Employing a cognitive-motivational analysis, the present investigation sought to determine some specific self-perceptions that might contribute to motivational and performance deficits observed in children with reading difficulties. Children of relatively good, average, and poor reading ability were assessed on tasks in which success and failure were manipulated. Consistent with predictions, poor readers displayed characteristics indicative of learned helplessness and low self-concepts of ability. These included significantly lower initial estimates of success, less persistence, attribution of failures to lack of ability and of successes to factors beyond personal control, and greater decrements in expectancy of success following failure. Implications for education and reading remediation are discussed.

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