The development of reading interestand its relation to reading abilityJohn R. Kirby, Angela Ball and B. Kelly Geier

Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

Rauno Parrila

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Lesly Wade-Woolley

Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

The development of interest in reading and its relationship to reading ability wasexamined longitudinally in 117 children in Grades 1–3. Interest in readingwas measured by eight items from the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. Lessable readers had lower interest in reading, but their development was parallel tothat of more able readers. Interest in reading in Grade 1 was weakly correlatedwith Grade 3 reading ability, but correlations were lower for interest measured inGrades 2 and 3. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated weak and inconsistenteffects of reading interest on reading ability after controlling general cognitiveability, SES, phonological awareness and naming speed. It is concluded that interestin reading has only a weak relationship to reading ability in the early elementaryyears, and that much of that relationship overlaps with the effects of other morepowerful predictors.

It is not surprising that many studies have linked children’s interest in reading to their

reading performance (e.g. Askov & Fishbach, 1973; Baker & Wigfield, 1999; McKenna,

Kear & Ellsworth, 1995; Olofsson & Nieders�e, 1999), because individuals tend to value

and express interest in tasks on which they can succeed (Chapman & Tunmer, 1995;

Wigfield et al., 1997). It would seem logical that if children were interested in reading

they would read more often and therefore have more opportunities to improve their

reading ability than children who prefer not to read. Furthermore, and consistent with a

Matthew effect pattern (Stanovich, 1986), children with poor reading ability may find

reading unrewarding and therefore lose interest in it, which in turn would have an impact

on their future reading ability. On the other hand, it is not impossible for a child to have

adequate reading ability but lack interest in reading.

Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01439.xVolume 34, Issue 3, 2011, pp 263–280

Copyright r 2011 UKLA. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

Journal ofResearch in Reading

Journal ofResearch in Reading

Our purposes in this paper are to investigate the development of interest in reading in

beginning readers, and to examine its relation to reading ability. More specifically, we

seek to determine what predictive effect reading interest has after controlling various

variables that have been shown to predict reading ability, to establish a clearer picture of

reading interest’s unique causal role. Although previous research has provided some

insight into the association between reading interest and reading ability, a more detailed

look at the nature of this association is useful both for applied and theoretical purposes.

A challenge for research in this field is the correlational nature of the data. It is not

possible to randomly assign children to levels of reading interest or reading ability one is

left either just reporting correlations or trying to disentangle them. Most previous studies

of reading interest have reported correlations at one time of testing in cross-sectional

samples, making any causal analysis very difficult. A different strategy is to examine the

relation between reading interest and reading ability longitudinally, and test its effect

after controlling other plausible causal variables. The data remain correlational and so

reading interest cannot be proved to have a causal role, but by controlling other variables

there is the possibility of disconfirming a causal role for reading interest, or at least of

showing that its effect is not unique. Given the considerable research literature on factors

that are causally related to reading development (e.g. phonological awareness; National

Reading Panel, 2000), and other factors that have strong associations with and are

plausible causal factors in reading development, it is reasonable to assess the degree to

which reading interest increases the amount of variance explained.

Development of reading interest

Because of the hypothesised link between reading interest and reading ability, it is

important to study trends in reading interest throughout the elementary school years.

There is considerable evidence that interest in academic learning declines throughout the

academic years (Meece & Miller, 1999; Wigfield, 1994; Wigfield et al., 1997). When

children begin school, they are typically interested in learning and value school activities,

but as the years progress, this interest declines steadily (e.g. Wigfield, 1994; Wigfield et

al., 1997). These developmental declines in academic interest have been shown to extend

specifically to interest in reading (McKenna et al., 1995; Wigfield et al., 1997). McKenna

et al. (1995) surveyed more than 18,000 students between Grades 1 and 6 throughout the

United States using the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) of reading interest

(McKenna & Kear, 1990), which contains 10 questions related to recreational reading

(e.g. ‘How do you feel about reading instead of playing?’) and 10 questions related to

academic reading (e.g. ‘How do you feel about reading your school books?’). Results

indicated that in Grade 1, students had positive attitudes towards reading, whereas by

Grade 6, students’ attitudes towards reading were indifferent, for both academic and

recreational reading. Attitudes declined for recreational reading more sharply for less

able readers than for more able readers, whereas for academic reading attitudes declined

sharply regardless of reading ability. Declines were linear in all groups except for

recreational reading in the above average readers, where the decline only occurred in the

upper elementary grades. Lazarus and Callahan (2000) found that the reading interest of

learning-disabled students followed a similar developmental pattern to those of the non-

disabled low and average students in McKenna and Kear’s (1990) study.

264 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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Using different measures in a longitudinal study, Wigfield et al. (1997) found that

interest in reading declined throughout the early elementary school years, with a larger

decline occurring between Grades 1 and 4 compared with that between Grades 4 and 6.

On a 7-point Likert scale, children’s interest in reading decreased by approximately 1

point between Grades 1 and 4, while remaining relatively stable between Grades 4 and 6.

These authors also found that children’s interest in reading declined more than did their

interest in other activities such as mathematics or sports.

Given the decline in reading interest in the early elementary school years found in most

studies, the present study examines reading interest from Grades 1 to 3. To avoid the

problems of cross-sectional studies (such as differences between cohorts of children), we

will also assess developmental trends in reading ability longitudinally, following the

same students as they progress from Grades 1 to 3.

Reading interest and reading ability

Is reading interest related to reading ability? Baker and Wigfield (1999) found a variety of

attitudes towards reading to correlate with reading ability, typical correlations being

below .3. Taboada, Tonks, Wigfield and Guthrie (2009) found higher correlations, in the

.4–.5 range, but their predictor was teacher-judged ‘internal motivation’ for reading,

based on items assessing characteristics such as reading self-efficacy, thinking deeply

about text content and frequency of independent reading, which go beyond the usual

sense of reading interest. Using categorical teacher reports of children’s reading ability

(above average, average or below average), McKenna et al. (1995) demonstrated that

declines in reading attitudes were related to reading ability. Although attitudes to both

academic and recreational reading declined with age, only the decline in recreational

reading attitude was related to reading ability, the attitudinal gap between low-ability and

high-ability readers widening with age. It appears that as students with low reading

ability progress through school, their interest in reading for pleasure declines sharply,

whereas students with high reading ability do not lose interest in reading to such a large

degree (Lazarus & Callahan, 2000; McKenna et al., 1995).

These findings are consistent with research on the academic interest and motivation of

children with learning disabilities. Children with learning disabilities tend to believe that

their academic performances are determined by an intrinsic lack of ability and that

academic achievement is something beyond their control (e.g. Jacobsen, Lowery &

DuCette, 1986; Pearl, 1982; Pressley, 2002). Children who have reading disabilities

therefore often believe that their reading ability is controlled by external factors, and that

reading is difficult and something they cannot master. Such low academic self-concept

may decrease children’s interest in reading and deter them from engaging in reading

activities (Chapman, Tunmer & Prochnow, 2000).

Most studies relating reading interest to reading ability have not been conducted

longitudinally, making it difficult to measure the predictive ability of reading interest on

reading ability and the directionality of the relationship. Olofsson and Nieders�e (1999),

however, conducted a longitudinal study in Denmark, assessing a variety of early

predictors of reading ability. They administered a questionnaire when the children were

in Grade 1, in which parents were asked to report their children’s interest in being read to

before and after age 5. The children’s interest in being read to in both periods was

correlated with their reading ability in Grade 4, as measured by the Danish SL40, in

which students were asked to read 40 sentences and find a picture that corresponded to

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 265

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each sentence (R2 5 .059 and .046, pso.001). Torppa et al. (2007) found that young

Finnish children’s preschool interest in reading (age 4–6, according to parent report) was

not predictive of early reading skill (age 6.5), but that it was related to earlier vocabulary

skills (age 3.5).

Although most of these studies show a positive relationship between reading interest

and reading ability, they have a number of weaknesses or limitations. These include use

of teacher report to measure reading ability (McKenna et al., 1995) or parent report to

measure reading interest (Olofsson & Nieders�e, 1999; Torppa et al., 2007); use of a

single measure of reading ability (McKenna et al., 1995; Olofsson & Nieders�e, 1999);

cross-sectional designs; and most have failed to control for possible confounding factors,

such as general cognitive ability or other cognitive skills. Research is needed to overcome

these weaknesses, to determine if reading interest makes a contribution to reading

development over and above those of the cognitive factors.

The present study

The goal of the present study is to provide more robust and comprehensive assessments

of the development of reading interest and its relationship with reading ability in the early

elementary school years. To avoid the pitfalls of teacher report or single measures and of

cross-sectional designs, we use a battery of five tests to assess participants’ reading

ability, and examine the relationship between reading interest and reading ability

longitudinally from Grades 1 to 3.

In attempting to understand the role of reading interest, and ultimately in trying to

address it in intervention studies, it is important to obtain a clear picture of its unique

effects. We sought to assess the contribution that reading interest makes to reading

development after accounting for other well-established factors. There is no shortage of

such factors (e.g. National Reading Panel, 2000). We chose four that have been shown to

be powerful predictors for beginning readers: general cognitive ability, socioeconomic

status (SES), phonological awareness and naming speed. General cognitive ability and

SES are general background factors, broadly associated with achievement (Cooper, Roth,

Speece & Schatschneider, 2002; Kirby & Hogan, 2008; Raz & Bryant, 1990; Stanovich,

2000; Stephenson, Parrila, Georgiou & Kirby, 2008) but with an uncertain causal status.

Both may be seen as distal factors, not directly involved in reading, or as proxies for a

range of other processes. Phonological awareness and naming speed, on the other hand,

are thought to be fundamentally involved in the processes of reading and are the main

factors in the Double Deficit theory of reading (Kirby, Parrila & Pfeiffer, 2003; National

Reading Panel, 2000; Wolf & Bowers, 1999). Phonological awareness is the sensitivity to

the sound structure of words and the ability to manipulate sounds in words (Adams, 1990;

Goswami & Bryant, 1990), and is thought to underlie understanding of the alphabetic

code and thus decoding. Phonological awareness predicts reading development, and

instruction in phonological awareness improves early reading achievement (e.g. National

Reading Panel, 2000). Naming speed is the ability to rapidly recognise and retrieve the

names of visually presented stimuli, including colours, pictures, digits and letters (Wolf

& Bowers, 1999). It too is a good predictor of reading development (e.g. Parrila, Kirby &

McQuarrie, 2004), but its precise role in reading and its causal status are less clear. It

accounts for unique variance in reading after accounting for general cognitive ability and

phonological awareness (Kirby et al., 2003; National Reading Panel, 2000; Wolf &

Bowers, 1999), but we are not aware of any training studies showing improvement in

266 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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naming speed leading to improved reading. We chose to measure these four predictors in

Kindergarten, before formal reading instruction began. We did this to minimise the

effects that reading instruction might have on the predictors.

Based on the existing research, we hypothesise that (a) reading interest will decline

over the Grades 1–3 period, (b) the decline will be more pronounced for less able readers,

(c) reading interest will be related to reading ability and (d) reading interest will have

unique predictive effects on reading ability after controlling general cognitive ability,

SES, phonological awareness and naming speed.

Method

Participants

The participants were 117 children, 55 males and 62 females, who began the study in

Kindergarten (mean age 5 67.0 months, SD 5 3.7 months) and stayed until they were in

Grade 3. The children came from schools in Kingston, Ontario and St Albert, Alberta,

which together represented a broad range of socioeconomic levels, ranging from upper

middle class to working class. According to Statistics Canada (2009), the Kingston region

had a median family income of CAN$67,908 in 2005, somewhat lower than the Ontario

median of CAN$69,156. The St Albert area had a higher median family income,

CAN$98,401, than its province’s median, CAN$73,823.

The children were participating in a broader study of reading development that focused

on the Double Deficit hypothesis (Wolf & Bowers, 1999). To obtain a sufficient number

of children at risk of reading difficulties (i.e. those low in either phonological awareness,

naming speed or both), we screened 450 children from 26 schools. We selected 212

children for the study; these included all those showing below average phonological

awareness or naming speed or both, plus a group of children showing average

phonological awareness or naming speed. We did not select average children whose

phonological awareness and naming speed scores could not be matched to scores in the

low phonological awareness or low naming speed groups; this was done so that if we

formed Double Deficit groups, high phonological awareness would have the same

meaning in both the average group and in the single risk low naming speed group and

high naming speed would have the same meaning in the average group and in the single

risk low phonological awareness group (see Kirby et al., 2003, for a discussion of why

balancing groups in this way is important). We also sought to separate the four Double

Deficit groups as much as possible, by not selecting children with scores at the averages.

This, however, had little effect because there were a great number of children at or near

the averages. The result was a sample that was approximately normally distributed on

both the phonological awareness and naming speed dimensions, which were correlated

r 5 .28.

Parental consent for continued participation in the study was obtained at the beginning

of every academic year. There was attrition each year, due to children moving out of the

school district, being absent for key assessments, parental decision not to continue and

lost consent forms. The final sample of 117 represents 55.2% of the 212 children who

began the study. The children who completed the study were not significantly different

from those who dropped out on the cognitive ability, SES or naming speed variables (all

tso1.5, all ps4.15); those whose dropped out had lower phonological awareness scores,

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 267

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t(211) 5 2.31, po.05 (this difference would be nonsignificant with a Bonferroni

correction). We report results only for those children (n 5 117) with complete data.

Measures

Reading interest. Participants’ interest in reading was assessed in early Grades 1–3 using

a modification of ERAS (McKenna & Kear, 1990). The original version of ERAS is a 20-

item survey consisting of 10 items measuring attitude towards academic reading and 10

items measuring attitude towards recreational reading. Eight of the 20 items were

selected for use in the current study, all of which were measures of attitude towards

recreational reading (e.g. ‘How do you feel about spending free time reading?’). We

selected recreational reading items because McKenna et al. (1995) had shown them to be

more indicative of reading difficulties with increasing grade. One of the items was

modified from its original version so that it read, ‘How do you feel about reading through

the weekend’ rather than ‘How do you feel about reading during summer vacation?’

because we thought the summer would be too distant for some children to remember.

The eight questions are listed in Table 1. After each question, as in the original ERAS, the

experimenter asked the participant to point to one of four pictures of Garfield that best

expressed the way the participant felt with regard to the question. Before the beginning of

the questionnaire, the experimenter explained to the child what feeling each of the four

pictures of Garfield represented. Garfield’s facial expressions ranged from ‘happiest’ to

‘saddest’. Each answer was scored using a range of 1 5 saddest to 4 5 happiest.

Cronbach’s a reliability coefficients from McKenna and Kear’s original study (1990)

ranged from .74 in Grade 1 to .89 in Grade 6.

Cognitive ability. General cognitive ability was assessed in Kindergarten with the

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III) and the Raven’s Coloured Progressive

Matrices (RCPM). The PPVT-III is a widely used measure of verbal ability in which the

child is told a word or a phrase and is asked to point to a corresponding picture, from four

possible choices (Dunn & Dunn, 1997). The RCPM is a 36-item measure of nonverbal

Table 1. Means and standard deviations (SD) for ERAS items and ERAS total score at each grade levela.

Questionb Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3

M SD M SD M SD

1. How do you feel about reading for fun at home?* 3.6 0.8 3.7 0.6 3.5 0.6

2. How do you feel about getting a book for a present?** 3.3 1.0 3.6 0.7 3.6 0.6

3. How do you feel about spending free time reading? 3.1 1.1 3.3 1.0 3.2 0.9

4. How do you feel about starting a new book?* 3.3 1.0 3.4 0.9 3.6 0.8

5. How do you feel about reading through the weekend? 2.9 1.2 2.8 1.1 2.7 1.0

6. How do you feel about reading instead of playing? 2.4 1.2 2.4 1.2 2.3 1.1

7. How do you feel about going to the library or to a bookstore?* 3.4 1.0 3.6 0.7 3.7 0.5

8. How do you feel about reading different kinds of books?** 3.4 0.9 3.6 0.8 3.4 0.8

ERAS total scorec 25.3 4.4 26.5 4.2 26.0 4.0

Note: ERAS, Elementary Reading Attitude Survey.aItems are scored on a scale of 1 5 saddest to 4 5 happiest.bAsterisks indicate items whose means changed significantly over time.cThe maximum score possible for the ERAS total score is 32.*po.05; **po.01.

268 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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ability in which the child must select an appropriate piece to complete a pattern (Raven,

Raven & Court, 1998).

SES. When participant children were in Kindergarten, a questionnaire was sent home for

parents to complete. Only measures of SES were used in this study: father’s education,

father’s occupation, mother’s education and mother’s occupation. Education was

measured on an 8-point scale, ranging from 1 5 some high school studies to

8 5 completed graduate or professional degree. Occupations were given a social status

rating (Blishen & McRoberts, 1976); those with uncertain social status (including ‘self-

employed’, ‘student’ and ‘home duties’) were given the mean of the distribution. The

four SES measures were entered into a principal components analysis and one factor was

extracted. This factor accounted for 51.3% of the variance and factor loadings ranged

from .64 to .77. Regression factor scores (M 5 0, SD 5 1.0) on this factor were used as

the measure of SES.

Phonological awareness. Children’s PA was assessed in Kindergarten with the Blending

Words and Phoneme Elision subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological

Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen & Rashotte, 1999). In the Blending Words test,

the experimenter orally presents individual sounds to the child, who is asked to blend

them together to create a word (e.g. ‘What word do these sounds make:/j/ - /u/ - /m/ - /p/?’).

The child is required to blend the sounds together to make a word. Testing ended once the

child made three consecutive errors. The score was the number of correct responses. The

test manual provides a Cronbach’s a estimate of internal consistency of .89 for 6-year-

olds. The Phoneme Elision task assesses children’s phonological awareness by asking

them to repeat a word after deleting a given phoneme. For example, if the experimenter

asks, ‘Say the word ‘cat’. Now say the word ‘cat’ without the/k/’, the correct response

would be ‘at’. The test was discontinued after the child responded incorrectly three

consecutive times and the total score was the number of correct responses. The manual

gives an a reliability coefficient of .92 for 6-year-olds. The Blending Words scores were

transformed with a square root transformation, following the guidelines of Tabachnick

and Fidell (2007) to correct a skewness problem. Following this, the two phonological

awareness measures were transformed into z-scores and these were averaged to form the

phonological awareness construct.

Naming speed. Children completed two naming speed tests in Kindergarten, the Rapid

Object Naming subtest from the CTOPP (Wagner et al., 1999) and an adapted version of

the CTOPP’s Rapid Colour Naming task. The Rapid Object Naming test requires

participants to name 36 objects (six objects repeated in random order) from left to right

and top to bottom, presented on a page, and then the same objects in a different order on a

second page. Rapid Colour Naming required participants to name 50 colour patches

presented on a computer screen (10 repetitions of green, yellow, black, red and blue in

random order), and then the same colour patches presented in a different random order on

a second screen. For each test, the score was the amount of time it took the child to name

all of the items. Errors were generally few (average of o2.0 per test) and were ignored.

Alternate forms reliability for Rapid Object Naming is .81 and for Rapid Colour Naming

.80 (Wagner et al., 1999). Following the guidelines of Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) both

naming speed measures required logarithmic transformations to correct skewness

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 269

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problems. After this, the two naming speed measures were transformed into z-scores and

these were averaged to form the naming speed construct.

Reading ability. Participants completed five measures of reading ability in Grades 1–3:

the Word Attack, Word Identification and Passage Comprehension subtests of the

Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests – Revised (Woodcock, 1998), the Test of Word

Reading Effectiveness (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner & Rashotte, 1999) and a measure of

Text Reading Speed. Word Attack and Word Identification were presented on a computer

screen. In Word Attack participants are asked to pronounce pseudowords and low-

frequency words (e.g. ‘ree’, ‘glack’); the score is the number of correct responses before

six errors are made, and the test manual (Woodcock, 1998) gives the split-half reliability

at Grade 3 as .91. In Word Identification participants are asked to read isolated words

aloud; the score is the number correct before six errors are made, and the manual gives

the alternative forms reliability as .97. Passage Comprehension requires participants to

read short passages silently and after each to report a word that could fill a blank space in

the passage (e.g. ‘A dog has _____ legs. [Four]’). The score is the number of correct

words supplied before six errors are made and the alternative forms reliability is given in

the manual as .92.

In the TOWRE, participants are asked to read as many words as possible in 45 seconds

from a list of 104 words increasing in difficulty. The total score is the number of words read

correctly in 45 seconds. The test–re-test reliability is .97 in Grade 3 (Torgesen et al., 1999).

For Text Reading Speed, we chose two passages (Stories 1 and 2) from Form B of the

Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-4; Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001) and asked children to

read them as quickly as possible. These texts are appropriate for beginning readers, and

were chosen to minimise decoding problems. We did not ask any comprehension

questions after the passages. The score was the number of words read correctly per

second, over both passages. Reliability for Text Reading Speed was estimated by

correlating the reading times on the two stories, r 5 .81, po.001.

To correct skewness problems, square root transformations were applied to the Word

Attack, Word Identification, TOWRE and Passage Comprehension scores, following the

guidelines of Tabachnick and Fidell (2007). Raw score means are presented in the results

but all analyses were performed with the transformed scores.

Procedure

Children were tested individually in a quiet room in their own school. Sessions ranged

from 20 to 50 minutes, depending on the child’s grade level and test performance.

Results

Reading interest

Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations for ERAS items and total score at each

grade level. To assess the reliability of the ERAS measure, a Cronbach’s a was computed

at each grade level. Values for Cronbach’s a were .67, .76 and .72 in Grades 1, 2 and 3,

respectively.

To evaluate developmental changes in reading interest over time, a one-way within-

subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted across grade levels with the

270 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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dependent variable being the ERAS total scores. The results indicated a significant main

effect for grade level, Wilks’ L5 .94, F(2, 115) 5 3.66, po.05. Follow-up polynomial

contrasts indicated a significant quadratic effect with means increasing slightly from

Grades 1 to 2 and decreasing slightly from Grades 2 to 3, F(1, 116) 5 4.96, po.05, partial

Z2 5 .04. Although a significant quadratic effect was found, the means were relatively

high at each grade level and remained fairly stable, with the lowest mean score being

25.3, in Grade 1, and the highest being 26.5, in Grade 2, out of a maximum possible score

of 32.

Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted on each item to examine longitudinal

trends in reading interest at the item level. It should be noted that many of the items

showed significant deviations from normality. To maintain comparability across items

and grades, we decided not to transform any of the item-level data; the lack of

transformations is more likely to weaken the results we report. Out of the eight items on

the ERAS questionnaire, five had significant changes in scores over time: ‘How do you

feel about reading for fun at home?’, Wilks’ L5 .95, F(2, 115) 5 3.17, po.05; ‘How do

you feel about getting a book for a present?’, Wilks’ L5 .92, F(2, 115) 5 4.93, po.01;

‘How do you feel about starting a new book?’, Wilks’ L5 .94, F(2, 115) 5 3.75, po.05;

‘How do you feel about going to the library or to a bookstore?’, Wilks’ L5 .93,

F(2, 115) 5 4.53, po.05; and ‘How do you feel about reading different kinds of books?’,

Wilks’ L5 .92, F(2, 115) 5 5.00, po.01. The Wilks’ L figures, which estimate the

proportion of variance not explained by time, indicate that the changes across time were

small in magnitude.

Polynomial contrasts were conducted on these five items to determine the nature of the

changes over time. The first of the five items did not yield any significant polynomial

contrasts. Three of the four remaining items had significant linear effects, increasing over

time: ‘How do you feel about getting a book for a present?’, F(1, 116) 5 8.63, po.01,

partial Z2 5 .07; ‘How do you feel about starting a new book?’, F(1, 116) 5 7.293,

po.01, partial Z2 5 .06; and ‘How do you feel about going to the library or to a

bookstore?’, F(1, 116) 5 9.08, po.01, partial Z2 5 .07. The final item on which responses

changed significantly over time, ‘How do you feel about reading different kinds of

books?’, did not yield a significant linear effect, F(1, 116) 5 .29, p4.05, partial Z2 5 .00;

however, it did have a significant quadratic effect with means increasing from Grades 1 to

2 and decreasing from Grades 2 to 3, F(1, 116) 5 9.84, po.01, partial Z2 5 .08. Again

none of these effects is large in magnitude.

Reading ability

Means and SDs for the five Grade 3 reading ability measures are shown in Table 2.

Comparison with the norms in the test manuals (Torgesen et al., 1999; Woodcock, 1998)

Table 2. Means and standard deviations for Grade 3 reading ability measures (n 5 117).

Measure M SD

Word Attack 24.1 9.7

Word Identification 60.6 15.0

Passage Comprehension 31.2 7.1

TOWRE 56.1 15.2

Text Reading Speed 2.2 0.8

Note: TOWRE, Test of Word Reading Effectiveness.

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 271

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indicated that the sample attained grade-equivalent scores appropriate for children at the

Grade 3 level: Word Identification 3.3, Word Attack 4.3, Passage Comprehension 3.4 and

TOWRE 3.4. Correlations between the reading measures ranged from .63 to .87, and are

shown in Table 3. A principal components analysis was used to generate an overall

reading ability score. The five Grade 3 reading measures formed one factor; factor

loadings ranged from .86 to .93, accounting for 80.3% of the variance. A regression factor

score was calculated representing reading ability (M 5 0, SD 5 1.0).

Interest and reading ability

To analyse the relation between reading interest and reading ability, correlation

coefficients were computed between ERAS total scores at each grade level and the Grade

3 reading ability measures (see Table 4). Most of these correlations were small, ranging

in size from .06 to .28, but a number were statistically significant, particularly those from

Grade 1.

To evaluate the hypothesis that changes in reading interest between grade levels would

vary depending upon reading ability, participants were divided into low (N 5 58) and

high (N 5 59) reading ability groups at the median of the Grade 3 reading ability factor

score. A 3(grade) � 2(ability) mixed-model ANOVA was conducted with the within-

subjects factor being grade level (1, 2, 3), the between-subjects factor being final ability

(high, low) and the dependent variable being ERAS total score. As found previously, the

Grade main effect was significant, L5 .94, F(2, 114) 5 3.66, po.05, as was the effect of

Ability F(1, 115) 5 12.84, po.001, partial Z2 5 .10. The Grade � Ability interaction,

however, was not significant, L5 1.00, F(2, 114) 5 .27, p4.05, indicating that

Table 3. Correlations among the Grade 3 outcome variables.

Word Attack Word Identification Passage Comprehension TOWRE

Word Attack –

Word Identification .87*** –

Passage Comprehension .70*** .76*** –

TOWRE .76*** .80*** .77*** –

Text Reading Speed .63*** .71*** .71*** .81***

Note: TOWRE, Test of Word Reading Effectiveness.***po.001.

Table 4. Correlations between ERAS total scores and reading ability measures at each grade level.

ERAS total score

Grade 3 Reading Ability Test Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3

Word Attack .22* .09 .06

Word Identification .25** .14 .14

Passage Comprehension .18* .10 .14

TOWRE .16 .22* .18

Text Reading Speed .28** .19* .15

Reading ability factor score .24** .17 .15

Note: ERAS, Elementary Reading Attitude Survey; TOWRE, Test of Word Reading Effectiveness.*po.05; **po.01.

272 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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developmental changes in reading interest were the same for students of high and low

reading ability. Figure 1 shows that the developmental changes in reading interest for

students in the high and low reading ability groups are parallel.

Prediction of reading ability

Five hierarchical regression analyses, one for each Grade 3 reading outcome variable,

were conducted. Each analysis had three steps: cognitive ability and SES from

Kindergarten were entered in the first step to control for general ability and family

background, Phonological Awareness and Naming Speed scores from Kindergarten were

entered at step 2 to assess the effects of these cognitive predictors and ERAS total scores

(from Grades 1–3) were entered in successive models at step 3, so that the unique effects

of reading interest could be determined. The Raven’s mean was 17.7 (SD 5 4.7), and that

of the PPVT-III 88.1 (SD 5 15.7). The SES score was a factor score and so had a mean of

0.0 and SD of 1.0. The PA and Naming Speed scores were averaged z-scores; each had a

mean of 0.0 and SD of 0.9.

Regression analysis results are presented in Table 5, which shows standardised bcoefficients for each predictor at the step when it entered the model, and changes in R2

associated with each step. These results indicate that the predictors of steps one and two

made significant contributions to each of the outcomes. Consistent with previous research

(e.g. Kirby et al., 2003), phonological awareness was the more powerful kindergarten

predictor of word reading accuracy and comprehension, though naming speed had

significant effects on word and text reading speed.

Grade 1 ERAS scores made a significant unique contribution in step 3 when predicting

Word Identification and TOWRE, R2 change 5 .03, F(1, 110) 5 4.91, po.05 and R2

change 5 .03, F(1, 110) 5 6.16, po.05, respectively, but not when predicting the other

three outcome variables. When Grade 2 ERAS scores were used instead, the Word

Identification effect became nonsignificant, but the Text Reading Speed effect, R2

change 5 .04, F(1, 110) 5 6.56, po.05, attained significance. Because the Grade 2 ERAS

scores deviated significantly from normality, they were transformed with a square root

transformation, which eliminated the skewness and kurtosis problems, and the

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

1 2 3

Grade

Mea

n E

RA

S S

core

s

high

low

Figure 1. Developmental changes in mean Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) scores based on

reading ability. Y-error bars indicate standard error of the mean at each grade.

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 273

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regressions were re-run. Results were very similar to those reported in Table 5; the only

differences that affected interpretation were (a) the b for Word Identification changed

from .14 to .15, now reaching significance (po.05), and (b) the b for Text Reading Speed

went from .19 to .20, with significance changing from the .05 to the .01 levels. Finally,

when Grade 3 ERAS was used in step 3, none of its effects was significant.

Three other series of hierarchical regression analyses (not reported here) were carried

out, to investigate whether the lack of reading interest effects was due to the presence of

particular predictors in the model. When phonological awareness and naming speed were

eliminated, the pattern of results was essentially the same as reported in Table 5, except

that Grade 2 ERAS had a significant effect on Word Identification. When SES was also

eliminated, the results remained the same, the largest ERAS effect being from Grade 2 on

Text Reading Speed, R2 change 5 .05. Finally when the two measures of intelligence

were dropped from the original model, the results were again very similar: Word

Identification and TOWRE were predicted by the Grade 1 ERAS score, and only Text

Reading Speed by the Grade 2 ERAS score. In this analysis the largest ERAS effect was

from Grade 1 on TOWRE, R2 change 5 .04.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental changes in reading interest, and

to explore how reading interest related to reading ability. The hypotheses were that (a)

reading interest would decline with grade, (b) the decline would be more pronounced for

less able readers, (c) reading interest would be related to reading ability and (d) reading

interest would have unique predictive effects on reading ability after controlling general

cognitive ability, SES, phonological awareness and naming speed. Some of the

hypotheses were supported, while others were not.

Table 5. Summary of hierarchical regression analyses predicting reading ability from Grades 1–3 reading

interest, controlling for cognitive ability, SES, PA and NS.

Word Attack Word

Identification

Passage

Comprehension

TOWRE Text Reading

Speed

Step Predictor ba DR2 ba DR2 ba DR2 ba DR2 ba DR2

1 RCPM .37*** .43*** .30*** .30*** .36***

PPVT .11 .17 .48*** .25** .20*

SES .19* .27*** .13 .34*** .07 .50*** .12 .29*** .10 .28***

2 NS .08 .10 .12 .20* .24**

PA .30** .08** .29*** .08*** .23** .06*** .25** .09*** .22* .09***

3a ERAS

(Grade 1)

.13 .02 .16* .03* .07 .01 .19* .03* .06 .00

3b ERAS

(Grade 2)

.08 .01 .14 .02 .07 .01 .16* .02* .19* .04*

3c ERAS

(Grade 3)

.02 .00 .09 .01 .08 .01 .11 .01 .14 .02

Note: RCPM, Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices; PPVT, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; SES,Socioeconomic Status; PA, Phonological Awareness; NS, Naming Speed.ab coefficients are from the step at which the predictor entered the model.*p3 � .05; **p � .01; ***p � .001.

274 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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Development of reading interest

The hypothesis that participants’ interest in reading would decline from Grades 1 to 3 was

not confirmed. Unlike previous research indicating that reading interest declines over the

early elementary years (e.g. Lazarus & Callahan, 2000; McKenna et al., 1995; Wigfield et

al., 1997), we found that students’ interest in reading increased slightly from Grades 1 to

2 and then decreased slightly from Grades 2 to 3, and that this happened for both

relatively good and poor readers. When the reading interest measure, ERAS, was

examined at the item level, it was found that five of the eight items’ mean scores changed

significantly over time. Of these items, three were found to have significant linear

increases over time, and one was found to have a significant quadratic effect with means

increasing from Grades 1 to 2 and decreasing from Grades 2 to 3.

Although there was a significant quadratic effect for mean ERAS scores between Grades

1 and 3, reading interest remained relatively high and stable across these three grades. This

pattern was similar to that found by McKenna et al. (1995) for their above average readers.

Such high and stable scores on the reading interest measure may indicate a ceiling effect for

participants’ responses on the ERAS items. The ERAS response scale only has four units;

participant responses may have been more variable with a larger scale. On six of the eight

items, mean scores were between 3 and 4 at every grade. The only two exceptions were

‘How do you feel about reading through the weekend?’ and ‘How do you feel about

reading instead of playing?’, which had mean scores between 2 and 3.

The question, ‘How do you feel about reading instead of playing?’ yielded the lowest

scores at every grade level. This question was the only one that included a direct contrast,

whereby participants had to choose specifically between reading and another activity. Studies

have indicated that students’ interest in reading declines as they become more interested in

other activities (e.g. Anderson, Tollefson & Gilbert, 1985; Wigfield et al., 1997). This item

may have yielded the lowest ERAS scores because participants were required to think about

whether or not they prefer reading to other activities. In everyday life, children make

decisions about whether to engage in reading or in other activities. As such, questions that

provide this contrast might reflect children’s interest in reading more accurately.

Although it was hypothesised that longitudinal change in reading interest would vary

depending on reading ability, no interaction between Grade and Ability was found when

measuring ERAS scores. Reading interest was lower for low-ability participants

compared to high-ability participants at each grade level, but changes over time closely

paralleled each other. The interaction between Grade and Ability may become significant

in higher grades, as students’ academic self-concepts become more well defined

(Chapman et al., 2000). The point at which academic self-concepts and reading

performance begin to influence each other has yet to be established; some studies indicate

the emergence of significant relations between academic self-concepts and reading

performance in the second year of schooling while others indicate that this relationship

only emerges in the fourth year (Chapman et al., 2000). The point at which it occurs may

depend upon a complex interaction of home, school and individual factors.

It is also important to remember that we did not use the entire ERAS questionnaire,

only eight of the items concerning recreational reading. McKenna et al. (1995) found

scores on the recreational reading items to decline less steeply with grade than those on

academic reading items (see their figure 4). Although more decline may have been

observed after Grade 3, it was in the early elementary years, Grades 1–4 that Wigfield

et al. (1997) observed the largest decline. The eight items used in this study showed

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 275

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adequate reliability, and correlated with reading ability to a similar degree to which they

had in previous studies (see next section).

There is no clear explanation for the difference between the developmental results found

here and those in previous studies. The children in the present study performed at their

grade level on the reading ability measures, and the children with the highest phonological

awareness and naming speed scores were not selected to participate in the study, so

the difference cannot be due to ability differences. The most plausible interpretation is that

the differences are due to differences between the home and educational backgrounds of the

various samples. It is possible, for instance, that the teachers of the children in the present

study have designed language arts curricula that maintain children’s interest in reading

better than in the children participating in previous studies. But this is only speculation.

Reading interest and reading ability

As hypothesised, reading interest was significantly correlated with reading ability,

primarily when interest was measured in Grade 1. These correlations were relatively

weak and inconsistent across reading measures, but their magnitude (around .2) is

comparable to those found in previous studies (e.g. Askov & Fishbach, 1973; Baker &

Wigfield, 1999; Olofsson & Nieders�e, 1999). These correlations, even though they are

weak, indicate that the children with the least interest in reading also tended to be those

with the lowest reading ability (we confirmed this by selecting a subsample with the

lowest interest scores, in an analysis not reported here). But these correlations are due in

part to the overlap between interest and the other predictors, all of which were measured

before formal reading instruction began. The better test of the effects of reading interest is

in the regression analyses.

The results of the hierarchical regression analyses indicated that reading interest

measured in Grade 1 predicted reading ability above and beyond general cognitive

ability, SES, phonological awareness and naming speed when word reading accuracy

(Word Identification) and word reading fluency (TOWRE) were used as the reading

ability measure, and that reading interest measured in Grade 2 predicted reading ability

above and beyond the same four factors when word reading fluency and Text Reading

Speed were used as the outcomes; word reading accuracy was also significant when the

Grade 2 reading interest variable was transformed. However, results were not strong

(accounting at most for an additional 4% of the variance) or consistent across outcome

measures, and reading interest measured in Grade 3 did not predict reading ability above

the other factors. That the unique effects of reading interest are not large is not surprising,

because the other variables are well-established predictors and have already accounted

for 35 to 56% of the variance before reading interest entered the models. It is more

surprising that reading interest did not predict the measure of reading comprehension

(Passage Comprehension). Clearly the relationship between reading interest and reading

ability is not as strong as that between the other predictors and reading ability, and the

relationship that exists overlaps considerably with the other predictors.

It is curious that both the correlation and regression analyses showed that reading

interest measured in Grade 1 had stronger effects than when measured later. If anything,

we would have expected stronger relations later, after children had more experience of

learning to read and after developing a more robust academic self-concept (Chapman et

al., 2000); it would also make sense for concurrent measures (Grade 3 interest and ability)

to be more strongly related than measures separated by 2 years (Grade 1 interest and

276 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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Grade 3 ability). One possible explanation is that the effects of reading interest take some

time to affect reading ability: lowered reading interest may affect reading engagement

quickly, but that in turn will not diminish children’s relative position in reading ability for

several years. The consequences of lower reading interest in Grade 3 may not become

apparent in reading ability until later grades.

There was no single type of predictor that was responsible for the weak and

inconsistent effects of reading interest on reading ability. Whether we removed

phonological awareness and naming speed, or SES, or general ability, similar weak

and inconsistent effects were found. Our conclusion is that the zero-order relationship

(with no other predictors controlled, as shown by the correlations) is weak, and that much

of this relationship overlaps with other, stronger predictors.

Our results are limited of course by the measures of reading interest that we used. We

chose measures of interest in recreational reading because of the results of previous

studies (Lazarus & Callahan, 2000; McKenna et al., 1995); different results may have

occurred with the full ERAS questionnaire. It may also be possible that questionnaires

such as ERAS will never be able to provide a full picture of children’s interest in reading.

It may be useful in future studies to expand the nature of the questionnaires, to include

more detailed examples of reading (such as being read to, reading on a computer, etc.),

and to combine questionnaire measures with observational measures.

What accounts for the relationship, albeit weak, between reading interest and reading

ability, and the overlap with other predictors? We suggest that interest and ability are

reciprocally related, mediated perhaps through engagement in reading and/or amount of

reading, but that ability is affected by the other characteristics we measured, that is, general

cognitive ability, SES, phonological awareness and naming speed. Thus although interest

and ability will generally go hand in hand, ability has already been constrained by the other

factors. Even a high degree of interest is unlikely to compensate entirely for low mental

ability or the inability to decode words. Furthermore, reading engagement is seldom left

entirely up to the child: both parents and teachers will encourage or even require a certain

amount of reading, which may mitigate the worst effects of low reading interest. In this way,

reading interest has at best a weak relationship to reading ability (as shown by the

correlations in this and previous studies, e.g. Askov & Fishbach, 1973; Baker & Wigfield,

1999; Olofsson & Nieders�e, 1999; Torppa et al., 2007) and much of this relationship

overlaps with effects of other variables with stronger or more direct effects on ability.

Do these results imply that interest in reading is unimportant? We think not.

Correlation and regression results are only valid over the range in which they were

studied. The children in the present study had a fairly high degree of interest in reading

(as shown by the means in Table 1), and it may be that variation around these high levels

is not important, at least not for the outcomes we measured. Substantially lower levels of

interest could have more serious implications for reading engagement and ability.

Maintaining a positive level of interest in reading is a reasonable component of reading

instruction. The present results do not argue either for abandoning this goal or for

pursuing it at the cost of lessening attention to the development of reading skills. In this

study, the background variables (cognitive ability, SES) and the cognitive variables

(phonological awareness and naming speed) were more powerfully predictive of reading

ability than was reading interest. We suggest that instructional effort be focused on the

cognitive factors, because there is more evidence that they can have a direct effect on

reading ability, but that this should take place within the context of maintaining

children’s positive interest in reading.

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Future research

Because this study yielded some weak but statistically significant results, future research

should replicate the current study with more elaborate and sophisticated measures of

reading interest. Furthermore, future research should analyse the relationship between

reading interest and reading ability from preschool to Grade 6, controlling for factors

such as those we included here, to provide a more thorough account of developmental

trends in reading interest and how these trends relate to reading ability. It would be

important to investigate the origins of reading interest in the home, addressing factors

such as preschool print exposure, amount of reading in the home, the nature of parent–

child reading and whether parents actively teach reading skills. It may be useful to seek

out children with the lowest levels of interest in reading, to investigate their background

and their academic trajectory. Torppa et al.’s (2007) finding that preschool reading

interest in at-risk children is related to earlier vocabulary skills and shared reading at

home provides several suggestions for further research and intervention.

Lastly, research should be conducted to determine if interventions which increase

children’s interest in reading have an impact on their reading ability. Because reading

interest was found to predict some aspects of reading ability after controlling for other

factors, interventions targeted at increasing children’s interest in reading may in turn

increase their reading performance, particularly in the early elementary years.

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John R. Kirby is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education at Queen’sUniversity, Canada. His research interests concern cognitive processes in reading, learningdisabilities, comprehension and learning. Current projects include the study of morphology inreading, the effect of naming speed on reading development, and depth of processing incomprehension and learning.

READING INTEREST AND READING ABILITY 279

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Angela Ball and B. Kelly Geier were students in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University,Canada at the time of study.

Rauno Parrila is Professor of Education Psychology at the University of Alberta. His researchinterests are in psychological, linguistic and social correlates of both typical and atypicaldevelopment of academic skills, particularly reading.

Lesly Wade-Woolley is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University. Herresearch in reading and reading difficulties has focused on children and adults, in both nativelanguage and second language contexts. Her current research interests focus on the role of prosodyin reading.

Received 8 October 2009; revised version received 15 January 2010.

Address for correspondence: John R. Kirby, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON,

Canada K7M SR7. E-mail: john.kirby@queensu.ca

280 KIRBY, BALL, GEIER, PARRILA and WADE-WOOLLEY

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