Which skill helps regulate behavior and has a direct relationship to reading and writing?

The skill that helps regulate behavior and has a direct relationship to reading and writing is executive function skills. These skills include a variety of cognitive processes such as planning, organizing, remembering details, and managing time and attention.

Executive function skills are essential for a learner to effectively approach reading and writing tasks. For example, when a student is asked to write an essay, they need to plan their ideas (planning), organize their thoughts into a coherent structure (organization), and monitor their progress to stay on task (self-regulation). This ability to manage and control one’s behavior is crucial in successfully completing literacy-related activities.

By developing strong executive function skills, students can better navigate the demands of reading comprehension and written expression, leading to improved literacy outcomes. While the other options like phonemic awareness, decoding skills, and comprehension strategies are important components of literacy, they do not focus on the broader cognitive control and regulation aspects that executive function skills encompass.