Abstract
We examined the relation between socioeconomic status (SES), vocabulary, and reading in middle childhood, during the transition from primary (elementary) to secondary (high) school. Children (N = 279, 163 girls) completed assessments of everyday and curriculum‐related vocabulary, (non)word reading, and reading comprehension at five timepoints from age 10 to 13. Piecewise linear mixed‐effects models showed significant growth in everyday vocabulary and word reading between every time point. Curriculum vocabulary and reading comprehension showed significant growth during the school year, but not during the summer holidays. There were significant effects of SES on all measures except word reading; yet, SES differences did not widen over time. Our findings motivate targeted reading and vocabulary support for secondary school students from lower SES backgrounds.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | e57-e66 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Child Development |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 10 Oct 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
© 2022 The Authors. Child Development published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Research in Child Development.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC-BY-NC)
Funding Information:
This study is supported by The Nuffield Foundation (EDO/43287); investigators Shapiro (PI), Ricketts, and Burgess. The data necessary to reproduce the analyses are available on the UK data archive: https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/855946/ . Analysis scripts and detailed model summaries for the final models are available here: https://osf.io/c3vmg . The analyses presented here are not preregistered. The materials necessary to attempt to replicate the findings presented here are copyrighted standardized assessments and are not publicly accessible.