Gender Gaps in Letter-Sound Knowledge Persist Across the First School Year

Sigmundsson, Hermundur; Eriksen, Adrian Dybfest; Ofteland, Greta Storm; Haga, Monika

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00301

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Transitioning to the present day, we now look beyond national and international reports and consider relevant, individual studies focusing specifically on early literacy and gender. Concurrent with large scale reports, the majority of individual studies have indicated evidence of girls' higher performance in early literacy (e.g., Clark & Kragler, 2005;Chipere, 2014;Lummis & Stevenson, 1990;Phillips, Norris, Osmond, & Maynard, 2002;Ready, LoGerfo, Burkam, & Lee, 2005;Sigmundsson, Dybfest Eriksen, Ofteland, & Haga, 2018). It is also essential to observe that such findings are not idiosyncratic but represent trends that have occurred over decades, across nations and languages.…”

Section: A Closer Examination Of Gender and Early Literacy Skillsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…When considering findings from only the first year of school, initial gender differences favoring girls appear meaningful and stable. For example, Sigmundsson et al (2018) and Clark and Kragler (2005) document that girls' literacy advantages stay consistent from the beginning to the end of the first year. Furthermore, Ready et al (2005) andMcCoach, O'Connell, Reis, andLevitt (2006) documented that girls enter with an advantage and then subsequently learn more than their male peers in the first year (i.e.…”

Section: Persistence Of Early Gender Differences In Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we used a rigorous assessment battery, measuring a large range of emergent literacy skills, with documented reliability and validity. In contrast, previous research regarding gender differences at school entry has often focused on a single skill, such as letter-sound knowledge (e.g., Sigmundsson et al, 2018). Alternatively, other researchers have assessed a wide range of literacy skills, but skills were combined in a single global assessment (e.g., Lummis & Stevenson, 1990;Ready et al, 2005), not allowing for analysis by skill.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender differences in early literacy: Boys’ response to formal instruction.

McTigue

Schwippert

Uppstad

et al. 2021

Journal of Educational Psychology

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Research consistently documents that girls outperform boys in literacy achievement, yet, when considering the starting point-early literacy-we do not have consensus on the origin, meaningful nature, or persistence of such differences. In this two-part study analyzing 5,816 Norwegian students (48.1% girls, average age of 6.1 years), we first considered the presence and meaningful nature of gender differences at school entry. Presence of differences, advantaging girls, was found in letter-recognition, phonemic awareness, word reading accuracy, and spelling. We found no differences in vocabulary performance. However, wide score distributions suggest that intragroup differences are more meaningful than intergroup differences. In our second analysis, using a longitudinal design with three time points (school entry, end of Grade 1, end of Grade 2), we calculated a general latent literacy score based on an IRT model. Multilevel analysis tested the persistence of gender differences after formal instruction. Growth curve analysis of the latent literacy score verified an advantage for girls at school entry and that boys' scores grew at a significantly higher rate than girls across Grades 1 and 2. Patterns of effect sizes complement the statistical analysis. In summary, findings indicate that girls' small initial advantage in literacy skill at school entry persists into Grade 2, but it is substantially attenuated with formal instruction. Implications include that gender differences are secondary to other sources of heterogeneity in early literacy and that gender differences in early literacy at school entry do not directly lead to boys' long-term underachievement in literacy. Future directions should examine if self-selection of activities in early childhood education may contribute to early literacy differences. Educational Impact and Implications StatementOn average, researchers agree that girls are outperforming boys on literacy achievement across grades and countries, although researchers disagree on how meaningful these differences are especially in the first few years of school. In this study we first measured over 5,000 Norwegian students at school start (about age 6) and found that girls outperformed boys in all measured skills (letter recognition, phonemic awareness, spelling, and reading accuracy) except vocabulary. However, because there was a wide range of skill in both gender groups, the differences within boys and within girls were more meaningful than the differences between the 2 gender groups. Next in our research, we followed the students' growth across the first 2 years of school and found that boys showed faster growth in reading than girls, which narrowed the gap between the two groups, although the boys did not fully catch up with the girls by the end of Grade 2. In total, we conclude that a focusing on gender is not the most logical way to address early literacy achievement, and instead researchers and teachers should focus on other, more predictive, risk factors, such as language proficiency, socioec...

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Section: A Closer Examination Of Gender and Early Literacy Skillsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Persistence Of Early Gender Differences In Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Gender differences in early literacy: Boys’ response to formal instruction.

McTigue

Schwippert

Uppstad

et al. 2021

Journal of Educational Psychology

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“…Effects of a faster pace of letter instruction 6 When children first start school, their letter knowledge varies greatly, both in terms of which letters they know and how many (Justice et al, 2006;Piasta, 2014;Sigmundsson, Eriksen, Ofteland, & Haga, 2017). There is also a gender difference in letter knowledge favouring girls, both at school entry and at the end of the first year (Sigmundsson, Dybfest Eriksen, Ofteland, & Haga, 2018). The heterogeneity of classes represents a challenge to teachers when it comes to meeting the children's individual needs (Justice et al, 2006;Piasta, 2014).…”

Section: Letter Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Introducing the Letters Faster Boost the Development of Children’s Letter Knowledge, Word Reading and Spelling in the First Year of School?

Sunde

Furnes

Lundetræ

2019

Scientific Studies of Reading

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“…Girls have been shown to outperform and gain literacy skills at a faster rate than boys in the early school years (Below et al, 2010;Clark & Kragler, 2005;Deasley et al, 2018;Harper & Pelletier, 2008;Lee & Al Otaiba, 2015). More precisely, gender differences in vocabulary growth (Huttenlocher et al, 1991), phonological awareness (Lundberg et al, 2012), letter-sound knowledge (Sigmundsson et al, 2017(Sigmundsson et al, , 2018, and letter-writing scores (Puranik et al, 2013) have been found among children in preschool and first grade. These gender differences occur very early.…”

Section: The Effects Of Individual and Sociodemographic Variables On mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Brief Screening Tool for Literacy Skills in Preschool Children: An Item Response Theory Analysis

Écalle

Thierry

Magnan

2020

Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment

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In a large-scale study conducted in 4- to 5-year-old French-speaking preschoolers ( N = 12,162), early literacy skills were assessed with four short tasks designed to investigate three domains related to learning to read: letter knowledge, phonological skills, and vocabulary. This tool was developed in response to the lack of available literacy screening tools for this population. Item response theory (IRT) analyses were used to examine the discrimination and difficulty parameters of each item. Then, a structural model confirmed that all the scores contributed to a latent ability, namely, early literacy. Three variables, namely, sociodemographic zone, age, and gender, are related to performance on literacy skills. Finally, an IRT with these variables as covariates confirms that all of them explained the difference in the scores in each domain except for zone in the case of letter-name knowledge (without significant link). This initial tool for French-speaking preschoolers could be used to identify children with early difficulties and help promote early language interventions to combat subsequent difficulties in learning to read.

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Gender Gaps in Letter-Sound Knowledge Persist Across the First School Year

Cited by 19 publications

References 40 publications

Gender differences in early literacy: Boys’ response to formal instruction.

Gender differences in early literacy: Boys’ response to formal instruction.

Does Introducing the Letters Faster Boost the Development of Children’s Letter Knowledge, Word Reading and Spelling in the First Year of School?

A Brief Screening Tool for Literacy Skills in Preschool Children: An Item Response Theory Analysis

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