Do children's learning-related behaviors moderate the impacts of an empirically-validated early literacy intervention?

• Individual characteristics of a child can interact with instruction.
• These characteristics can affect the success of educational interventions.
• Interest in literacy and effortful control were examined as moderators of intervention.
• Children with high interest in literacy and effortful control showed greatest gains due to intervention.
• Accounting for a greater breadth of possible moderators of intervention impacts is an important.

The present study included 314 children who had been involved in Project STAR, and explored how two learning-related behaviors, interest in literacy and effortful control, moderated the impact of the literacy intervention on reading outcomes. Results indicated significant associations of both learning-related behaviors with reading, with the children with the highest literacy interest and effortful control in the intervention group showing the highest reading outcomes. These results indicate that accounting for a greater breadth of possible moderators of intervention impacts is an important area to explore.