•HLE model extended by follow-up from age 2 to 15 and including FR for dyslexia.•Teaching literacy at home predicted emerging literacy skills.•Shared book reading predicted vocabulary development and ...reading motivation.•Vocabulary, fluency, shared reading, and motivation predicted reading comprehension.•Both promotive and protective factors for reading comprehension were identified.
This study aimed to gain better understanding of the associations between literacy activities at home and long-term language and literacy development. We extended the home literacy environment (HLE) model of Sénéchal and LeFevre (Child Development 2002, Vol. 73, pp. 445–460) by including repeated assessments of shared reading, oral language, and reading comprehension development, including examination of familial risk for dyslexia as a moderator, and following development over time from ages 2 to 15 years. Of the 198 Finnish participants, 106 have familial risk for dyslexia due to parental dyslexia. Our path models include development in vocabulary (2–5.5 years), emerging literacy (5.5 years), reading fluency (8 and 9 years), and reading comprehension (8, 9, and 15 years) as well as shared book reading with parents (2, 4, 5, 8, and 9 years), teaching literacy at home (4.5 years), and reading motivation (8–9 years). The results supported the HLE model in that teaching literacy at home predicted stronger emerging literacy skills, whereas shared book reading predicted vocabulary development and reading motivation. Both emerging literacy and vocabulary predicted reading development. Familial risk for dyslexia was a significant moderator regarding several paths; vocabulary, reading fluency, and shared reading were stronger predictors of reading comprehension among children with familial risk for dyslexia, whereas reading motivation was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension among adolescents with no familial risk. The findings underline the importance of shared reading and suggest a long-standing impact of shared reading on reading development both directly and through oral language development and reading motivation.
School burnout symptoms are prevalent among upper secondary education students, but thus far, very little is known about the background of these symptoms. The present study examined the extent to ...which school burnout symptoms (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism) among upper secondary education students have their roots in primary and lower secondary school and whether early antecedents of school burnout symptoms could be identified. The sample consisted of 1544 Finnish students followed up four times (Time1–Time 4) from the end of primary school (T1; mean age 12.74 and range 11.71–14.20) to the first year of upper secondary education (T4; mean age 16.66 and range 15.55–18.39). The results of latent growth curve modeling showed that school burnout symptoms in upper secondary education were predicted by the level of school burnout symptoms at the end of primary school and by an increase in these symptoms across the transition from primary school through lower secondary school. In addition, psychological well-being, academic skills, and gender were found to contribute to the prediction of school burnout symptoms. Overall, the present study suggest that potential warning signs of school burnout should not be ignored and attention should be directed to earlier education phases.
According to the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal and LeFevre, 2002, 2014), young children can be exposed to two distinct types of literacy activities at home. First, meaning-related literacy activities ...are those where print is present but is not the focus of the parent-child interaction, for example, when parents read storybooks to their children. In contrast, code-related literacy activities focus on the print, for example, activities such as when parents teach their children the names and sounds of letters or to read words. The present study was conducted to expand the Home Literacy Model by examining its relation with children's engagement in literacy activities at home and at school as Finnish children transitioned from kindergarten to Grades 1 and 2. Two facets of children's engagement were examined, namely, children's independent reading at home and their interest in literacy activities. Children (
= 378) were tested and interviewed at the ends of kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Mothers completed questionnaires on their home literacy activities at each test time, and they reported the frequency with which their children read independently twice when children were in grade school. Tested was a longitudinal model of the hypothesized relations among maternal home literacy activities (shared reading and teaching of reading), children's reading skills, independent reading, and their interest in literacy activities/tasks as children progressed from kindergarten to Grade 2. Stringent path analyses that included all auto-regressors were conducted. Findings extended previous research in four ways. First, the frequency of shared reading and teaching of reading at home predicted the frequency of children's independent reading 1 year later. Second, children with stronger early literacy skills in kindergarten read independently more frequently once they were in Grade 1. Third, parents adapted, from kindergarten to Grade 1, their teaching behaviors to their children's progress in reading, whereas shared reading decreased over time. Fourth, children's own reports of interest in literacy activities were mostly not linked to other variables. Taken together, these results add another layer to the Home Literacy Model.
Education plays a pivotal role in alleviating poverty, driving economic growth, and empowering individuals, thereby significantly influencing societal and personal development. However, the ...persistent issue of school dropout poses a significant challenge, with its effects extending beyond the individual. While previous research has employed machine learning for dropout classification, these studies often suffer from a short-term focus, relying on data collected only a few years into the study period. This study expanded the modeling horizon by utilizing a 13-year longitudinal dataset, encompassing data from kindergarten to Grade 9. Our methodology incorporated a comprehensive range of parameters, including students’ academic and cognitive skills, motivation, behavior, well-being, and officially recorded dropout data. The machine learning models developed in this study demonstrated notable classification ability, achieving a mean area under the curve (AUC) of 0.61 with data up to Grade 6 and an improved AUC of 0.65 with data up to Grade 9. Further data collection and independent correlational and causal analyses are crucial. In future iterations, such models may have the potential to proactively support educators’ processes and existing protocols for identifying at-risk students, thereby potentially aiding in the reinvention of student retention and success strategies and ultimately contributing to improved educational outcomes.
Abstract
Health literacy is an asset for and indicator of adolescents’ health and wellbeing, and should therefore be monitored and addressed across countries. This study aimed to develop and validate ...a shorter version of the original 10-item health literacy for school-aged children instrument in a cross-national context, using data from the health behaviour in school-aged children 2017/18 survey. The data were obtained from 25 425 adolescents (aged 13 and 15 years) from seven European countries. Determination was made of the best item combination to form a shorter version of the health literacy instrument. Thereafter, the structural validity, reliability, measurement invariance, and criterion validity of the new 5-item instrument were examined. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit to the data across countries and in the total sample, confirming the structural validity (CFI = 0.995, TLI = 0.989, SRMR = 0.011, RMSEA = 0.031). The internal consistency of the instrument was at a good level across countries (α = 0.87–0.98), indicating that the instrument provided reliable scores. Configural and metric invariance was established across genders, ages, and countries. Scalar invariance was achieved for age and gender groups, but not between countries. This indicated that the factor structure of the scale was similar, but that there were differences between the countries in health literacy levels. Regarding criterion validity, structural equation modelling showed a positive association between health literacy and self-rated health in all the participating countries. The new instrument was found to be valid and reliable for the purposes of measuring health literacy among adolescents in a cross-national context.
Because of its regularity, it is relatively easy to learn to read and spell in Finnish. However, a specific hurdle in spelling acquisition seems to be the doubling of consonant letters. In this study ...on consonant letter doubling spelling in Finnish children (91 Grade 1 and 191 Grade 2 children), we asked two questions. First, are items with double consonant letters (e.g., “kissa” ˈkisːɑ ‘cat’) indeed harder to spell than single consonant items (e.g., “kisa” ˈkisɑ ‘contest’)? Second, is consonant doubling harder for stop consonants (e.g., “takki” ˈtɑkːi ‘coat’) than for continuant consonants (e.g., “kissa” ˈkisːɑ ‘cat’)? We found that Finnish children made more errors on items with double consonant letters than on items with single consonant letters and that this effect was larger for stop than for continuant consonant letters. Exploratory analyses showed that these effects were stronger for younger and poorer spellers. Post hoc analyses of the errors made on double consonant items showed that the children predominantly made nonlexical errors (> 90%). When they did make a lexical error, these errors typically did not map on the type of errors that would be expected from a corpus analysis of the higher-frequency orthographic neighbors. Overall, lexical influences on spelling of Finnish children seem to be minimal and unpredictable. We discuss two potential reasons why it is more difficult to spell items with double consonant letters than with single consonant letters and suggest how these could be investigated in future research.
We investigated the extent to which home literacy activities during the preschool year would predict the development of children's language and literacy skills in primary school, in a highly ...transparent Finnish language. Also, the correlates of maternal literacy activities during preschool were examined. Literacy and language skills of 1,880 children (6-year-olds at the baseline) were tested at 5 time points from the beginning of preschool to the end of Year 2; mothers filled in questionnaires at the end of preschool. The results showed that home teaching of reading at preschool age predicted children's emergent literacy (letter knowledge, word reading fluency) in primary school, while shared reading predicted oral language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension). Moreover, early letter knowledge was related to both the maternal teaching of reading and shared reading, while maternal beliefs and expectations about their children's schooling and competence were associated with more frequent engagement in the teaching of reading.
The present study examined whether learning disabilities (LD) in reading and/or math (i.e., reading disability RD, math disability MD, and RD+MD) co-occur with other diagnoses. The data comprised a ...clinical sample (n = 430) with LD identified in childhood and a sample of matched controls (n = 2,140). Their medical diagnoses (according to the International Classification of Diseases nosology) until adulthood (20–39 years) were analyzed. The co-occurrence of LD with neurodevelopmental disorders was considered a homotypic comorbidity, and co-occurrence with disorders or diseases from the other diagnostic categories (i.e., mental and behavioral disorders, diseases of the nervous system, injuries, other medical or physical diagnoses) was considered a heterotypic comorbidity. Both homotypic and heterotypic comorbidity were more common in the LD group. Co-occurring neurodevelopmental disorders were the most prominent comorbid disorders, but mental and behavioral disorders, diseases of the nervous system, and injuries were also pronounced in the LD group. Accumulation of diagnoses across the diagnostic categories was more common in the LD group. No differences were found among the RD, MD, and RD+MD subgroups. The findings are relevant from the theoretical perspective, as well as for clinical and educational practice, as they provide understanding regarding individual distress and guiding for the planning of support.
We examined the longitudinal predictors of nonword decoding, reading fluency, and spelling in three languages that vary in orthographic depth: Finnish, Greek, and English. Eighty-two ...English-speaking, 70 Greek, and 88 Finnish children were followed from the age of 5.5 years old until Grade 2. Prior to any reading instruction, they were administered measures of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming speed. In Grade 2, they were administered measures of nonword decoding, text-reading fluency, and spelling. The results showed that the model for nonword decoding in Greek was similar to that of Finnish (both have consistent grapheme-to-phoneme mappings) while the model for spelling in Greek was similar to that of English (both have some inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme mappings). In addition, the models for nonword decoding and spelling in Finnish were similar, because Finnish is consistent in both directions. Letter knowledge dominated the prediction in each language. The predictable role of orthographic consistency on literacy acquisition is discussed.
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