The goal of this study was to specify how executive functioning components predict reading, mathematics, and theory of mind performance during the elementary years. A sample of 93 7- to 10-year-old children completed measures of working memory, inhibition, flexibility, reading, mathematics, and theory of mind. Path analysis revealed that all three executive functioning components (working memory, inhibition, and flexibility) mediated age differences in reading comprehension, whereas age predicted mathematics and theory of mind directly. In addition, reading mediated the influence of executive functioning components on mathematics and theory of mind, except that flexibility also predicted mathematics directly. These findings provide important details about the development of executive functioning, reading, mathematics, and theory of mind during the elementary years.

The goal was to test whether cognitive flexibility moderates the relation between reading strategy use and reading comprehension during the elementary years. Seventy‐five second‐ through fifth‐grade students completed a think aloud task and a metacognitive questionnaire to measure reading strategies, two card‐sorting tasks to measure general and reading‐specific cognitive flexibility, and one standardized measure of reading comprehension, as well as measures of oral reading fluency and vocabulary. As expected, oral reading fluency and vocabulary predicted reading comprehension, as did reading‐specific flexibility. Importantly, reading‐specific flexibility had a significant moderating effect, over and above the other effects. Specifically, weak reading‐specific flexibility skills were associated with a negative relation between reading strategy use during think aloud and reading comprehension, suggesting that children with weak flexibility skills are less adept at using reading strategies effectively.

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