The association between academic self‐beliefs and reading achievement among children at risk of reading failure

Abstract

This paper investigates whether children's academic self-beliefs are associated with reading achievement and whether the relationship is modified by gender and/or age. Data were collected from children at risk of reading failure, that is, emergent readers (6-to 8-year-olds) in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas reading at a level below the population mean. The authors' own measure of attitude to reading and perceived competence was used. The study found a significant positive association between attitude to reading in class and vocabulary and phonemic awareness and a significant negative association between perceived competence at reading in class and single-word reading and spelling. Girls' attitude to reading and perceived competence were more positively associated with reading achievement, and this was most evident in the first grade. Perceived competence was inflated among those with the poorest reading and also among boys, in association with reading-related skills found most challenging by children in this sample.Children's academic self-beliefs can be significantly associated with reading achievement, as various studies have shown

The Association of Attitude to Reading and Reading Achievement Among a Representative Sample of Nine Year Olds in Ireland

“…AR also had greater explanatory power when predicting reading achievement than AS and PCS. This finding lends support to the hypothesis that self-beliefs matched to specific academic domains will better predict performance in that domain than self-beliefs that are more global in scope (Fives et al, 2014;Hansford & Hattie, 1982;Logan & Johnston, 2009;Pullmann & Allik, 2008;Valentine et al, 2004). The explanatory power of AR also compared well with the sub-scales of the PiersHarris multi-domain measure of self-concept.…”

“…The findings show that, although girls did not score significantly higher than boys for reading achievement, nonetheless, as other studies have reported Fives et al, 2014;Kelley & Decker, 2009) girls had more positive self-beliefs than boys. The findings also show the interaction between AR and reading achievement was significantly different for boys and girls, as the positive association was stronger among girls than boys.…”

“…Attitude to Reading and Reading Achievement 23 Others have noted that positive self-beliefs may serve as a protective influence for those experiencing the greatest difficulties in academic subjects (DuBois, 2001), and inflated self-beliefs have been observed with respect to reading skills that children were experiencing the most difficulty acquiring (Fives et al, 2014). This may be the case among the below average readers in the current study.…”

A one‐to‐one programme for at‐risk readers delivered by older adult volunteers

“…Asking children to self‐report in regard to their attitudes and perceived competence raises a concern about reporter bias. However, results from data collected using this measure have shown statistically significant positive associations between attitude to reading and reading achievement (Fives et al ., in press).…”

Understanding the school environments that engage and motivate young adolescents

“…Once a school has labeled a student as "at risk" or "intellectually slow," it sets a student down a problematic path. There exists a significant and growing amount of research (Cox & Guthrie, 2001;Fives et al, 2014;Hall, 2005;Lim, Bong, & Woo, 2015;Logan, Medford, & Hughes, 2011;J. K. Smith, Smith, Gilmore, & Jameson, 2012) that correlates reading attitudes and engagement to the amount of reading children do, factors which directly contribute to future reading achievement.…”