Table 1.
Group Characteristics and Participants’ General-Ability Scores for Each Group at Time 1 and Time 2
| Age (months) | Number of schools represented | Number of classrooms represented | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group | N | M | Range | Time 1 | Time 2 | Time 1 | Time 2 | Recruitment area | Mean WPPSI-III Block Design score | Mean WPPSI-III Vocabulary score |
| English | 188 (98 boys, 90 girls) | 60.27 (SD = 3.67) | 53–67 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | Northern Englanda | 10.13 (SD = 3.15) | 9.56 (SD = 2.67) |
| Spanish | 190 (104 boys, 86 girls) | 66.72 (SD = 3.66) | 61–73 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 20 | Granada, Andalucia | 11.71 (SD = 3.42) | 9.16 (SD = 3.43) |
| Czech | 153 (76 boys, 77 girls) | 71.86 (SD = 4.04) | 64–85 | 20 | 44 | 47 | 53 | Prague, Bohemia | 10.35 (SD = 2.86) | 10.24 (SD = 3.16) |
| Slovak | 204 (110 boys, 94 girls) | 71.59 (SD = 3.86) | 62–81 | 12 | 22 | — | 23 | Bratislava, Slovakia | 10.22 (SD = 2.96) | 9.89 (SD = 2.96) |
Note: Time 1 was just after the start of formal literacy instruction for the English group and prior to the beginning of formal literacy instruction for the Spanish, Czech, and Slovak groups; Time 2 was 10 months later. Mean scaled scores on the third United Kingdom edition of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence for Children (WPPSI-IIIUK; Wechsler, 2003) and the WPPSI-III in Spanish (Wechsler, 2001) were obtained at Time 1.
a
English samples were recruited from urban centers in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire.