Abstracts - Earli

of the children’s preschool year. Children were also interviewed on learner self-concept at bothtimes and rated on motivational strategies. First, it was found that variation among children in skilllevel was great especially in math development. Secondly, entry-level letter knowledge andphonological awareness correlated strongly with end of year word list reading, whereas numbersequence skills and conceptual understanding correlated strongly with later math skills. Third, inidentification of risk for learning difficulties a criterion combining the following key skills isrecommended: poor mastery of letter knowledge, phonological awareness and number sequenceskills. Children whose scores fulfilled the criterion on all these measures at preschool entry formed8% of the sample. Statistically significant differences emerged in the mean scores of all readingand math outcomes between the groups with and without the risk. Children with risk were rated toshow more avoidant strategies than children without risk in the testing situations. In self-concept atrend emerged indicating higher self-concept concerning preschool tasks in children with risk butthe difference was not significant. The findings point to the importance of carefully plannedscreening of risk factors at the beginning of the preschool year in combination with provision ofwell-focused support as effective prevention of learning difficulties.Self-efficacy beliefs for reading and writing: effects of grade level and achievement levelBarbara Arfe, University of Verona, ItalyBianca De Bernardi, University of Verona, ItalyFrancesca Poeta, University of Padua, ItalyThis study tested the hypothesis that reading and writing self-efficacy beliefs differ in children ofdifferent achievement level (average, poor and good readers and writers) but not of differentschool age (4th , 6th, and 8th graders). One hundred and sixty-five children participated (4thgraders, 6th graders, and 8th graders). The students’ academic, reading and writing self-efficacybeliefs, and their reading comprehension and writing skills were assessed. Results revealedsignificant differences between groups related to the students’ achievement level, but not to theirgrade level. No interactions between the two factors (achievement level and grade level) wereobserved.Possible pitfalls on the path to fluent readingMarita Makinen, University of Tampere, Finland, FinlandAlthough the role of phonological awareness in reading has been well reported, its relationship, tothe effects of language-specific factors has yet to be examined. One fifth of Finnish children faceproblems in the process of learning to read despite the extremely regular orthography of Finnishlanguage. With the focus on these psycho-linguistic approaches the longitudinal research followsthe development of the reading of children from preschool to the end of basic education. Thisstudy examines the children’s reading skills at the end of their second grade (ages 8-9) and fourthgrade (ages 10-11). Also, there is a retrospective look at the principles of the early interventionthat strengthened phonological skills. There were certain inclusive methods for trainingphonological awareness in preschool education. Data consisted of oral reading assessments andretrospective data of the assessments of phonological skills. There were also reflection diaries ofteachers. An approach combining the quantitative and qualitative samples was used. The resultssuggested that the reading style adopted by a child in early stages of learning to read predicts thecharacteristics of later reading style. The findings support the observations that the problems inreading fluency reflect cross-linguistic phonologically based difficulties. They may result fromproblems in perceiving the language-related supra-segmental features of a word. The resultsreflected that the signs of struggling reading were evident already before reading instruction. The– 546 –