literacy environment and practices (HLE&P) in the earliest years on children's reading and writing development is recognized in the literature. However, whether and to what extent this relationship between preschoolers' HLE&P on their later reading and writing skills in primary school is mediated by emergent literacy competence remains to be clarified. It may be that preschool constitutes a significant opportunity for children to develop notational awareness and phonological awareness which are emergent literacy skills that are fundamental for later reading and writing skills.

Contribution of oral narrative textual competence and spelling skills to written narrative textual competence in bilingual language-minority children and monolingual peers.

This study investigates the developmental pattern and relationships between oral narrative textual skills, spelling, and written narrative textual skills in monolingual and bilingual language-minority (BLM) children, L1-Chinese and L2-Italian. The aims were to investigate in monolingual and BLM children: (1) the developmental patterns of oral and writing skills across primary school years; (2) the pattern of relationships (direct and mediated) between oral narrative textual competence, spelling skills, and written narrative textual competence with age and socio-economic status (SES) taken under control. In total, 141 primary school children from grades 2 to 5 in Central Italy (44% BLM, 56% monolinguals) aged between 7 and 11 years (M-age = 8.

The mediating role of emotions in the relation between beliefs and teachers' job satisfaction.

This study investigates the patterns of relations between beliefs, emotions, and job satisfaction in 249 Italian in-service teachers. Participants were assessed on their growth and fixed mindsets, self-efficacy beliefs, emotions associated with various components of their professional engagement and job satisfaction. Mediational analyses shed light on the mediating role of teaching and role emotions in the relation between beliefs and job satisfaction.

Efficacy of Two School-Based Interventions on Notational Ability of Bilingual Preschoolers: A Group-Randomized Trial Study.

This randomized trial study aimed to analyze the efficacy of two different school-based interventions-normal preschool literacy teaching, and the PASSI intervention carried out for different durations (12 versus 30 weeks)-on notational knowledge of bilingual language-minority (BLM) preschoolers and their monolingual peers, after controlling their linguistic background and socio- economic status. A total of 251 children aged 4-5 years (M age = 4 years and 8 months; SD age = 6 months; 49% males, 51% females) were recruited from 19 classes in five preschools and randomly assigned to three groups that corresponded to different notational-focused interventions: (1) normal preschool literacy teaching (Condition 1; = 47); (2) the PASSI intervention carried out for 12 weeks (Condition 2; = 119); and (3) the PASSI intervention carried out for 30 weeks (Condition 3; = 85). We collected two waves of data before and after the interventions regarding notational knowledge and phonological skills.

Attention Components and Spelling Accuracy: Which Connections Matter?

Attention and working memory are cross-domain functions that regulate both behavioural and learning processes. Few longitudinal studies have focused on the impact of these cognitive resources on spelling skills in the early phase of learning to write. This longitudinal study investigates the contributions of attention and working memory processes to spelling accuracy and handwriting speed in 112 primary school children (2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade; age range: 7.

Difficulty in Writing Perceived by University Students: A Comparison of Inaccurate Writers with and without Diagnostic Certification.

Research has shown that academic success is strongly associated with positive academic self-efficacy beliefs and that individuals with learning disabilities (LDs) usually report a lower perception of competence than their peers in most learning domains. The aim of this study was two-fold: (1) To compare the performance of inaccurate writers who were not diagnosed with an LD with that of students who were diagnosed with an LD, in order to identify which tasks were the most challenging for individuals with LDs, and (2) to investigate whether inaccurate writers with and without a diagnosis differ in terms of self-perceived difficulties. Two groups were selected from a total sample of 639 students attending seven Italian universities: The first group included 48 participants (24 females) with scores on writing tasks below the 5th percentile, and the second included 51 participants (24 females) who were diagnosed with an LD.

The influence of narrative competence on mental state talk in kindergarten and primary school children.

This study investigates the relationships between narrative competence and mental state talk at different age levels. Specifically, we explored whether a higher level of structure in narratives is associated with children's mental state talk, and whether this effect is moderated by age (kindergarten, lower and upper primary school). The participants in the study were 172 Italian children.

The Validation of the Free Fantasy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents: From Imaginary Playmate to "Dreamtime".

Fantasy in children is a precocious and important skill. In normal subjects some imaginative events, very close to hallucinations (perception-like experiences), have been found. Therefore, a better knowledge on both fantasy and the difference between imagination and the external world is needed.

The impact of children's lexical and morphosyntactic knowledge on narrative competence development: A prospective cohort study.

The authors investigate the contribution of children's early comprehension of relational terms and morphosyntactic knowledge to the development of narrative competence in kindergarten and Grade 1. Narrative competence was assessed through the cohesion, coherence, and structure of children's productions. The participants in this study were 714 Italian children.

The Influence of Teaching Approach on Students' Conceptual Learning in Physics.

Physics is fundamental to secure future needs for scientific and technological competence (Angell et al., 2004), but many countries experience a drop in students' performances in international assessments (Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development [OECD], 2018), as well as in rates of enrolment in undergraduate programs in scientific disciplines (STEM). Socio-constructivist theories have produced a reforming movement in several educational systems, in particular in the area of sciences, but teacher often consider them an idealistic view of education and do not consider themselves metacognitively competent enough to foster thinking in the classroom.

The Mediating Role of Conceptions of Learning in the Relationship Between Metacognitive Skills/Strategies and Academic Outcomes Among Middle-School Students.

This study investigated the mediating role of conceptions of learning in the relationship between metacognitive skills/strategies and academic outcomes among middle-school students. The self-report "Learning Conceptions Questionnaire" (LCQ) and "Metacognitive questionnaire on the method of study" (QMS-in Italian) were administered to 136 middle-school students and their academic outcomes were collected. Correlation analyses revealed that within metacognitive skills/strategies only self-assessment was positively correlated with academic outcomes.

Improving Conceptual Knowledge of the Italian Writing System in Kindergarten: A Cluster Randomized Trial.

This study assessed the efficacy of PASSI (), an intervention to improve children's conceptual knowledge of the Italian writing system in kindergarten, which is an emergent literacy predictor of reading and spelling acquisition focused on letter-speech sound integration. PASSI implements an embedded-explicit approach in which teachers target specific subskills (reflection on the graphic, symbolic and phonological aspect of written signs) and emphasize children's contextualized interactions with oral and written language. One hundred fifty-nine Italian children participated in this study.

Reading Fluency As a Predictor of School Outcomes across Grades 4-9.

This study analyzed the predictive relationship between reading fluency and school outcomes across school levels (primary, secondary, and high school), after controlling on the effect of reading comprehension. The sample included 489 children attending Italian primary (grades 4 and 5), secondary (grades 6 and 8), and high schools (grade 9). Students' reading fluency and comprehension were examined with a standardized reading achievement test.

Peer Interaction Does Not Always Improve Children's Mental State Talk Production in Oral Narratives. A Study in 6- to 10-Year-Old Italian Children.

Joint narratives are a mean through which children develop and practice their Theory of Mind (ToM), thus they represent an ideal means to explore children's use and development of mental state talk. However, creating a learning environment for storytelling based on peer interaction, does not necessarily mean that students will automatically exploit it by engaging in productive collaboration, thus it is important to explore under what conditions peer interaction promotes children's ToM. This study extends our understanding of social aspects of ToM, focusing on the effect of joint narratives on school-age children's mental state talk.

Spelling across Tasks and Levels of Language in a Transparent Orthography.

The paper reports the results of two studies on the spelling performance of 1st graders in a transparent writing system. The spelling performance of Italian children was assessed to determine the cross-task relationship between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling at the single word level (Study 1) and at the text level (Study 2), respectively. In study 1, 132 Italian children's spelling performance was assessed in 1st grade through two standardized tasks, i.

Predicting Reading, Spelling, and Mathematical Skills: A Longitudinal Study From Kindergarten Through First Grade.

This two-year longitudinal study contributes to the debate between the school readiness and emergent literacy approaches, individuating early markers for reading, spelling, and mathematical skills. Two hundred and two Italian children participated in this study (M age = 5.6years, SD = 0.

Predicting Reading and Spelling Disorders: A 4-Year Prospective Cohort Study.

In this 4-year prospective cohort study, children with a reading and spelling disorder, children with a spelling impairment, and children without a reading and/or spelling disorder (control group) in a transparent orthography were identified in third grade, and their emergent literacy performances in kindergarten compared retrospectively. Six hundred and forty-two Italian children participated. This cohort was followed from the last year of kindergarten to third grade.

The relationship between oral and written narratives: A three-year longitudinal study of narrative cohesion, coherence, and structure.

Background: The relationship between oral language and the writing process at early acquisition stages and the ways the former can enhance or limit the latter has not been researched extensively.

Aims: The predictive relationship between kindergarten oral narrative competence and the first- and second-grade written narrative competence was explored in a 3-year longitudinal study. Among the first and second graders, the relationship between orthographic competence and narrative competence in written productions was also analysed.

Evaluating the Predictive Impact of an Emergent Literacy Model on Dyslexia in Italian Children: A Four-Year Prospective Cohort Study.

The strong differences in manifestation, prevalence, and incidence in dyslexia across languages invite studies in specific writing systems. In particular, the question of the role played by emergent literacy in opaque and transparent writing systems remains a fraught one. This research project tested, through a 4-year prospective cohort study, an emergent literacy model for the analysis of the characteristics of future dyslexic children and normally reading peers in Italian, a transparent writing system.

Emergent literacy and early writing skills.

In the present study, the authors aimed to assess the short- and long-term predictive power of the various components of an emergent literacy model on early writing abilities in a language with a mainly transparent orthography (Italian). Emergent literacy skills were assessed in 72 children (M age = 5.05 years, SD = +/- .