ABSTRACT
Chinese, Japanese, and American children at grades 1 and 5 were given a battery of 10 cognitive tasks and tests of achievement in reading and mathematics. A secondary purpose in including cognitive tasks in the larger study was to assess the differential effectiveness of several cognitive tasks in predicting reading skills in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Children's performance on the achievement tests is then evaluated, and finally, the relation between the cognitive tasks and achievement in the three cultures is discussed in terms of regression analyses conducted separately by grade and culture. The high level of academic success of Asian-American children is a well-known feature of American society. If the children's scores in different cultures differ both on cognitive measures and on reading tests, it is appropriate to infer that differences in reading may be one index of more general differences in cognitive functioning.
