Early Predictors of Fourth-Grade Reading versus Math: The Role of Self-regulation and Early Literacy

• In Event: 1-089 - The integration of self-regulation and other school-related competencies in early and long-term educational success

Integrative Statement

Introduction: A growing body of studies indicates an overlap between the early foundations of reading and math, suggesting common underlying components. For example, in addition to achievement in reading, early literacy skills have been found to predict later achievement in math (e.g. LeFevre et al., 2010). Studies also highlight a range of domain-general competencies that predict both reading and math, in particular self-regulation (Blair & Razza, 2007). However, despite a bi-directional relationship between early literacy and self-regulation in pre-school (Slot & von Suchodoletz, 2018), studies rarely include both of these predictors at the same time, making it difficult to assess the unique contribution of one over the other. Furthermore, previous studies have predominantly focused on the beginning of schooling, with few employing a multi-wave longitudinal design. This research addressed these limitations by examining how early literacy and self-regulation contribute to reading and math across five years among Icelandic children, from pre-school through fourth Grade. Our main questions concerned the unique contributions of these skills to reading versus math, and whether they influence later more advanced learning in these domains directly, or indirectly through earlier skills.
Method: The sample was recruited in the Icelandic capital city (Reykjavik) and included 109 4-year-olds (mean age 55.7 months, 49% girls) who were assessed on self-regulation, using the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS, McClelland et al., 2014) and the Child Behavior Rating Scale (CBRS, Bronson et al., 1995), phonological awareness and letter knowledge in pre-school. Their performance was then related to their reading and math scores in Grades 1 and 4 (mean age 79.8 months and 122.2 months, respectively).
Results: We examined our research questions using path analyses (see figure 1). Early literacy predicted reading at Grade 1 and also indirectly influenced reading in Grade 4, through Grade 1 reading. Letter knowledge was uniquely related to Grade 1 math, which translated into a significant indirect effect in which first-grade math then led to better mathematics scores in Grade 4. Self-regulation predicted math in Grade 1, and also indirectly predicted math in Grade 4. However, self-regulation did not predict reading skills at Grade 1 and Grade 4.
Discussion: The findings indicate that while fourth Grade reading achievement is founded on domain-specific constructs related to pre-school literacy, including phonological awareness, letter-knowledge and basic decoding skills in first Grade, fourth Grade math achievement can be traced to a wider constellation of skills, including domain-general self-regulation skills, early knowledge of written language and first Grade number skills. The results further suggest indirect pathways between these early predictors and later reading and math, through earlier skills at Grade 1. These findings extend prior studies by including connections ranging from pre-school through the fourth grade and confirm recent findings connecting domain-general skills more closely to math than to reading (Fuchs et al., 2016). They also add to emerging evidence that early written language skills, as opposed to spoken language skills, are unique predictors of math (Zhang et al., 2014).

Authors

• Freyja Birgisdottir, University of Iceland
  Presenting Author

• Steinunn Gestsdottir, University of Iceland
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Geldhof, Oregan State Unviversity
  Non-Presenting Author