Middle childhood social-emotional competencies mediate the effects of school-entry literacy and numeracy skills on secondary school reading and numeracy attainment

This research examined the extent to which students' social-emotional skills during middle childhood (age ∼ 11 years) mediated longitudinal associations between literacy and numeracy skills measured at school entry (age ∼ 5 years) and early secondary school (age ∼ 12 years). Among 20,814 Australian students from the New South Wales Child Development Study, multi-level mediation analyses examined the indirect effect of Language and Cognitive skills (school-based; from Kindergarten teacher-report on the Australian Early Development Census) on reading and numeracy attainment (standardised scores from the Year 7 National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy), through students' self-reported Self-Awareness and Self-Management (from the Middle Childhood Survey–Social-Emotional Learning in Year 6). Significant, partial mediation by Self-Awareness accounted for 37–40 % of the effect of early skills on later attainment, suggesting early skills may inform students' academic confidence, which then supports their achievement. Independent contributions of cognitive and social-emotional skills to achievement endorses formal teaching of both domains.