Differential and long-term language impact on math

Abstract

Literature provides consistent evidence that there is a strong relationship between language proficiency and math achievement. However, research results show conflicts supporting either an increasing or a decreasing longitudinal relationship between the two. This study explored a longitudinal data and adopted quantile regression analyses to overcome several limitations in past research. The goal of the study is to detect more accurate and richer information on the longterm relationship between language and math, taking into consideration the socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity background at the same time. Results confirmed a persistent relationship between math achievement and all the factors explored. More importantly, it revealed that the strength of the relationship between language and math differed for students with various abilities both within and across grades. Model comparison suggests that language demand contributes to the achievement gap between ELLs and non-ELLs in math. There also seems to be a disadvantage for the geographically isolated group in academic achievement. Interpretation and implications for teaching and assessment are discussed.

Covariation between reading and arithmetic skills from Grade 1 to Grade 7

“…The results showed that reading and arithmetic skills were associated both at grades 1 and 7. Overall, this result is consistent with previous studies that also indicate substantial covariation between reading and math skills among an unselected population in primary (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Davis et al, 2014;Hecht et al, 2001;Koponen et al, 2007;Rutherford-Becker & Vanderwood, 2009) and lower secondary school (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Codding et al, 2015), suggesting that reading and arithmetic skills develop in tandem across grade levels.…”

“…As reading and arithmetic fluency become automatized (Koponen et al, 2007;Koponen et al, 2016), however, it is possible that the covariation between reading and arithmetic is not constant; rather it varies according to the different phase of skill development (i.e., serial decoding / counting at the early stage of skill development vs. automatized phase relying strongly on direct retrieval at later stage of skill development). Another possibility is that reading and arithmetic skills have a persistent relationship across grade levels as suggested by Chen and Chalhoub-Deville (2016). Studies showing that there is a significant genetic overlap in reading and math skills (Hart, Petrill, Thompson, & Plomin, 2009) also support this.…”

“…Similarly, although previous research has shown a substantial amount of covariation between reading and arithmetic skills among unselected populations during the primary (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Koponen et al, 2007) and secondary (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Codding et al, 2015) school years, little is known about whether this covariation is common over different grades or, alternatively, whether it is unique for a particular grade only. The present study thus examined the extent to which reading and arithmetic skills show shared variation at grades 1 and 7, and whether it was time-invariant or time-specific to them.…”

“…A growing body of research has shown that there are substantial intercorrelations (i.e., covariation) between reading and math skills among unselected populations during the primary (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Davis et al, 2014;Koponen et al, 2007;Rutherford-Becker & Vanderwood, 2009) and lower secondary school years (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016;Codding, Petscher, & Truckenmiller, 2015). Correlations in the moderate to high range, of up to .60 (Davis et al, 2014), have been observed for all grades examined, regardless of gender, family socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016). Difficulties in one academic domain have also been found to clearly increase the risk of difficulties in the other in studies specifically looking at their cooccurrence (Jordan, Wylie, & Mulhern, 2010;Landerl & Moll, 2010).…”

Prematurity and overlap between reading and arithmetic: The cognitive mechanisms behind the association

“…Studies have shown that reading and math skills are strongly related in population-based (Davis et al, 2014;Koponen et al, 2007;Rutherford-Becker & Vanderwood, 2009) and clinical samples-specifically in children with learning disabilities (Landerl & Moll, 2010; Moll, Bruder, Kunze, Neuhoff, & Schulte-Körne, 2014). The intercorrelation between these skills varies from moderate up to 0.60 (Davis et al, 2014), regardless of gender, family socioeconomic status, or race/ethnicity (Chen & Chalhoub-Deville, 2016). Korpipää et al (2017) also found among an unselected sample that the overlap between reading and arithmetic skills (i.e., common variation in reading and arithmetic) demonstrates substantial stability across grade levels.…”