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Young children, who are exposed to Latin script letters, experience difficulties in distinguishing between the reversible letters b and d and may therefore transform b into d (and vice versa). When children begin to write, in cultures with left-to-right writing/reading systems, they also often turn Arabic digits in the direction of writing/reading, thus, for example, producing e instead of 3. However, two different terms or processes, namely, confusion and reversal, are used in the literature to label these apparent transformations. This study aimed to provide empirical evidence that the two processes are indeed very different. The sample consisted of 529 first graders (M[subscript age] = 6.21 years) who participated in the French National Assessment at the beginning of the school year. Simple linear, Bayesian, and logistic regression modeling of the left-right reversal rate in writing digits as a function of the confusion rate in children's recognition of the letters b and d showed a negative relationship between the two rates, and a nonparametric test yielded a significant negative correlation (r[subscript S](318) = -0.373, p < 0.001). These results seem to rule out the possibility that the same process leads to reversing characters (letters or digits) in writing and misrecognizing b as d (or vice versa). This is the first study reporting strong empirical evidence that the processes of reversal and confusion are very different. Consequently, it would be a mistake to treat confusion between b and d as the reversal of b into d (and vice versa).

Background: The development of early literacy skills in preschoolers is an important predictor of future academic performance. Four main domains of early literacy are currently observed: letter knowledge, vocabulary, phonological awareness and oral comprehension. A multiplicity of tasks or tests measures these domains in English language. However, there are currently no French-language tools for evaluating and monitoring the early literacy abilities of young children in francophone contexts. Methods: This paper addresses this lack by presenting a new French-language scale -- the Echelle Préscolaire de Littératie Emergente (EPLE) -- for assessing the early literacy skills of preschoolers. In addition to examining the EPLE's psychometric properties, we used path analysis to determine possible links between different dimensions of early literacy and children's characteristics (sex, age and socioeconomic status). Results: This study involves 167 French preschoolers (mean = 5.17 years, standard deviation = 0.59) attending kindergarten. All the participants were tested individually, and a specific entry in the tasks was proposed depending on the age of the children. First, the EPLE had good psychometric properties. Then, factor analysis of the data collected revealed a similar hierarchical factor structure as found in the literature. In addition, we found links between the four dimensions of early literacy measured by the EPLE and both children's age and socioeconomic status. Conclusion: The EPLE creates several new opportunities for early literacy research in French-speaking contexts. First, this tool reduces the gap in the field of testing young children skills. Then, it allows the comparison with worldwide researches. Moreover, this tool proposes pedagogical implications. In the next few years, the EPLE will be used by teachers or school psychologists to test the early competences of French children.

This paper describes a French research project to co-design an early literacy/early numeracy tablet app for kindergarten students. In order to create an app that takes into account classroom/teaching constraints and the results of recent research, we adopted a theoretical co-design framework and followed a methodology involving researchers, education professionals and software engineers. We describe the design process and the app's educational content, together with the results of an initial trial of the app on a small sample of preschoolers, which showed that it is ready for larger scale testing. We conclude by discussing the specificities of our project and its contribution to the literature on the development of classroom apps for preschoolers.

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This paper describes a French research project to co-design an early literacy/early numeracy tablet app for kindergarten students. In order to create an app that takes into account classroom/teaching constraints and the results of recent research, we adopted a theoretical co-design framework and followed a methodology involving researchers, education professionals and software engineers. We describe the design process and the app's educational content, together with the results of an initial trial of the app on a small sample of preschoolers, which showed that it is ready for larger scale testing. We conclude by discussing the specificities of our project and its contribution to the literature on the development of classroom apps for preschoolers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]