The interdependence between the first and second language of bilingual immigrant children has not received sufficient attention in research. Most studies concentrate on mainstream language skills of ...immigrant pupils. In some studies, the gaps in the language development of immigrant children are documented by comparing mainstream pupils with immigrant children. The competence in the first language receives very little attention. In order to show the role of first language competence in second-language acquisition and lower school achievement, we present the findings of our empirical study by comparing bilingual Turkish immigrant children (n = 30, mean age = 67.27 months) in the Netherlands and monolingual Turkish speakers (n = 30, mean age = 66.97 months) in Turkey. The evidence presented in this paper shows that compared to monolingual Turkish speakers, Turkish immigrant children lag behind in their first language cognitive concepts, lexical, syntactic, and textual skills. Mothers' education level turns out to be an important factor in explaining the performance differences of immigrant children. This would have an effect on their concept and cognitive development as well as on their second-language acquisition.
Background and Aims
While health workers were affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic on an individual and professional basis, their families and especially their children were directly or indirectly ...exposed to similar factors. This study aims to compare the emotion regulation competencies of school‐age children of healthcare workers in Turkey, before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic and to investigate their emotion regulation competencies during the pandemic in terms of care conditions, daily life activities and overall health.
Methods
This study used the purposeful sampling technique and was designed as a cross‐sectional and relational survey study. To conduct this study, permission was received from the Ministry of Health Directorate‐General for Health Services, COVID‐19 Research Evaluation Commission, and İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University Non‐Interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee (Date/Decision no: 04.03.2021/0090). The data‐collection process was carried out online between March and July, 2021. A total of 106 healthcare workers who serve in pandemic clinics or fields participated in this study. In addition to the information forms prepared by the researchers of this study, the Emotion Regulation Scale (ERS), which was adapted into Turkish, was used. One‐way analysis of variance for independent samples was used for the analysis of variables, and paired samples t‐test was used to compare emotion regulation competencies before and during the pandemic.
Results
The children's total ERS scores increased during the pandemic (47.70 ± 8.35) when compared with their pre‐pandemic scores (44.86 ± 9.25), and furthermore this difference was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.000). The total mean ERS score of children with a healthcare worker parent increased significantly during the pandemic compared with the scores before the pandemic, which revealed that emotion regulation occurred at a lower level for these children.
Conclusion
The effect of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the emotion regulation competencies of children whose parents are healthcare workers is evident.
In this study, we aimed to determine the early cognitive and home environmental predictors of reading in Turkish‐speaking children. A total of 362 children participated in the study. We monitored the ...children for 3 years and assessed the home environmental variables and cognitive skills in kindergarten, reading fluency at the end of the first grade, and reading comprehension at the end of the second grade. We found that home literacy environment and socioeconomic status predicted early literacy skills in kindergarten as they also predicted reading fluency and reading comprehension through early literacy in later years. In addition, we found that phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming predicted reading fluency, while language and verbal working memory predicted reading comprehension. The results of the study showed us that it is important to consider reading and reading comprehension in Turkish‐speaking children holistically, together with cognitive skills and home environmental variables.
Practitioner Points
Early cognitive and home environmental factors affect the development of reading and reading comprehension in Turkish‐speaking children.
Early home literacy environment and socioeconomic status predict reading success through early cognitive factors.
Phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming are essential variables for the development of reading fluency in Turkish, a highly transparent language.
Research has often emphasised that children who experience difficulties in learning to read get poorer in their performance, and the gap between good and poor readers increases over time which ...describes the well-accepted phenomenon called the Mathew Effect. However, some studies have shown that the Matthew Effect has not been confirmed. In this study, the reading growth curves of Turkish-speaking children and the existence of the Matthew Effect in their performances were examined. For this purpose, the reading skills of 482 children were measured twice a year in the first and second grades. A quadratic growth model successfully fit the data to explain overall reading performance across four-time points. Further, three latent classes, named as good, moderate, and poor readers, were identified on the basis of individual trajectories. Accordingly, the difference in performance between good readers and poor readers continued in all time points. Although the difference between classes continued to increase especially in the second and third time points, and supported the Matthew Effect, it showed a horizontal slope in the fourth time point. This slope shows that reading differences between classes may close in the future. The results were discussed on the basis of Turkish sample.
This study investigated endogenous and exogenous predictors of early literacy in Turkish-speaking children. Whether children's language and working memory performances (as the endogenous factors) and ...home literacy environment (as the exogenous factor) in the beginning of kindergarten predict the children's current and year-end early literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, receptive and expressive vocabulary) was examined. The participants consisted of 441 kindergarten children. Results showed that language development, working memory, and home reading environment predicted children's both current and year-end phonological awareness. Language and home writing activities were significant predictors of the year-end letter knowledge. Working memory was a significant predictor for both the current and year-end letter knowledge. Language, working memory and home reading environment significantly predicted the acquisition of receptive and expressive vocabulary. In conclusion, results suggest that each of the early literacy skills is related to both the developmental characteristics of children and their home literacy environment.
In this study, we aimed to determine the validity of the doubledeficit hypothesis, which argues that reading difficulties arise due to inadequacies in phonological awareness and rapid naming, in ...relation to reading difficulties in a transparent language such as Turkish. Accordingly, children attending a kindergarten were assigned to four groups: a double-deficit group (n = 23), phonological awareness deficit group (n = 35), rapid naming deficit group (n = 29) or control group (n = 48) according to the scores they received on measures of phonological awareness and rapid naming. The performance of the groups in reading and reading comprehension was followed longitudinally from the first grade to the end of the second grade and were compared at four time points. On the basis of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), it was determined that the double-deficit group performed worst in reading and reading comprehension tasks, and the control group performed best. While the reading and reading comprehension achievements of all groups increased over time, the findings suggest that the performance of groups with phonological awareness and rapid naming deficits differed significantly from the double-deficit group and the control group. This study, which examined the effects of the double-deficit hypothesis for Turkishspeaking children, offers a new approach to identifying children at risk of reading difficulties in early years and to planning appropriate interventions.
This study investigated the possible differences in the home literacy environments (HLE) among Turkish kindergarteners from three different SES (socio-economic) strata. 341 parents of a total of 341 ...kindergarteners from 24 kindergarten classrooms in low, middle and high SES neighbourhoods across Ankara completed the Socio-Demographics Form and the Home Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ). Results of MANOVA and the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed significant differences among the three SES levels, with high SES scoring significantly higher than the middle and low SES and the middle SES scoring significantly higher than the low SES in all HLQ subscales. These findings imply that low and partly middle SES kindergarteners may be at a disadvantage for quality HLEs and so we educators have to look for ways to support these families. However results also point that all three groups fell within the "moderate HLE" range which shows that Turkish kindergarteners from all SES strata may need to be supported through systematic interventions.
The purpose of this study was to examine the power of phonological awareness and rapid naming longitudinally in predicting reading achievement in a highly transparent orthography, Turkish. Children ...were followed in kindergarten and first grade and assessed at four time points. While phonological awareness and rapid naming skills of children were assessed in the fall and spring semesters of kindergarten and in the fall semester of first grade, their reading skills were assessed at the end of fall semester of first grade. A total of 365 children participated in all assessments. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the prediction status of phonological awareness and rapid naming on reading achievement. Results revealed that although phonological awareness was a better predictor of reading than rapid naming, both skills predicted reading achievement significantly at all three time points, and that the contribution of these skills to reading differed at various points in time. In conclusion phonological awareness and rapid naming are strong predictors of reading achievement in a highly transparent orthography as indicated by the previous research. Thus, by assessing these skills, children at risk for reading difficulties can be identified and supported early to increase their chance of success in school.
Although several studies show that phonological awareness predicts reading performance, longitudinal results in different socioeconomic levels are not clear enough. This study aimed to examine to ...what extent the phonological awareness skills of Turkish-speaking children coming from different socioeconomic levels are predictive of later reading performance. Children’s phonological awareness was assessed in three time points including in the fall and spring semesters of kindergarten and in the beginning of first grade while reading performance was assessed at the end fall semester in first grade. A total of 451 children participated in all assessments. Three regression models were tested for the analyses. The results showed that phonological awareness skills assessed during kindergarten and in the beginning of first grade predicted reading performance in first grade in children from all socioeconomic levels, and predictive power of phonological awareness skills were higher in the spring of kindergarten compared to other assessment points.
Araştırmada, anasınıfına devam
eden ve düşük anne eğitim düzeyine sahip çocukların sözcük bilgisi ve
sesbilgisel farkındalık becerilerinin gelişimsel profillerinin daha üst anne
eğitim düzeyine sahip ...çocuklarla karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenmesi
amaçlanmıştır. Çocuklar anasınıfının güz, bahar ve birinci sınıfın güz
döneminde değerlendirilmiştir. Araştırmaya normal gelişim gösteren ve anadili
Türkçe olan 531 çocuk katılmıştır. Çocukların sözcük bilgileri Türkçe İfade
Edici ve Alıcı Dil Testi, sesbilgisel farkındalık becerileri ise Erken
Okuryazarlık Testinin Sesbilgisel Farkındalık alt alanı ile
değerlendirilmiştir. Anne eğitim düzeyleri, ilkokul, ortaokul, lise, lisans ve
lisansüstü olmak üzere beş düzeyde sınıflandırılmıştır. Karma model varyans
analizi ile gerçekleştirilen analizler sonucunda anne eğitim düzeyleri farklı
olan çocukların sözcük bilgileri ve sesbilgisel farkındalık becerilerinin üç
dönem için benzer oranda değişim gösterdiği belirlenmiştir. Anneleri ilkokul,
ortaokul ve lise mezunu olan çocuklar sözcük bilgisi ve sesbilgisel farkındalık
becerilerinde anneleri lisans ve lisansüstü mezunu olan çocuklara göre daha düşük
performans göstermişlerdir. Sonuçlar bu becerilerde düşük performans göstererek
anasınıfına başlayan çocukların ilerleyen dönemlerde de düşük performans
göstermeye devam ettiklerini ve bu açıdan risk grubunda
değerlendirilebileceklerini göstermektedir.
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