Social-emotional competence has received increased attention as being critical to a student's success in the classroom. Social-emotional strengths are multidimensional and include assets such as social competence, self-regulation, empathy, and responsibility; however, previous research has not investigated which of these strengths contribute most to a student's academic success. Additionally, limited research has investigated the use of multiple informants (e.g., parents and teachers) to determine whose perceptions are more predictive of academic achievement in kindergarten students. This study examined the relationship between social-emotional strengths, as rated by parents and teachers on the SEARS (Merrell, 2011), and academic outcomes, using the AIMSweb Tests of Early Literacy (Shinn & Shinn, 2008) and Missing Number Fluency (Clarke & Shinn, 2004b), in kindergarten students (n = 154). A moderate, positive relationship between parent and teacher ratings of social-emotional strengths was obtained. When prior achievement was removed from the regression equation, social competence, as measured by parents, was the only significant predictor of current achievement in early literacy. No social-emotional strength, as rated by parents, was a significant predictor of early math achievement regardless of including or removing prior achievement from the regression equation. Additionally, teacher-rated total strengths were predictive of current achievement in reading, when controlling for prior achievement, and for math, when prior achievement was removed from the equation. Teacher ratings of total strengths were thus found to be more predictive than parent ratings of academic achievement in reading, but not math. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The present study examined the effectiveness of a shared storybook reading intervention in increasing children’s early numeracy and early literacy skills through a multiple baseline single case design. Four parent-child dyads were included in the study, and children’s early numeracy and early literacy skills were measured using the eNumeracy Early Math Assessments and the Preschool Early Literacy Indicators, respectively. The study also measured mathematical dialogue to determine if an increase in children’s early numeracy skills is due to the intervention and not other confounding variables. Finally, the study measured intervention integrity, and parent ratings of social validity. Results of the study indicated that parent-child mathematical dialogue increased for three participants and could not be calculated for the fourth participant due to attrition. Visual analysis and hierarchical linear modeling results indicated no statistically significant early numeracy or literacy outcomes across participants. A masked visual analysis indicated that there was an observable difference in children’s scores on the eNumeracy Ordinal Position measures, but none of the other outcome measures. Additionally, the majority of parents were able to implement the intervention with integrity and all parents reported high levels of social validity. The findings of this study show that the parent directed shared mathematical storybook reading intervention was effective in increasing mathematical dialogue between parents and children. Future studies should examine the impact of shared mathematical storybook reading interventions on discrete early numeracy and literacy skills specifically targeted during the book reading interventions.