Recent findings show that children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have reduced performance on several tasks involving working memory, attention and executive control.  In addition, researchers argue for the effectiveness of training of these same cognitive skills as a way to ameliorate children’s EF skills as well as scholastic outcomes. To investigate possible training effects and to study the impact of SES on scholastic achievement in Brazilian children, we trained 61 children for 5-7 weeks and compared their performance with that of 60 age-matched peers on measures of executive functions and reading. Our results demonstrate a general effect of SES for the dependent variables. Furthermore, our findings demonstrate a positive near transfer effect on a working memory and a selective attention test and a far transfer effect on the words and pseudowords reading measure.

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This study investigated a gamified vocabulary teaching and learning intervention, the Vocabox Experience, which was implemented in the context of the Languages without Borders. The research was developed collaboratively among the English teachers and coordinators, with classroom data being collected with 32 students by twelve teachers and one coordinator. The data were collected using an observation grid during classes and conducting two focal discussion sessions, one with the students and one with the teachers who implemented the games in their classes. The qualitative results indicate that both teachers and students see the Vocabox Experience as a significant learning opportunity, although teachers tend to see learning in a broader perspective while students tend to see it more as the memorization of new words. The quantitative data show that teachers preferred to use vocabulary games to warm up their classes and balanced both competition and collaboration elements when designing the games. As for the students, they showed more signs of engagement than disengagement, overall.

Early literacy skills such as alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness are made up the foundation for learning to read. These skills are more effectively taught with explicit instruction starting inpreschool and then continuing during early elementary school years. The COVID19 pandemic school closures severely impacted early literacy development worldwide. Brazil had one of the longest school closure periods, which resulted in several children having no access to any educational activities. Education Technology (EdTech) tools can leverage access to pedagogical materials and remediate the consequences of school closure. We investigated the impact of using an early literacy EdTech, GraphoGame Brazil, to foster learning of early literacy skills during the height of COVID19 school closures, in Brazil. We carried out a quasi-experimental, pretest and posttest study with elementary school students who were taking online classes. Participants were pseudo randomly assigned to (1) an experimental group, who played GraphoGame Brazil, and to (2) an active control group, who played an EdTech that focuses on early numeracy skills. The results show a significant positive training effect on word reading accuracy associated with the use of GraphoGame for the children in the experimental group, relative to the control group. We also found statistically significant negative effect in lowercase naming for the control group. We address the consequences of COVID19 school closures, the promise of EdTech and its limitations, and discuss the issue of fostering successful early literacy instruction in countries that have struggled with teaching children to read even before the pandemic.