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Recent studies have revealed that preschoolers' story comprehension is influenced by several basic as well as complex cognitive and linguistic processes. Among the abilities known to be relevant for young children's understanding of stories are the size of their vocabulary, their inference‐making ability, and their working memory. In this study, we examine the role of other processes in explaining preschool children's story comprehension, in a sample of 257 Chilean kindergarten children from middle‐income families. The processes we examine are comprehension monitoring, theory of mind, inhibition, and attention control. Mediation relations suggested by theory and previous research are examined between working memory and comprehension, through integrative processes, and between vocabulary breadth and comprehension, through vocabulary depth. We use two different measures of story comprehension to clarify the role that each predictor plays in different aspects of this complex skill. Results suggest that when the story comprehension measure requires construction of a coherent representation, vocabulary, monitoring, inferences, working memory, inhibitory skill, and attention, but not theory of mind, make a significant contribution. Effects of vocabulary breadth are mediated by vocabulary depth, and effects of working memory are partially mediated by monitoring and inferences. When story comprehension is measured through recall of isolated story elements, only working memory and vocabulary explain significant variance. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

This study examines the relations among parental beliefs and practices about mathematics, children's beliefs about mathematics, participants' gender, and family socioeconomic status (SES). The study was conducted in Chile, a country with significant gender gaps in standardized test results in mathematics, with boys receiving significantly higher scores than girls. One hundred eighty Chilean kindergarteners (M age ϭ 5.6 years) of low and high SES completed both implicit and explicit measures of their beliefs about mathematics. Children's mothers and fathers also completed adult versions of these tests, as well as measures of home numeracy practices. This combination of child and parental assessments (both mother and father), including both implicit and explicit measures, provided a wider range of measures than in previous studies. On implicit measures of math-gender stereotypes, boys showed the math ϭ boy stereotype significantly more strongly than girls did. Both fathers and mothers showed this stereotype on both implicit and explicit measures. Fathers also linked me ϭ math (math self-concept) more strongly than mothers on both implicit and explicit measures. Kindergarten girls' implicit math self-concept was explained by a combination of parents' math self-concepts and SES. Taken together, these results show that by 5 years of age children are already developing beliefs about "who does math" in their culture, and that parental beliefs and practices are significantly linked to children's stereotypes and self-concepts about mathematics before they enter formal schooling.

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Two studies are reported that examine the hypothesis that children construct representations of poverty based on a theory of causal essentialism. One hundred and twenty Chilean kindergartners, half from low socio-economic status (SES) schools and the other half from high-SES schools, participated in the study. The results showed children's tendency towards an essentialist reasoning about poverty. All children in the study privileged internal features over external ones when deciding who is poor, and also used wealth category as a preferred clue to make inferences about people's attributes. However, only high-SES children's answers were consistent with the belief that poverty is inherited and resistant to growth. Implications of these findings for theory and practice, as well as remaining questions, are addressed.

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Estudios recientes sugieren que la profundidad del vocabulario es más importante que la amplitud en determinar la capacidad para comprender textos. La relación entre amplitud del vocabulario, profundidad del vocabulario y comprensión del discurso no ha sido estudiada en la edad pre-escolar. Este informe reporta el resultado de dos estudios donde se examina esta relación en pre-escolares de distintas edades. Los resultados muestran que, en ambos grupos, la profundidad del vocabulario contribuye en forma significativa a la comprensión, incluso después de controlar el efecto de la amplitud. Esto refuerza la importancia de enseñar vocabulario en profundidad para el logro de una futura compresión lectora de Calidad.

maría francisca del río 2 Katherine Strasser 3 maría inés Susperreguy 4 RESUMEN En Chile se observa una importante brecha en el logro de matemática a favor de los hombres, tanto en pruebas nacionales como internacionales. Algunas teorías plantean que al menos una parte de estas diferencias podrían ser atribuibles a estereotipos de género relativos a las habilidades matemáticas. Este estudio explora los estereotipos de género, implícitos y explícitos, de estudiantes, madres, padres y educadoras en Santiago de Chile. Participaron 180 niños y niñas de medio-bajo y alto NSE (87 niñas) de kínder, sus padres y las 19 educadoras de sus salas, pertenecientes a colegios y escuelas del área urbana de Santiago, Chile. Se aplicaron medidas de estereotipos explícitos e implícitos a los niños, madres, padres y educadoras. Los resultados mostraron que, en promedio, tanto los adultos como los niños del estudio sostienen un estereotipo que asocia la matemática con el género masculino. En el caso de los niños, los resultados de medidas implícitas mostraron que todos los niños y las niñas de NSE medio-bajo asocian la matemática con lo masculino. Las niñas de NSE alto no asocian la matemática con ningún género. Estos hallazgos sugieren que los estereotipos de género y matemática podrían constituir un factor en las brechas de género en términos de rendimiento matemático observadas en nuestro país y abren posibilidades para el desarrollo de intervenciones y políticas públicas tendientes a ofrecer iguales oportunidades de aprendizaje a niños y niñas, específicamente en los grupos de niñas y madres de NSE medio-bajo, quienes presentan de manera más intensa el estereotipo. palabras clave: estereotipos, género, kínder, medidas implícitas, rendimiento matemático. 1 Este estudio se pudo realizar gracias al apoyo del Consejo Nacional de Educación (CNED) a través de su Convocatoria de apoyo a la investigación en educación y del Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Fondecyt), a través del proyecto N° 1150156.