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This systematic review investigated how successful children/adolescents with poor literacy skills learn a foreign language compared with their peers with typical literacy skills. Moreover, we explored whether specific characteristics related to participants, foreign language instruction, and assessment moderated scores on foreign language tests in this population. Overall, 16 studies with a total of 968 participants (poor reader/spellers: n = 404; control participants: n = 564) met eligibility criteria. Only studies focusing on English as a foreign language were available. Available data allowed for meta-analyses on 10 different measures of foreign language attainment. In addition to standard mean differences (SMDs), we computed natural logarithms of the ratio of coefficients of variation (CVRs) to capture individual variability between participant groups. Significant between-study heterogeneity, which could not be explained by moderator analyses, limited the interpretation of results. Although children/adolescents with poor literacy skills on average showed lower scores on foreign language phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and reading comprehension measures, their performance varied significantly more than that of control participants. Thus, it remains unclear to what extent group differences between the foreign language scores of children/adolescents with poor and typical literacy skills are representative of individual poor readers/spellers. Taken together, our results indicate that foreign language skills in children/adolescents with poor literacy skills are highly variable. We discuss the limitations of past research that can guide future steps toward a better understanding of individual differences in foreign language attainment of children/adolescents with poor literacy skills.

An area of increasing interest amongst teachers and researchers is the availability of tools for the design and implementation of literacy interventions with Spanish speaking children. The present systematic literature review contributes to this need by summarizing available findings on evidence-based literacy interventions (EBI) for children from first to third year of primary school. Our results are based on 20 EBI that aimed at improving at least one of the critical components mentioned by the NRP (2000): phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. As 90% of the studies were completed with English-speaking children, we critically discussed the applicability of this evidence to the specific context of Spanish-speaking countries. Although many of the general characteristics of the EBI completed with English speaking children could also guide interventions in Spanish, it remains crucial to take into account structural differences between the orthographies of both languages. Moreover, we identified transversal strategies and implementation techniques that due to their universal character could also be useful for early literacy interventions in Spanish., Resumen Contar con herramientas para el diseño y la implementación de intervenciones en alfabetización con niños hispanohablantes reúne cada vez mayor interés entre docentes e investigadores. Para contribuir a esta demanda, realizamos una revisión sistemática con el objetivo de sintetizar la información disponible sobre intervenciones basadas en la evidencia (IBE) con niños de primero a tercer grado escolar. Nuestros resultados recogen información sobre 20 IBE, que buscaron mejorar al menos uno de los siguientes componentes críticos nombrados por el NRP (2000): conciencia fonológica, principio alfabético, fluidez, vocabulario y comprensión. Dado que el 90% de ellos fue realizado con niños angloparlantes nos dedicamos a discutir críticamente la aplicabilidad de esta evidencia al contexto particular de países hispanohablantes. Si bien muchas de las características generales de las IBE implementadas en inglés podrían servir de guía para intervenir en español, resulta imprescindible tener en cuenta las diferencias estructurales en la ortografía de ambas lenguas. A su vez, identificamos estrategias transversales y técnicas de implementación en las IBE, que por su carácter universal podrían ser de utilidad práctica también para intervenir en el desarrollo lector en español.

Worldwide students from low socioeconomic status (SES) have been shown to present an academic disadvantage with respect to their mathematical abilities. In order to approach this problem, details of the characteristics in different school levels, students of different sex and different mathematical subskills are needed. To our knowledge, few studies have explored the interaction of these factors in the same sample of participants. Therefore, we aim to analyse the influence of SES and sex on the addition, subtraction and multiplication math facts (MF) skills of a sample of 619 primary school students from year 2 to 6. Besides confirming the socioeconomic disadvantage in all school years and in students of both sexes, our results reveal a higher performance of boys over girls only in medium to higher SES and in multiplication MF. Future research is needed to investigate this unexpected result., Resumen Existe amplia evidencia a nivel internacional para confirmar una desventaja académica en el rendimiento matemático de alumnos provenientes de niveles socioeconómicos (NSE) bajos. Con el fin de intervenir en esta problemática, resulta necesario detallar las características de este déficit por curso escolar, sexo y subhabilidad matemática. Hasta el momento, escasos estudios han abordado la interacción de estos factores en una misma muestra de participantes. De esta forma, nos propusimos analizar la construcción de hechos numéricos básicos (HNB) de suma, resta y multiplicación en una muestra de 619 escolares de 2º a 6º grado escolar a la luz de las variables NSE y sexo. Más allá de confirmar la desventaja socioeconómica en todos los cursos escolares y en ambos sexos, nuestros resultados reflejan, un rendimiento superior de hombres sobre mujeres solamente en el NSE medio-alto y en HNB de multiplicación. Futuras investigaciones son necesarias para indagar en este resultado inesperado.

A word dictation test (TEO-D) to assess the spelling level of school children in grade 2 to 6, is presented, to contribute to educational practice, as well as neuropsychological and educational psychology assessment of written language dif fi culties. The test is constructed considering the review and analysis of frequent words in our environment, containing the alternation of the grapheme b and v, to represent the phoneme /b/, the graphemes j and g to represent the sound /j/, words, that can be written with ll or y, those containing the grapheme, that corresponds to no phoneme: h, and the graphemes c and s, that represent the sound /s/. The factor structure, reliability and validity of the test was examined, after being applied to a sample of 488 students from Montevideo, selected by convenience sampling, between two private schools from medium low and medium high socioeconomic status. The con fi rmatory factor analysis, using the program NOHARM for a one-factor model, indicates an adequate fi t to a one-dimensional structure, achieving very good internal consistency reliability for the total sample and per course., Se presenta el desarrollo de una prueba de dictado de palabras (TEO-D) para la evaluación del nivel ortográ fi co de escolares de segundo a sexto grado de primaria, con el objetivo de contribuir a las prácticas educativas y a la valoración neuropsicológica y psicopedagógica de las di fi cultades en lenguaje escrito. La prueba se construyó a partir de la revisión y análisis de palabras frecuentes de nuestro medio, que contienen la alternancia del grafema b y v para representar el fonema /b/, los grafemas j y g para la representación del sonido /j/, las palabras, que pueden escribirse con ll o y, las que contienen el grafema h para el que no hay fonema y los grafemas c y s, que representan el sonido /s/. Se examina la estructura factorial, la fi abilidad y la validez de la prueba, que fue aplicada a una muestra de 488 alumnos de Mon- tevideo, seleccionados mediante muestreo por conveniencia, entre dos colegios de educación privada de nivel socioeconómico medio bajo y medio alto. El análisis factorial con fi rmatorio, utilizando el programa NOHARM de un modelo de factor único, indica un ajuste adecuado a una estructura unidimensional, obteniendo una muy buena fi abilidad de consistencia interna en la muestra total y por curso.