7. Discussion
This study sheds light on the relations among preschool teachers’
behavior management skills, children’s task orientation, and
children’s language and emergent literacy development over the
course of a school year. The first hypothesis of this study addressed
main effect relations among these variables. As predicted, teachers’
behavior management skills were positively related to children’s
print awareness development. Similarly, children’s task orientation
was positively related to their print awareness development.
Therefore, children in well-managed classrooms, as well as children
with a strong task orientation, experienced a benefit to their
print awareness development.