Early childhood language gains, kindergarten readiness, and Grade 3 reading achievement

Abstract

In this preregistered study, we used latent change score models to address two research aims: (1) whether preschool‐aged children's language gains, over a year of early childhood education, were associated with later performance on state‐mandated, literacy‐focused kindergarten readiness and Grade 3 reading achievement assessments, and (2) whether gains in language, a more complex skill, predicted these outcomes after controlling for more basic emergent literacy skills. There were 724 participating children (mean = 57 months; 51% male; 76% White, 12% Black, 6% multiple races, and 5% Hispanic or Latino). We found that language gains significantly predicted kindergarten readiness when estimated in isolation (effect = 0.24 SDs, p < .001), but not when gains in letter knowledge and phonological awareness were also included.

Developmental Patterns of Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension from Age 4 to 14: A Sequential Latent Growth Model Design

“…In line with previous research and our hypothesis (Christensen et al, 2017;Logan et al, 2023;Quinn et al, 2015;Westrupp et al, 2015), the results demonstrated that children's vocabulary improved, on average, over the span of four years, with approximately 70% of growth occurring between ages 4 and 6. Notwithstanding the average, the variability in the intercept and slope terms of the vocabulary models suggest significant individual differences in both starting point and rate of improvement in this domain.…”

“…Nonetheless, the findings do not suggest that strong middle childhood vocabulary knowledge leads to improved reading growth years later. Our results are similar to those of Logan et al (2023) who found no relation between language gains in early childhood and reading in Grade 3. We can interpret these results similarly with reference to Bailey et al's (2017) contention that interventions should target skills that are malleable, fundamental, and would not have developed in the absence of the intervention.…”

“…While there exist several studies that examine either vocabulary or reading growth and predictors thereof (e.g. Logan et al, 2023;Ricketts et al, 2020;Song et al, 2015), there are few studies which attempt to examine whether growth parameters in these two domains are related over the span of time captured by this study (i.e. preschool through early adolescence).…”

“…If teachers are to incorporate (additional, specific) vocabulary instruction into their early-childhood classrooms (e.g., Beck & McKeown, 2007;Bowyer-Crane et al, 2008;Goldfeld et al, 2021), it is necessary to obtain longitudinal evidence that these efforts will pay off in terms of improvements in later reading progress, as well as improvements in vocabulary knowledge. Using observational data to understand patterns of growth in both domains, and their interrelatedness, is therefore a first step in making informed decisions about proposals for classroom instructional change (e.g., Logan et al 2023).…”

“…We hypothesised first that early receptive vocabulary skills would increase on average from the first measure (age 4 years) to the third measure (age 8). Based on prior analyses of data from the Kindergarten Cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (Christensen et al, 2017;Westrupp et al, 2015), and previous developmental research on vocabulary (Duff et al, 2015;Logan et al, 2023;Quinn et al, 2015), we predicted that the growth would be positive and the shape of this change would be non-linear, such that decreasing increments of growth would occur between times 1 and 2 compared with times 2 and 3. Given inconsistent findings from developmental studies of vocabulary in similar age spans, and a lack of research using Australian English-speaking samples, we made no predictions about whether we should observe compensatory or cumulative growth in the vocabulary domain (e.g.…”