LAUSR

Abstract Teacher–child relationships (TCRs) have been found to play important roles in children’s classroom experiences and learning during the elementary school years. Given the importance of TCRs, the present study examined the associations between conflictual and close TCRs, children’s literacy achievement, and children’s social competencies using a sample of 503 kindergarten and first grade non-struggling and struggling readers and their teachers in ten rural schools in the Southeastern United States. Moderation by struggling reader status was also explored in the associations between conflictual or close TCRs and children’s literacy achievement and social competencies. After controlling for child- and teacher-level characteristics, results from multilevel model analyses indicated that conflictual TCRs were significantly related to lower literacy achievement, more internalizing behaviors, more externalizing behaviors, and fewer prosocial behaviors. Close TCRs were not related to child outcomes, and moderation by struggling reader status was not significant.