Co‐development among reading, math, science, and verbal working memory in the elementary stage

Abstract

With a focus on within‐person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010–2016, N = 859–9040, age 6.27–13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism was found between reading and science in all high‐ability groups, and between reading/math and verbal working memory only in high‐math students. These results remained the same when controlled for socioeconomic status and gender, and with sensitivity analyses. High‐skill students (especially high‐math students) may improve academic performance through accumulation of academic knowledge and mutualism between academic and cognition. Such mutualism may be driven by high‐quality, intensive academic practice.

Do Cognitive–Achievement Relations Vary by General Ability Level?

“…This phenomenon may explain why the relative effects of the CHC broad abilities on reading achievement were generally larger in the average to higher IQ groups compared to the lower IQ groups, and why the relative effects of g (or IQ) on reading achievement were generally larger in the lower IQ groups compared to the average or higher IQ groups. As the proportion of variance in reading explained by the CHC broad abilities was generally larger in the average to higher IQ groups, this may also be explained according to the theory of mutualism ( Zhang and Peng 2023 ). Mutualism theory suggests that cognitive–reading achievement relations occur in students with higher abilities and thus may show stronger mutualistic effects, especially across grade levels.…”

“…However, we did not examine the potential for bidirectional relations in this study, which may shed light on mutualistic effects between cognitive abilities and academic achievement across ability levels. As an example, Zhang and Peng ( 2023 ) have shown evidence of mutualistic effects between verbal working memory and reading in high-math students for children in elementary school. Mutualistic effects may be most clearly seen in longitudinal studies, where relationships between growth in cognitive abilities and academic achievement can be specifically modeled and evaluated.…”

“…In cognitive–academic mutualism, exposure to broader educational resources increases both academic achievement and cognitive performance for students with high abilities, leading to stronger relationships between cognitive ability and academic achievement. As students progress through each successive grade level, the mutualistic effects become more pronounced with high academic and cognitive ability levels ( Zhang and Peng 2023 ). In other words, the theory of mutualism suggests that the development of cognitive ability and academic achievement is bidirectional and that they have influences on each other, in contrast to a unidirectional relationship where cognitive ability only influences academic achievement, but not vice versa.…”

Time to transfer: Long-term effects of a sustained and spiraled content literacy intervention in the elementary grades.

“…In addition to within-domain (i.e., reading) transfer, it is also possible that spiral curricula can promote cross-domain (i.e., reading to math) transfer given recent correlational and causal research findings. For example, children’s reading and mathematics ability tap similar skills such as working memory, vocabulary, problem solving, and nonverbal reasoning (Bailey et al, 2020, Duncan et al, 2007; Zhang & Peng, 2023). The reciprocal relation between reading and mathematics is also well established in longitudinal research (e.g., Bailey et al, 2020; Cirino et al, 2018; Zhang & Peng, 2023).…”

“…For example, children’s reading and mathematics ability tap similar skills such as working memory, vocabulary, problem solving, and nonverbal reasoning (Bailey et al, 2020, Duncan et al, 2007; Zhang & Peng, 2023). The reciprocal relation between reading and mathematics is also well established in longitudinal research (e.g., Bailey et al, 2020; Cirino et al, 2018; Zhang & Peng, 2023). Emerging causal evidence also indicates that literacy interventions produce cascading effects that lead to immediate direct effects on reading and subsequent spillover effects in math.…”