We investigated whether and to what extent U.S. kindergarten children ' s executive functions, oral vocabularies, and early literacy skills mediate relations between their sociodemographic background characteristics (i.e., family socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, biological sex) and stable between-individual levels of mathematics and science achievement across kindergarten to 4th grade. We did so by fitting a random intercept crosslagged panel model to nationally representative data ( N = 9081, M age = 92.4 months). Cross-lagged relations were relatively stronger from mathematics to science achievement than from science to mathematics achievement. These relations were weaker in earlier grades and stronger in later grades. Autoregressive coefficients were stronger for mathematics than for science and much stronger for each domain during the upper elementary grades. Children ' s working memory abilities and early literacy skills were the strongest mediators of the relations between their socioeconomic backgrounds and over-time mathematics or science achievement. Educational relevance statement: We observed cross-lagged relations between mathematics and science achievement, particularly during the upper elementary grades and from mathematics to science achievement. We also observed that kindergarten children ' s executive functions, oral vocabularies, and early literacy skills mediate relations between their sociodemographic background characteristics and mathematics and science achievement. Results suggest that multi-component interventions designed to facilitate learning of both mathematics and science skills might be especially effective if introduced by the upper elementary grades. These multi-component interventions might also be designed to support children ' s executive functions, oral vocabularies, and early literacy skills instead of only teaching mathematics and science skills. Our findings add to the limited existing work examining over-time relations between mathematics and science achievement and the extent to which executive functions, oral vocabularies, and early literacy skills help to explain sociodemographic gaps in elementary schoolchildren ' s mathematics and science achievement.

We analyzed a population-based cohort (N = 10,922) to investigate the onset and stability of racial and ethnic disparities in advanced (i.e., above the 90(th) percentile) science and mathematics achievement during elementary school as well as the antecedent, opportunity, and propensity factors that explained these disparities. About 13% to 16% of White students versus 3% to 4% of Black or Hispanic students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during kindergarten. The antecedent factor of family socioeconomic status and the propensity factors of student science, mathematics, and reading achievement by kindergarten consistently explained whether students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during first, second, third, fourth, or fifth grade. These and additional factors substantially or fully explained initially observed disparities between Black or Hispanic and White students in advanced science or mathematics achievement during elementary school. Economic and educational policies designed to increase racial and ethnic representation in STEM course taking, degree completion, and workforce participation may need to begin by elementary school.

We examined to what extent subgroups of students identified with learning disabilities (LDs; N = 630) in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 to 1999 (ECLS-K): 1998 national longitudinal study displayed heterogeneity in longitudinal profiles of reading and mathematics achievement from first to eighth grades. Multivariate growth mixture modeling yielded four classes of combined reading and mathematics trajectories for students with LD. The largest class of students with LD (Class 2, 54.3%) showed mean T-scores for both achievement domains that averaged about 1 SD below the mean, with modest decline over time. Almost a quarter of the sample (Class 1, 22.3%) displayed mean T-scores in both achievement areas near the peer-normed average; these students were mostly White, from higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, and had experienced earlier classification as LD as well as shorter duration of LD service. Classifying heterogeneity in longitudinal trajectories of both achievement areas shows promise to better understand the educational needs of students classified LD.

We investigated whether and to what extent deficits in executive functions (EF) increase kindergarten children's risk for repeated academic difficulties across elementary school. We did so by using growth mixture modeling to analyze the first- through third-grade achievement growth trajectories in mathematics, reading, and science of a large (N = 11,010) sample of children participating in the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2011 (ECLS-K: 2011). The modeling yielded four growth trajectory classes in mathematics, reading, and science. We observed an at-risk trajectory class in each academic domain using a standardized scale. Children in the at-risk class initially averaged very low levels of achievement (i.e., about two standard deviations below the mean) in first grade. Their trajectories remained very low or declined further by third grade. Trajectories for other classes were also generally flat but started and remained at higher levels of standardized achievement. Deficits in EF, particularly in working memory, increased kindergarten children's risk of experiencing repeated mathematics, reading, and science difficulties across elementary school. These predictive relations replicated across three academic domains following statistical control for domain-specific and-general autoregressors as well as socio-demographic characteristics. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Whether and to what extent kindergarten children's executive functions (EF) constitute promising targets of early intervention is currently unclear. This study examined whether kindergarten children's EF predicted their second-grade academic achievement and behavior. This was done using (a) a longitudinal and nationally representative sample (N = 8,920, Mage = 97.6 months), (b) multiple measures of EF, academic achievement, and behavior, and (c) extensive statistical control including for domain-specific and domain-general lagged dependent variables. All three measures of EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—positively and significantly predicted reading, mathematics, and science achievement. In addition, inhibitory control negatively predicted both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. Children's EF constitute promising targets of experimentally evaluated interventions for increasing academic and behavioral functioning. © 2018 Society for Research in Child Development

Whether executive functioning deficits result in children experiencing learning difficulties is presently unclear. Yet evidence for these hypothesized causal relations has many implications for early intervention design and delivery. We used a multi-year panel design, multiple criterion and predictor variable measures, extensive statistical control for potential confounds including autoregressive prior histories of both reading and mathematics difficulties, and additional epidemiological methods to preliminarily examine these hypothesized relations. Results from multivariate logistic regression analyses of a nationally representative and longitudinal sample of 18,080 children (i.e., the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort of 2011, or ECLS-K: 2011) indicated that working memory and, separately, cognitive flexibility deficits uniquely increased kindergarten children’s risk of experiencing reading as well as mathematics difficulties in first grade. The risks associated with working memory deficits were particularly strong. Experimentally-evaluated, multi-component interventions designed to help young children with reading or mathematics difficulties may also need to remediate early deficits in executive function, particularly in working memory.