Children Reading for Pleasure: Investigating Predictors of Reading Achievement and the Efficacy of a Paired-Reading Intervention to Foster Children's Literacy Skills

The amount of reading children do outside of school is positively related to their reading achievement. This relation is consistent and robust, but fails to consider additional factors that may be influential in predicting children's literacy performance. Moreover, this relation speaks to the use of reading programs to improve children's achievement by increasing reading frequency. Two studies were conducted to examine these issues. Study 1 proposed and tested a comprehensive model of children's literacy performance where the association between children's home literacy environment, reading motivation, and achievement was mediated by children's reading exposure. A sample ( N = 116) of grade 3 and 5 children and their parents participated. Findings were in accord with the model; however, children's reading motivation was a significant and unique predictor of children's reading and spelling ability. Overall, the findings of Study 1 suggested that incorporating additional explanatory factors is necessary to children's literacy performance. Study 2 tested whether a summer reading program would improve achievement measures in a targeted sample (N = 57) of poor achievers from Study 1. Children were randomly assigned to a Book Reading Group or Control Group. Over 8-weeks children in the Book Reading Group were sent one book per week that was matched to their interest and reading level. In addition, parents acted as reading models and were trained to use skill-building strategies. As predicted, children in the Book Reading Group showed significant gains in reading compared to children in the Control Group. No group differences were found for oral language skills or reading motivation. Study 2 revealed that providing access to books and maximizing the role of parents was an effective method for improving poor achiever's literacy skills over the summer.