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.