Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, and Unpopular?

Abstract

We investigated whether being poorly skilled in reading contributes to children’s self-reported feelings of anger, distractibility, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and social isolation. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal sub-sample of children (N=2,751) participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort. Multi-level logistic regression analyses indicated that poor readers in 3rd grade were more likely to consider themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular in 5th grade than those who had not been poor readers in 3rd grade. About 20% of 3rd grade poor readers reported feeling angry and unpopular in 5th grade. Being poorly skilled in mathematics increased children’s risk of feeling sad or lonely, but not of feeling angry, distractible, or unpopular. The results provide additional empirical evidence that reading failure contributes to generalized socio-emotional maladjustment in young children.

Academic and Social Functioning Associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Latent Class Analyses of Trajectories from Kindergarten to Fifth Grade

“…Poor reading achievement has been theorized to result in children experiencing increasingly generalized deficits in their socio-emotional adjustment (Stanovich, 1988), particularly as their lack of reading proficiency becomes evident to their peers thus leading to feelings of isolation and interpersonal hostility (Chapman, 1988). Although causal relationships cannot be established based on our correlational analyses, the obtained findings are consistent with prior work indicating a largely unidirectional pathway from reading to behavioral difficulties in the general population of U.S. schoolchildren (e.g., Lin et al, 2013; Morgan, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2012; Morgan, Farkas, Tufis, & Sperling, 2008) and indicate that poor reading may be predictive of impaired socioemotional functioning in children with ADHD.…”

Reading, Mathematics, and Behavioral Difficulties Interrelate: Evidence from a Cross-Lagged Panel Design and Population-Based Sample of US Upper Elementary Students

“…However, the lower quality of their language communication results in unsuccessful social interaction with their peers, and so increases the risk for the development of internalized socioemotional pathology, including social withdrawal, anxiety, and depression (Rourke, Young, & Leenaars, 1989). Some studies have supported this hypothesis of a causal relation between mathematics difficulties and internalizing behavior problems (Greenham, 1999; Morgan et al, 2012; White, Moffitt, & Silva, 1992). Consequently, at least part of the observed co-occurrence between reading and behavioral difficulties may instead result from impaired non-verbal processes involved in mathematics learning as indicated by mathematics difficulties.…”

“…It is therefore unclear to what extent reading, mathematics, and behavioral difficulties inter-relate in the more general population of U.S. schoolchildren. Few studies have included a prior history of mathematics difficulties as another potential explanatory variable when investigating the co-occurrence of reading and behavioral difficulties (Morgan et al, 2012), despite it constituting a strong possible confound of the observed co-occurrence. Additionally, many existing studies failed to control for either earlier reading problems or behavior problems (Hinshaw, 1992) or did not include other potentially relevant variables in their analyses (Fleming, Harachi, Cortes, Abbott, & Catalano, 2004).…”

“…Yet this time period constitutes a major transition in children’s academic and behavioral development, particularly as children begin to “read to learn” instead of “learn to read” and increasingly relying on peer networks. This transition might be expected to exacerbate any inter-relation between reading and behavioral difficulties, as the negative impacts of reading failure become increasingly generalized and children’s peer evaluations become more important (Chapman, 1988; Morgan et al, 2012; Stanovich, 1986;). We attempted to advance the field’s knowledge base by investigating three specific research questions collectively designed to address methodological and substantive limitations in the extant work.…”

“…This repeated exposure to negative feedback about their increasingly generalized academic difficulties may result in peer rejection, depressed mood, and behavioral difficulties (Chen, Rubin, & Li, 1995; Dishion, Patterson, Stoolmiller, & Skinner, 1991; Maughan, Rowe, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2003). Indeed, poor readers in the elementary grades have been found to be more likely to have lower academic self-concepts (Chapman, 1988; Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2000), feel depressed (Maughan et al, 2003), think of themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular (Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2012), display internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2009), and experience peer rejection and lower social status (Lopes, Cruz, & Rutherford, 2002) than normally performing students.…”