Minna Torppa

University of Jyväskylä | JYU · Department of Teacher Education

This study examined the developmental profiles of different leisure reading habits and their association with reading fluency and comprehension in 2,525 Finnish students from Grade 1 to 9. Four profiles were identified based on the reading frequency of different materials: Comics readers, Online readers, Book readers and Non-readers. Profile differ...

The present study examined whether learning disabilities (LD) in reading and/or math (i.e., reading disability [RD], math disability [MD], and RD+MD) co-occur with other diagnoses. The data comprised a clinical sample (n = 430) with LD identified in childhood and a sample of matched controls (n = 2,140). Their medical diagnoses (according to the In...

Henkilökunnan hyvinvointi on yhteydessä johtamiseen, mutta koulukontekstissa johtajuuden merkitystä henkilökunnan hyvinvoinnille (ja sitä kautta oppilaiden hyvinvoinnille) tunnetaan heikosti. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskitymme kolmeen johtajuusominaisuuteen, jotka kirjallisuuden perusteella näyttäytyvät potentiaalisina hyvinvointijohtamisen tekijöinä k...

The gender difference in reading achievement in favor of adolescent girls is a robust finding in the literature, but the evidence is mixed when considering younger children. The present study followed the development of reading skills among Finnish children (N = 1,867) from kindergarten age (six years) to 18 years of age to determine the onset of g...

Research on the predictors of outcome for early, community-based, and time-limited interventions targeted for clinical depression in adolescents is still scarce. We examined the role of demographic, psychosocial, and clinical variables as predictors of outcome in a trial conducted in Finnish school health and welfare services to identify factors as...

This two-wave mixed-methods study used the job demands and resources model to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on school personnel's work well-being (including burnout, work engagement, and sense of belonging) in spring 2020 in Finland in particular with respect to collegial relationships (respectful engagement) and leadership support....

By investigating children whose parents have dyslexia, family risk (FR) studies are expanding our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of dyslexia. These studies, however, vary in their identification of FR, and how the use of different identification methods influences research findings and conclusions is yet to be systematically in...

Purpose This study examines the developmental interplay between silent reading fluency and reading comprehension from Grade 1 to Grade 9 (age 7 to 15) in a large Finnish sample (N = 2,518). Of particular interest was whether the associations are bidirectional or unidirectional. Methods Children’s silent reading fluency and reading comprehension sk...

This study quantified the possible learning losses in reading and math skills among a sample of Finnish Grade 3 children (n = 198) who spent 8 weeks in distance learning during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. We compared their reading and math skill development trajectories across Grades 1, 2, and 4 to a pre-COVID sample (N...

Children who like to read and write tend to be better at it. This association is typically interpreted as enjoyment impacting engagement in literacy activities, which boosts literacy skills. We fitted direction-of-causation models to partial data of 3,690 Finnish twins aged 12. Literacy skills were rated by the twins' teachers and literacy enjoymen...

Purpose We aim to identify the most accurate model for predicting adolescent (Grade 9) reading difficulties (RD) in reading fluency and reading comprehension using 17 kindergarten-age variables. Three models (neural networks, linear, and mixture) were compared based on their accuracy in predicting RD. We also examined whether the same or a differen...

Because of its regularity, it is relatively easy to learn to read and spell in Finnish. However, a specific hurdle in spelling acquisition seems to be the doubling of consonant letters. In this study on consonant letter doubling spelling in Finnish children (91 Grade 1 and 191 Grade 2 children), we asked two questions. First, are items with double...

This study aimed to gain better understanding of the associations between literacy activities at home and long-term language and literacy development. We extended the home literacy environment (HLE) model of Sénéchal and LeFevre (Child Development [2002], Vol. 73, pp. 445–460) by including repeated assessments of shared reading, oral language, and...

Background In 2018, it was found that only a quarter of Grade 3 children in India were reading at grade level. A growing demand for English education has further limited children's literacy achievement. Despite a strong evidence base in favour of using systematic phonics for building English literacy skills, many teachers in India continue to use r...

This study examined within and cross-language relations, and specifically, the role of phonological awareness (PA) skills in reading among young Hindi-speaking children (L1) who were learning to read English (L2) in Delhi, India. Data was collected from 143 children in Grades 1 and 2 using measures validated for this population. The analyses examin...

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a tsunami of information hit the internet-amounting to an information epidemic (infodemic) that itself developed into a global health problem [1]. It evolved especially in the social media, where people were offered an abundance of information, including information that might be over-complex, overwhelm...

This study examined developmental profiles of reading fluency and reading comprehension in Grades 1 to 9 (ages 7 to 15) in a large Finnish sample (N = 2,518). In addition, early predictors of the profiles were analyzed with respect to kindergarten cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid automized naming [RAN], number count...

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of home numeracy and literacy environment, and parental factors (parental reading and math difficulties, and parental education) on the development of several early numeracy and literacy skills. The 265 participating Finnish children were assessed four times between ages 2.5 and 6.5. Children’s sk...

Children who like to read and write tend to be better at it. This association is typically interpreted as enjoyment impacting engagement in literacy activities, which boosts literacy skills. We fitted direction-of-causation models to partial data of 3,690 Finnish twins aged 12. Literacy skills were rated by the twins’ teachers and literacy enjoymen...

Close to 200 countries have implemented school closures to decrease the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Though the closures have seemed necessary, their effects on the wellbeing of children and adolescents have raised serious concerns. To truly understand the impact of such disruption on young people’s wellbeing, and their views on how to move...

This paper reviews the observations of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD). The JLD is a prospective family risk study in which the development of children with familial risk for dyslexia (N = 108) due to parental dyslexia and controls without dyslexia risk (N = 92) were followed from birth to adulthood. The JLD revealed that the lik...

One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children’s skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading ski...

School burnout symptoms are prevalent among upper secondary education students, but thus far, very little is known about the background of these symptoms. The present study examined the extent to which school burnout symptoms (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism) among upper secondary education students have their roots in primary and lower secondary sch...

This study focuses on parental reading and mathematical difficulties, the home literacy environment, and the home numeracy environment as well as their predictive role in Finnish children's reading and mathematical development through Grades 1-9. We examined if parental reading and mathematical difficulties directly predict children's academic perf...

According to the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal and LeFevre, 2002, 2014), young children can be exposed to two distinct types of literacy activities at home. First, meaning-related literacy activities are those where print is present but is not the focus of the parent–child interaction, for example, when parents read storybooks to their children. In...

In order to offer early and accessible treatment for adolescents with depression, brief and effective treatments in adolescents’ everyday surroundings are needed. This randomized controlled trial studied the preliminary effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of interpersonal counseling (IPC) and brief psychosocial support (BPS) in school hea...

(1) Background: There is a need for studies on population-level health literacy (HL) to identify the current state of HL within and between countries. We report comparative findings from 10 European countries (Austria, Belgium (Fl), Czechia, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Macedonia, Poland, and Slovakia) on adolescents’ HL and its associations...

A person-centered approach was used to identify the profiles of symptoms of psychological ill-being among Finnish upper secondary education students (N = 2889); to examine whether gender and educational track (i.e., academic or vocational) are associated with these profiles; and to investigate the role of profiles in school dropout intentions. Usin...

(1) Background: There is a need for studies on population-level health literacy (HL) to identify the current state of HL within and between countries. We report comparative findings from 10 European countries (Austria, Belgium (Fl), Czechia, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Macedonia, Poland, and Slovakia) on adolescents’ HL and its associations...

Does reading a lot lead to better reading skills, or does reading a lot follow from high initial reading skills? The authors present a longitudinal study of how much children choose to read and how well they decode and comprehend texts. This is the first study to examine the codevelopment of print exposure with both fluency and comprehension throug...

Early identification of children at risk of developing reading difficulties is crucial for effective interventions. While orthographies and educational contexts differ, predictors included in early at-risk screening tend to remain rather homogeneous across countries. In this study, we compared longitudinal prediction patterns of being among the 20...

This study examined the stability of reading difficulties (RD) from grades 2 to 6 and focused on the effects of measurement error and cut-off selection in the identification of RD and its stability with the use of simulations. It addressed methodological limitations of prior studies by (a) applying a model-based simulation analysis to examine the e...

According to the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLP) model, high individual academic performance in a particular subject is related to high self-concept in that subject, whereas high average classroom performance has a negative effect on self-concept. In the present study, data from Finnish primary school students in grade 3 (504 students), grade 4...

This paper examined if difficulty in reading comprehension (PISA) is distinct from difficulty in reading fluency and if the distinct types of reading difficulties are differently associated with learning motivation, school burnout, and school enjoyment. The participants were 1324 Finnish ninth graders. Findings suggested that difficulties in readin...

We investigated the extent to which home literacy activities during the preschool year would predict the development of children’s language and literacy skills in primary school, in a highly transparent Finnish language. Also, the correlates of maternal literacy activities during preschool were examined. Literacy and language skills of 1,880 childr...

Objectives: We examined the associations between adolescents’ health assets and various health indicators (smoking, alcohol use, sleep length, physical activity, healthy eating, oral health, self-reported health, multiple health complaints). Methods: A nationally representative sample was drawn from Finnish-speaking schools, comprising 13- and 15-y...

Task‐avoidant behaviour is correlated with reading skills and may have an impact on achieving educational and occupation goals in the long run. Longitudinal studies on task avoidance and its links to reading difficulties are non‐existent, however. The present study examines changes and stability of task‐avoidant behaviour from childhood (Grade 2),...

Background: The present study examined differences in the prediction of reading development and reading difficulties in Estonia (n = 348) and Finland (n = 344). These neighbouring countries share many similarities in terms of their language, orthography and educational system; however, they differ in the timing of the onset of reading instruction,...

This study examines associations between leisure reading and reading skills in data of 2,525 students followed from age 7 to 16. As a step further from traditional cross‐lagged analysis, a random intercept cross‐lagged panel model was used to identify within‐person associations of leisure reading (books, magazines, newspapers, and digital reading),...

Background: The concept of health literacy (HL) may help us to better understand the mechanisms leading to health disparities, and to focus on the factors that can be influenced. However, not much is yet known about how HL is related to health disparities, or whether the association exists among adolescents. The aim of the study was to examine the...

This person-centered study examined the patterns and the dynamics of pattern change based on 1666 Finnish students' self-reported psychological well-being during the transition from primary school to lower secondary school. Moreover, we examined the stability in the profile memberships and the influence of changes in perceived support from teachers...

POST-PRINT: Changes in Students’ Psychological Well-Being during Transition from Primary School to Lower Secondary School: A Person-Centered Approach

Background: Health literacy (HL) is an important determinant of health and health behaviours, and there is a need to monitor HL levels among all population groups. It is therefore essential to develop instruments to assess HL during childhood and adolescence. The aim of this study was to examine the cross-national measurement invariance of the ins...

We examined the cross-lagged relations between reading and spelling in five alphabetic orthographies varying in consistency (English, French, Dutch, German, Greek). Nine hundred forty-one children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2 and were tested on word and pseudoword reading fluency and on spelling to dictation. Results indicated that the rel...

Objective: To determine whether GraphoLearn, a computer-assisted reading tool, could be used to support the English reading skills of struggling readers in India.

India, a country with a population of more than 1.3 billion individuals, houses the world’s second largest educational system. Despite this, 100 of millions of individuals in India are still illiterate. As English medium education sweeps the country, many are forced to learn in a language which is foreign to them. Those living in poverty further st...

Delays in expressive vocabulary have been associated with lower outcomes in reading. The aim is to conduct a long-term follow-up study to investigate if early expressive vocabulary delay (late talking) predicts reading development in participants age 16 and under. We examine further if the prediction is different in the presence of family risk for...

The aim was to examine reading comprehension among elementary school students in two shallow orthographies, Estonian and Finnish. Participants were 619 Estonian children (50% boys) and 292 Finnish children (52% boys) whose reading comprehension was assessed in first, second, third, and sixth grades. The results showed that reading comprehension amo...

This study examines children’s perceptions of their well-being at school. The data was collected in three schools in Central Finland by interviewing altogether 63 pupils. Before the interview, the pupils did a drawing task that prompted them to consider what constitutes well-being at school. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis,...

This study examines profiles of school motivation and emotional well-being and their links to academic skills (reading and math) among adolescents (N = 1629) at the end of comprehensive school (age 15–16). Using a person-centered approach (latent profile analysis), five distinct profile groups were identified. Three of the identified groups had a f...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore Finnish adolescents’ subjective health literacy (HL) in association to school achievement, learning difficulties, educational aspirations, and family affluence. Design/methodology/approach Nationally representative data were collected in Finland as a part of the international Health Behaviour in Scho...

The present study examined gender gap in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Reading and mediators of the gender gap in a Finnish sample (n = 1,309). We examined whether the gender gap in PISA Reading performance can be understood via the effects of reading fluency, achievement behaviour (mastery orientation and task-avoidant behavi...

Aims: The present paper focuses on the measurement of health literacy (HL), which is an important determinant of health and health behaviours. HL starts to develop in childhood and adolescence; hence, there is a need for instruments to monitor HL among younger age groups. These instruments are still rare. The aim of the project reported here was,...

This study explored the double-deficit hypothesis (DDH) in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and extended the view from reading disabilities to comorbidity of learning-related problems in math and attention. Children referred for evaluation of learning disabilities in second through sixth grade (N = 205) were divided into four groups based on rap...

Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this phenomeno...

This study examined the role of temperament, prereading skills, and age at school entry in the development of Finnish children's task avoidance. Teachers rated the task-avoidant behavior of 198 participants in kindergarten and twice in Grades 2 and 3. Parents rated the children's temperament at age 3 and children's prereading skills were measured a...

This study examined the dynamic relationships among the components of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and the predictive value of cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid naming, and vocabulary) on the SVR components. Altogether, 1,815 Finnish children were followed from kindergarten...

Understanding of the factors that underlie the development of fluency in reading and arithmetic is limited. This longitudinal study examined whether verbal counting and rapid naming (RAN) were predictors of arithmetic and reading fluency in a population-based sample and to what extent related early emerging cognitive abilities and socioeconomic bac...

Over two decades of Finnish research, monitoring children born with risk for dyslexia has been carried out in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD). Two hundred children, half at risk, have been assessed from birth to puberty on hundreds of measures. The aims were to identify measures of prediction of later reading difficulty and to in...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ldrp.12092/pdf We examined the impact of the number of comorbid difficulties, social support, and community support on life satisfaction and academic achievement among 120 university students or recent graduates with self-reported reading difficulties. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing perc...

This study examined the development and alignment of conceptions of health education as a subject, and of its teaching and learning, among Finnish health education student teachers (n = 20). Longitudinal phenomenographic data (essays, interviews) were collected at two time points during health education studies, and at one time point after the part...

This study examined the longitudinal associations between children’s academic skills and the instructional support teachers gave individual students. A total of 253 Finnish children were tested on reading and math skills twice in the first grade and once in the second grade. The teachers of these children rated the instructional support that they g...

This study focuses on the stability of dyslexia status from Grade 2 to Grade 8 in four groups: (a) no dyslexia in either grade (no-dyslexia, n = 127); (b) no dyslexia in Grade 2 but dyslexia in Grade 8 (late-emerging, n = 18); (c) dyslexia in Grade 2 but not in Grade 8 (resolving, n = 15); and (d) dyslexia in both grades (persistent-dyslexia, n = 2...

This longitudinal study compares developmental changes in psychosocial functioning during the transition into school of children with and without dyslexia. In addition, it examines the effects of gender and family risk for dyslexia in terms of the associations between dyslexia and psychosocial functioning. Children's psychosocial functioning (socia...

The present study examined the role that adolescents’ dyslexia plays in their educational expectations, as well as their parents’ expectations concerning their offspring’s future education. To investigate this, 170 adolescents were asked to report their educational expectations on two occasions while they were still attending comprehensive school (...

We assessed the impact of intrapersonal and interpersonal resilience, persistence, and number of difficulties in addition to reading problems on life satisfaction (general, social, and self) and academic achievement. A total of 120 adults with reading difficulties who either were completing a university degree or were recent graduates responded to...

This study followed the development of reading speed, reading accuracy, and spelling in transparent Finnish orthography through Grades 2, 3, and 8. We compared two groups of children with familial risk for dyslexia, with or without dyslexia in Grade 2 (Dys_FR, n = 35 and NoDys_FR, n = 66) to a group of children without familial risk and dyslexia (C...