Fostering scientific literacy has become an increasingly salient goal as evidence accumulates regarding the early emergence of foundational skills and knowledge in this domain, as well as their relation to long-term success and engagement. Despite the potential that the home context has for nurturing early scientific literacy, research specifying its role has been limited. In this longitudinal study, we examined associations between children's early science-related experiences at home and their subsequent scientific literacy. Following on our previous work, we specifically considered parent causal-explanatory talk, as well as the degree to which parents facilitate access to science-related materials and experiences. A group of 153 children from diverse backgrounds were evaluated across 5 annual waves of data collection from preschool entry (M-age = 3.41) through first grade (M-age = 7.92). Results demonstrate that parent invitations for children to explain causal phenomena had strong concurrent relations to scientific literacy but showed little relation to subsequent literacy. In contrast, the broader home science environment at preschool entry, particularly in the form of exposure to science-related activities, predicted scientific literacy over the next 4 years. The directionality and specificity of these relations were clarified through the inclusion of measures of cognitive and broader home experiences as controls in regression analyses. Overall, our investigation revealed that exposure to science-related input provided by parents has particularly powerful potential for shaping scientific literacy when children are very young. Implications for parent-focused interventions that promote science literacy are discussed.

Although early causal reasoning has been studied extensively, inconsistency in the tasks used to assess it has clouded our under-standing of its structure, development, and relevance to broader developmental outcomes. The current research attempted to bring clarity to these questions by exploring patterns of performance across several commonly used measures of causal reasoning, and their relation to scientific literacy, in a sample of 3-to 5-year-old children from diverse backgrounds (N = 153). A longitudinal confir-matory factor analysis revealed that some measures of causal rea-soning (counterfactual reasoning, causal learning, and causal inference), but not all of them (tracking cause-effect associations and resolving confounded evidence), assess a unidimensional fac-tor and that this resulting factor was relatively stable across time. A cross-lagged panel model analysis revealed associations between causal reasoning and scientific literacy across each age tested. Causal reasoning and scientific literacy related to each other con-currently, and each predicted the other in subsequent years. These relations could not be accounted for by children's broader cognitive skills. Implications for early STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) engagement and success are discussed.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From an early age, children show a keen interest in discovering the causal structure of the world around them. Given how fundamental causal information is to scientific inquiry and knowledge, this early emerging causal stance might be important in propelling the development of scientific literacy. However, currently little is known about the development of children's causal stance, or how it might relate to concurrent or subsequent scientific literacy. In this study, 153 children from diverse backgrounds were evaluated at 3, 4, 5, and 6 years of age. Results demonstrate that causal stance at 3 years of age consistently predicted scientific literacy at each wave of data collection, extending through preschool, kindergarten, and into first grade. This relation was particularly pronounced across the earliest 2 measurement time-points, when children's causal stance predicted growth in scientific literacy above and beyond initial scores. The reciprocal relation did not hold: scientific literacy did not predict future causal stance. Implications for school readiness and early STEM engagement are discussed.

To explore the potential contribution of parents' causal talk to preschooler's emerging scientific literacy and related interests, we observed 153 parent-child dyads playing together in a museum and in the lab. As in previous work, the frequency with which parents referenced causal information in their speech predicted the strength of their children's causal stance. In addition, the frequency with which parents invited their children to explain causal phenomena. but not the frequency with which they provided explanations to their children, was related to children's scientific literacy. These associations held even when controlling for children's parent-reported exposure to science in the home, as well as their general cognitive skills. Although causal conclusions are precluded by the correlational design, this research is consistent with the possibility that parents begin shaping their children's scientific engagement and literacy when they are as young as three years of age.

Fostering early literacy depends in part on engaging and inspiring children’s early interest in reading. Enriching the causal content of children’s books may be one way to do so, as causal information has been empirically shown to capture children’s attention. To more directly test whether children’s book preferences might be driven by causal content, we created pairs of expository books closely matched for content and complexity, but with differing amounts of causal information embedded therein. Three and 4 years old participants (n = 48) were read both books and their interests and preferences were evaluated. When asked to choose, children preferred the highly causal over the minimally causal books. Results are discussed in terms of broader implications for creating books that optimally engage young children, as well as guiding book selections parents and educators make in their endeavors to promote interest in reading and early literacy. © Copyright © 2020 Shavlik, Bauer and Booth.

Despite increasing emphasis in the United States on promoting student engagement and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, the origins of scientific literacy remain poorly understood. We begin to address this limitation by considering the potential contributions of two distinct domain-general skills to early scientific literacy. Given their relevance to making predictions and evaluating evidence, we consider the degree to which causal reasoning skills relate to scientific literacy (as measured by an adaptive standardized test specifically designed for preschoolers). We also consider executive function (EF) as a potentially more fundamental contributor. While previous research has demonstrated that EF is predictive of achievement in other core academic domains like reading and math, its relationship to scientific literacy, particularly in early childhood, has received little attention. To examine how causal reasoning and EF together potentially relate to the development of scientific literacy in young children, we recruited 125 3-year-olds to complete three causal reasoning tasks, three EF tasks, and the aforementioned measure of scientific literacy. Results from a series of hierarchical regressions revealed that EF, and one measure of causal reasoning (causal inferencing) were related to scientific literacy, even after controlling for age, ethnicity, maternal education, and vocabulary knowledge. Moreover, causal inferencing ability was a significant partial mediator between EF and scientific literacy. Although additional research will be required to further specify the nature of these relationships, the current work suggests that EF has the potential to support scientific literacy, perhaps in part, by scaffolding causal reasoning skills. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Despite the early development of causal reasoning (CR), and its potential for shaping scientific literacy, we have little understanding of its structural origins. Specifically, is CR a unique capability that develops relatively independently or is it largely dependent on broader, more fundamental, cognitive abilities? Executive Functioning (EF) is an especially promising contributor to CR based on its already established role in related skills like planning and problem solving (e.g., Diamond, 2013). To begin exploring this potential relationship, we assessed 123 three (Mage = 3.42 years) and 64 five year olds’ (Mage = 5.36 years) performance on two CR tasks (counterfactual reasoning and causal inference), each of which we expected might be influenced in different ways by distinct EF skills. The counterfactual reasoning task (Guajardo & Turley-Ames, 2004) required children to generate alternative courses of action that would lead to different outcomes in fictional vignettes. The causal inference task (Das Gupta & Bryant, 1989) required children to compare pictures taken before and after a transformation (e.g., broken flowerpot and intact flowerpot) and to select a tool (e.g., glue) that could have caused it. We measured EF with three tasks: flanker (inhibition), count and label (working memory), and dimensional change card sort (cognitive flexibility). Finally, we measured children’s vocabulary and processing speed. To explore the relationship between EF and CR, we conducted a series of four linear regressions predicting causal inference and counterfactual reasoning ability in 3 and 5 year olds. Of all our measures, only vocabulary and inhibitory control emerged as significant predictors of causal inference ability for both 3 (βvocab = .04, p = .002, and βinhib = .04, p = .04) and 5 year olds (βvocab = .03, p = .01, and βinhib = .02, p = .04). Similarly, inhibitory control emerged as the only significant predictor of counterfactual reasoning in 3 year olds, βinhib = .03, p = .03. In contrast, for 5 year olds, working memory was the only significantly predictor of counterfactual reasoning, βWM = .71, p = .02. These results suggest that causal inference skills are stably supported by inhibitory control throughout early childhood. The story for counterfactual reasoning, however, appears to be somewhat more complex. Consistent with previous work (Beck, Riggs & Gorniak, 2009), inhibitory control supported counterfactual reasoning ability in our 3-year-old sample. However, inhibitory control did not significantly predict counterfactual reasoning in 5 year olds, it was supported by working memory instead. One explanation for this difference might have to do with the sophistication of children’s counterfactual reasoning skills at these different ages. Taken together, these results suggest that CR does not develop as a unique capacity, but instead likely relies on EFs that influence different CR skills in distinct ways across development. This represents an initial step in understanding early CR skills, which are promising contributors to emerging scientific literacy.