This article was downloaded by: [University of Auckland Library]On: 25 November 2014, At: 15:16Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 MortimerStreet, London W1T 3JH, UK

Educational ReviewPublication details, includinginstructions for authors and subscriptioninformation:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedr20

THE RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN READINGACHIEVEMENT ANDVOLUNTARY READING OFCHILDREND. V. Connor aa Department of Public Instruction ,QueenslandPublished online: 06 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: D. V. Connor (1954) THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEENREADING ACHIEVEMENT AND VOLUNTARY READING OF CHILDREN,Educational Review, 6:3, 221-227, DOI: 10.1080/0013191540060308

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013191540060308

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy ofall the information (the “Content”) contained in the publicationson our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and ourlicensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever asto the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose ofthe Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publicationare the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the viewsof or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verifiedwith primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not

be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands,costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with,in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and privatestudy purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply,or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEENREADING ACHIEVEMENT AND

VOLUNTARY READING OF CHILDRENby D. V. CONNOR

Department of Public Instruction, Queensland

I . INTRODUCTION

THE enormous literature on the reading achievement of childrenreveals a shift in emphasis from the study of the formalreading processes and materials to an examination of the effect

of the wider environment of the home and community on readingskills. In Britain, the excellent reviews and investigations by theScottish Council for Research in Education on children's readinghabits and interests, and on the effect of socio-economic status ontheir reading attainment have pointed the way to more recent workof this nature. Particular types of studies arising out of Jenkinson'soriginal survey are those of Wall (1948), Stewart (1950), Williams(1951) and Pond (1952). These workers surveyed the readinginterests and leisure activities of adolescents with a view to examiningthe impact of such influences as the radio, cinema and television onreading activities. In America, interest in children's reading choiceswas originated and sustained in the Columbia studies of Dunn (1921),Jordan (1927), Lazar (1937), Thorndike (1941), and Wollner (1949).In a review of research in reading in high school and college, Davis(1952) shows that increasing attention is being given to measurementand experiment in the field of reading preferences and interests.

2. THE PRESENT PROBLEM

The experiment about to be described was carried out to discoverwhether good readers in school, as judged by reading achievementtests, are the ones who have access to, and in fact, do read a greatdeal of good quality supplementary material. The subjects compriseda group of 115 boys and 99 girls, 12 years old, drawn from threeschools in a metropolitan residential-industrial area. Readingachievement was assessed by Parts 1, 2 and 4 of the A.C.E.R.Reading Tests, and intelligence by the Otis Intermediate and theA.C.E.R. Non-verbal tests.

E 221

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

222 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

Two instruments for the assessment of voluntary reading habitsand interests were constructed, viz. (i) quality of reading material,and (2) quantity of reading material. The former probed the sources,availability and quality of the reading matter, and the latter, theamount of material and the frequency and intensity with which itwas read. Both instruments were framed in the form of a question-naire-cum-rating scale of which the following are examples ofindividual items:

(1) How do you read—Comics ( ); Newspapers ( ); Books ofPlays ( ); Weeklies and Magazines ( );Story Books ( ); Poetry Books ( ); Geo-graphy and History Books ( ).

Put 1 if you, Look at the pictures only.,, 2 if you, Glance through, reading some.„ 3 if you, Read parts here and there.„ 4 if you, Read most of it.,, 5 if you, Read absolutely everything.

(2) Do you take library Never; Sometimes; Fairly often; Quite abooks home from lot; As much as you possibly can.school to read?

(3) How many magazines None; 1 now and again;do you read a week? 1 or 2; 3 or 4; 5 or more.

In addition, an instrument similar in form to the above wasconstructed for measuring the background experiences of the sub-jects. This enabled an examination of the relationship of these back-ground experiences to both reading habits and reading achievement.

The reliability of the above instruments as assessed by the test-retest method was found to be -89 for the quality of reading material,•90 for quantity of reading material, and -84 for background experi-ences. Validity of the instruments was estimated by (1) using thetotal score as criterion, and (2) using the home visit and interviewas the criterion.

With regard to (1), the validity of quality and quantity of readingmaterial was estimated by the McCall-Long-Bliss technique, andbackground of experiences by an adaptation of Kelley's upper andlower thirds technique as applied by Guilford (1941). This analysisrevealed that 63 of the 67 items are significantly or adequately valid.With regard to (2), validation by means of a follow-up interview withthe parents in 33 of the cases yielded an average correlation of -83between the subjects' performances on the three tests and the data

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

READING: ACHIEVEMENT AND VOLUNTARY 223revealed in the parental interview. An evaluation of the reliabilityand validity of the reading achievement and intelligence tests can befound in the manuals accompanying these tests and they are con-sidered to be satisfactory.

After administration of the tests, the scores of the questionnairedevices were secured in the form of a five-point scale, thus followingLikert's principle of assigning sigma values to each continuum. Theitems were then added to form a total score. In the case of thoseitems which do not assume a normal distribution in their rankings1 to 5, and these are few, McNemar (1946) has pointed out that itseems safe to consider them additive on the basis of the Likerttechnique and to include them in the total. The scores of the readingachievement tests and both intelligence tests were retained in raw-score form because of the restriction of the group to a very narrowage range. A composite score for intelligence was secured by weight-ing the A.C.E.R. Non-verbal test and the Otis test in the ratio of3 : 2 respectively. After a test of the differences between the meanreading achievement of each of the three schools had been made bythe analysis of variance technique, it was found that the differenceswere not highly significant and, therefore, the scores for all threeschools for all tests were pooled for the main analysis.

3. ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

The group of 214 pupils was divided into three sub-groupsaccording to whether the pupils were being subjected to the "treat-ments" of good, medium, or bad reading habits. This was done onthe basis of the scores obtained in the questionnaire devices. Anattempt was then made to equate these three groups on the variablesof age, grade, sex, intelligence and socio-economic level, thus leavingthe independent variable of reading habits and the dependentvariable of reading achievement available for further examination.

TABLE IMATCHING OF THE GROUPS—DIFFERENTIATED

MatchingCriterion

Size of groupGrade - -Sex - -Age - -Intelligence

OF READING AND HABITS

Quality of GroupsGroup A Good Group B Medium

5° 50VI VI

25 boys, 25 girls 25 boys, 25 girls^^150-92=3-47 M=i5o-5=3-28M=83-8 = 10-29 M=83-6 = II-OI

ON THE BASIS

Group C Poor5°VI

25 boys, 25 girlsM—151-1 =3-64M=82-4=9-6

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

224 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

Age, grade, and to a certain extent socio-economic status, had beenequalised in the original sampling by restricting the subjects to12-year-olds, to Grade VI, and to a residential-industrial arearespectively. The method of "paired comparisons" was then usedto equate the groups on intelligence and sex. During this matchingprocess, the number of subjects was reduced to 150. A summary ofthe groups matched on the variables discussed is shown in Table I.

The effect of the "treatment" of good, medium, and poor readinghabits, as indicated by the threefold division of the whole group,was then examined by subjecting the scores of each group on thedependent variable of reading achievement to an analysis of variance.The results are contained in Table II . This indicates a significant

TABLE II

ANALYSIS OF THE MEANS OF THE THREE EXPERIMENTAL GROUPS

FOR SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN READING ACHIEVEMENT

d.f. Sum of Squares VarianceMethods - 2 5406 2703Within groups - - 148 34°33 229'95

lS° 39439

F Ratio = 11 "75

difference between the mean scores for each of the groups at the i %level of confidence. The "t" test was then applied to each of themeans with the results as shown in Table III .

TABLE IIICOMPARISON OF DIFFERENCE OF MEANS FOR EACH

W(2 )(3)

Groups

Good and MediumMedium and PoorGood and Poor

Differencein Mean

6-688-i5

14-83

Difference

3-243-243-24

EXPERIMENTAL

t score

2-062-51

4-58

GROUP

P#05•02•01

This shows significant differences between the various groups butwith varying degrees of confidence. The degree of relationshipbetween reading habits and reading achievement, for the wholegroup of 214 cases, was found to be -58, and with intelligence heldconstant, the figure was -45.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

R E A D I N G : A C H I E V E M E N T A N D V O L U N T A R Y 225

4. THE SUBSIDIARY PROBLEM

In order to examine whether the good readers were those withrich backgrounds of experience, the scores on Test No. 3, backgroundexperiences, and reading achievement were correlated and found tobe -24. This is not significant at the 1% level of confidence. Inaddition, the correlation between the word knowledge section of thereading achievement test, and background experiences was -22.

It is held, and on good evidence, that a child's background ofexperiences is highly related to both his vocabulary and readingachievement. Schonell (1948) has found that an impoverished cul-tural and experiential background is associated with a poor readingvocabulary, thereby supporting common observation and the insightof teachers generally. A possible explanation of the low relationshipfound in this investigation is that background influences which con-tributed to reading skill in earlier years are no longer significantfactors in development of the skill with the present subjects who arein the adolescent stage. For example, it is feasible that children ofthis age are now able to extend their horizons vicariously, throughthe very reading material. This is in itself a cumulative cause of skillin reading, rather than any dependence on the widening of physicalenvironment—a factor more significant in the earlier stages.

5. DISCUSSION

The above evidence has shown that the good readers are the oneswho also read more and better quality reading material, and poorreaders read less and poorer quality material. Although this relation-ship has been revealed, it is not known whether this is a causalrelationship, nor have the dependent and independent variables beenexactly identified and controlled. For example, it may well be thatthe cause and effect relationship is reversed, that is, that good readingachievement tends to cause children to select or have at their disposal"good" reading material, and to engage in good reading habits,rather than vice versa. A differently designed experiment would beneeded to determine this. However, it can be validly concluded thatgood readers do read plenty of good quality material, or that thosewho read a large amount of good quality material are good readers.

6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

After a short review of the measurement of children's voluntaryreading habits, an experiment on the relationship between vol-untary reading habits and reading achievement is described.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

226 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

The subjects were 214 12-year-old children from a residential-industrial area of a large city. The construction of three instrumentsfor the measurement of quality and quantity of voluntary readingmaterial and background experiences is described. The tests areevaluated as to their reliability and validity with this group of sub-jects. These tests, together with two tests of intelligence and one ofreading achievement were then applied and the data was analysedby the analysis of variance technique.

Significant differences were revealed between the reading achieve-ment of groups subjected to good, medium, and poor "treatments"of reading habits and interests. The correlation between readinghabits and interests and reading achievement, with intelligence heldconstant, was found to be -45. Some limitations of the design of theexperiment were then pointed out.

The subsidiary problem of the relationship between readinghabits and interests, and background experiences was then examined,and so significant relationship was found for this group.

From this evidence, conclusions can be drawn as follows:

1. It is possible to measure, reliably and validly, individualdifferences in children with regard to the quality and amountof their voluntary reading material and reading habits; alsowith regard to their background experiences.

2. There is a positive and fairly large relationship between thesereading habits and interests and reading achievement, but theactual nature of the relationship is indeterminate.

3. Reading achievement is very little related to the experientialbackground of this 12-year-old group.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to thank Professor F. J. Schonell, Dean of the Faculty ofEducation, University of Queensland, for supervision of the researchand assistance in preparing the manuscript.

REFERENCESDavis, F. B. (1952), "Research in Reading in High School and College''

(Rev. of Ed. Res., Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 76-88).Dunn, F. W. (1921), "Interest Factors in Primary Reading Materials"

(Teach. Coll. Contributs. to Ed., No. 113, Columb. Univ., New York).Guilford, J. P. (1941), "The Phi-coefficient and Chi-Square as Indices of

Item Validity" (Psychometrika, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 11-19).Jordan, A. M. (1927), "Children's Interests in Reading" (Teach. Coll.

Contributs. to Ed., No. 107, Columb. Univ., New York).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014

READING: ACHIEVEMENT AND VOLUNTARY 227

Lazar, M. (1937), "Reading Interests, Activities and Opportunities of Bright,Average and Dull Children" (Teach. Coll. Contributs. to Ed., No. 707,Columb. Univ., New York).

McNemar, Q. (1946), "Opinion-Attitude Methodology" (Psychol. Bull.,Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 289-374).

Pond, F. L. (1952), "A Simplified Method for Scoring an Inventory ofReading Experiences" (Journ. Ed. Res., Vol. 45, No. 8, pp. 585-597).

Schonell, F. J. (1948), "Recent Developments in Educational Research"(Brit. Journ. Ed. Psy., Vol. 18, pp. 1-15).

Stewart, M. (1950), "The Leisure Activities of Grammar School Children"(Brit. Journ. Ed. Psy., Vol. 20, pp. 11-34).

Thorndike, R. L. (1941), "Comparative Study of Children's ReadingInterests" (Teach. Coll. Contributs. to Ed., No. 788, Columb. Univ., NewYork).

Wall, W. D. (1948), "The Newspaper Reading of Adolescents and Adults"(Brit. Journ. Ed. Psy., Vol. 18, pp. 26-40, 87-104).

Williams, A. R. (1951), "The Magazine Reading of Secondary SchoolChildren" (Brit. Journ. Ed. Psy., Vol. 21, pp. 186-198).

Wollner, M. H. B. (1949), Children's Voluntary Reading as an Expressionof Individuality (Teach. Coll. Contributs. to Ed., No. 944, Columb. Univ.,New York).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f A

uckl

and

Lib

rary

] at

15:

16 2

5 N

ovem

ber

2014