A Meta-Analysis of the Long-Term Effects of Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension Interventions

Much is known about short-termbut very little about the long-termeffects of reading interventions. To rectify this, a detailed analysis of follow-up effects as a function of intervention, sample, and methodological variables was conducted. A total of 71 intervention-control groups were selected (N = 8,161 at posttest) from studies reporting posttest and follow-up data (M = 11.17 months) for previously established reading interventions. The posttest effect sizes indicated effects (dw = 0.37) that decreased to follow-up (dw = 0.22). Overall, comprehension and phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect that transferred to nontargeted skills, whereas phonics and fluency interventions, and those for preschool and kindergarten children, tended not to. Several methodological features also related to effect sizes at follow-up, namely experimental design and dosage, and sample attrition, risk status, and gender balance

Do nimble hands make for nimble lexicons? Fine motor skills predict knowledge of embodied vocabulary items

Much is known about short-termbut very little about the long-termeffects of reading interventions. To rectify this, a detailed analysis of follow-up effects as a function of intervention, sample, and methodological variables was conducted. A total of 71 intervention-control groups were selected (N = 8,161 at posttest) from studies reporting posttest and follow-up data (M = 11.17 months) for previously established reading interventions. The posttest effect sizes indicated effects (dw = 0.37) that decreased to follow-up (dw = 0.22). Overall, comprehension and phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect that transferred to nontargeted skills, whereas phonics and fluency interventions, and those for preschool and kindergarten children, tended not to. Several methodological features also related to effect sizes at follow-up, namely experimental design and dosage, and sample attrition, risk status, and gender balance

Screen media are associated with fine motor skill development in preschool children

Media form an integral part of children's environments and represent, amongst other domains, altered sensorimotor experiences. Fine motor skills (FMS) represent a fundamental prerequisite for learning and cognition and initial work has begun to show links with screen media usage – although work is scarce and the directionality is uncertain. Therefore, using a cross-lagged-panel design with 2 waves 1 year apart, we examined longitudinal links between media usage and FMS in 141 preschool children. Results show a negative cross-lagged path from media usage to FMS, which was also statistically significant when only newer media were examined, after controlling for parental educational attainment, immigrant status, device ownership, age of first use, working memory, and vocabulary. The study contributes to our understanding of links between media usage and FMS development

Identifying the causes of underachievement: A plea for the inclusion of fine motor skills

Abstract Underachievers are children who show academic performance that is lower than what would be expected for their IQ. Previous research has investigated a number of variables that might explain underachievement and recently fine motor skills (FMS) have been implicated as playing an important role. We extend this work by exploring the influence of FMS and attention on underachievement and achievement. Fourth-grade children in Germany (n = 357, age = 10.8) were tested on measures of intelligence, attention, and FMS, and teachers were asked to report grades in mathematics. Amongst other findings, analyses indicated that underachievers had lower attention and FMS and that attention mediated the relation between FMS and maths achievement. Overall, the current findings contribute to the growing body of evidence that FMS play an important role in underachievement and are, therefore, a candidate for inclusion in the identification processes

Incidental vocabulary acquisition from stories: Second and fourth graders learn more from listening than reading

Both reading and language experiences contribute to vocabulary development, but questions remain as to what effect each has and when. This article investigates the effects that reading, telling and sharing a story have on vocabulary acquisition. Children (N = 37) were told nine stories in a randomized, single-blind and counterbalanced 2 × 3 mixed design. The between-subjects variable was grade (2 vs 4) and the within-subjects factor was the story condition, being either read (adult read aloud) or told (free story telling) to the children, or read silently by the children (independent reading). Each story contained two rare target words that were unlikely to have been previously known to the children. Measures of receptive vocabulary, decoding, reading comprehension and target vocabulary acquisition from the story were also administered. Children in grade 4 performed better on the vocabulary acquisition test and there was a main effect for story condition; children learnt the least number of words when reading the stories independently and the most from the free story telling condition. Implications for vocabulary learning and the importance of oral language exposure – even for established readers in primary school – are discussed

Fine Motor Skills and Lexical Processing in Children and Adults

Children’s fine motor skills (FMS) link to cognitive development, however, research on their involvement in language processing, also with adults, is scarce. Lexical items are processed differently depending on the degree of sensorimotor information inherent in the words’ meanings, such as whether these imply a body-object interaction (BOI) or a body-part association (i.e., hand, arm, mouth, foot). Accordingly, three studies examined whether lexical processing was affected by FMS, BOIness, and body-part associations in children (study 1, n = 77) and adults (study 2, n = 80; study 3, n = 71). Analyses showed a differential link between FMS and lexical processing as a function of age. Whereas response latencies indicated that children’s FMS were associated with “hand” words, adults’ FMS linked to the broader concept of BOI. Findings have implications for shared activation theories positing that FMS support lexical processing

The effect of fine motor skills, handwriting, and typing on reading development

Discussions on the contribution of motor skills and processes to learning to read has a long history. Previous work is essentially divided into two separate strands, namely the contributions of fine motor skills (FMS) to reading and the influence of writing versus typing. In the current 2 2 3 mixed, single-blind, and randomly assigned experiment, we tested both strands together. A total of 87 children learned to decode pseudowords in either typing or writing conditions in which their FMS were either impaired or not. Decoding gains were measured at pretest, posttest, and followup, with FMS and working memory included as participant variable predictors. Findings indicated that FMS and working memory predicted decoding gains. Importantly, children performed best when typing if in the impaired FMS condition. Results have implications for motor representation theories of writing and for instruction of children with FMS impairments

Mental imagery skill predicts adults’ reading performance

Mental imagery is foundational to human experience, lying at the heart of cognition and reading, however research has failed to conclusively investigate and demonstrate a link. Therefore, we conducted three studies measuring adults’ reading and imagery performance. In Study 1, the mental imagery skills of 155 adults were measured using two established self-report measures, namely the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (Psi-Q) and the Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale (SUIS), and a novel imagery comparison task. In Study 2 (n = 452), a control for speeded processing replaced the SUIS. In Study 3 (n = 236), we added a measure of reading speed. Findings indicate that the objective measurement of mental imagery was associated with reading performance, whereas self-report measures were not. Further, reading comprehension linked more strongly to mental imagery than reading speed did. Findings demonstrate, for the first time, that mental imagery processes are intrinsically linked with reading performance

Fine Motor Skills Enhance Lexical Processing of Embodied Vocabulary: A Test of the Nimble-Hands, Nimble-Minds Hypothesis

Research suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) are linked to aspects of cognitive development in children. Additionally, lexical processing advantages exist for words implying a high body-object interaction (BOI), with initial findings indicating that such words in turn link to children's FMS-for which we propose and evaluate four competing hypotheses. First, a maturational account argues that any links between FMS and lexical processing should not exist once developmental variables are controlled for. Second, functionalism posits that any link between FMS and lexical processing arises due to environmental interactions. Third, the semantic richness hypothesis argues that sensorimotor input improves lexical processing, but predicts no links between FMS and lexical processing. A fourth account, the nimble-hands, nimble minds (NHNM) hypothesis, proposes that having greater FMS improves lexical processing for high-BOI words. In two experiments, the response latencies of preschool children (n = 90, n = 76, ages = 5; 1) to 45 lexical items encompassing high-BOI, low-BOI, and less imageable words were measured, alongside measures of FMS, reasoning, and general receptive/expressive vocabulary. High-BOI words appeared to show unique links to FMS, which remained after accounting for lowBOI and less imageable words, general vocabulary, reasoning, and chronological age. Although further work is needed, the findings provide initial support for the NHNM hypothesis