Why do children read more? The influence of reading ability on voluntary reading practices

Abstract

Background: This study investigates the causal relationships between reading and print exposure and investigates whether the amount children read outside school determines how well they read, or vice versa. Previous findings from behavioural studies suggest that reading predicts print exposure. Here, we use twin-data and apply the behaviourgenetic approach of direction of causality modelling, suggested by Heath et al. (1993), to investigate the causal relationships between these two traits. Method: Partial data were available for a large sample of twin children (N = 11,559) and 262 siblings, all enrolled in the Netherlands Twin Register. Children were assessed around 7.5 years of age. Mothers completed questionnaires reporting children's time spent on reading activities and reading ability. Additional information on reading ability was available through teacher ratings and performance on national reading tests. For siblings reading test, results were available. Results: The reading ability of the twins was comparable to that of the siblings and national norms, showing that twin findings can be generalized to the population. A measurement model was specified with two latent variables, Reading Ability and Print Exposure, which correlated .41. Heritability analyses showed that Reading Ability was highly heritable, while genetic and environmental influences were equally important for Print Exposure. We exploited the fact that the two constructs differ in genetic architecture and fitted direction of causality models. The results supported a causal relationship running from Reading Ability to Print Exposure. Conclusions: How much and how well children read are moderately correlated. Individual differences in print exposure are less heritable than individual differences in reading ability. Importantly, the present results suggest that it is the children's reading ability that determines how much they choose to read, rather than vice versa.

Psycholinguistic and socioemotional characteristics of young offenders: Do language abilities and gender matter?

“…This suggests the effect ran from reading skill to print exposure between the ages of 10 and 11 years (Harlaar, Deater‐Deckard, Thompson, DeThorne, & Petrill, ). Likewise, a recent study utilizing direction of causality models concluded that it was reading ability driving print exposure (Van Bergen et al ., ).…”

L2 anxiety and the foreign language reading anxiety scale: Listening to the evidence

“…Instead, the FLRAS explained unique variance in L1 word decoding directly and L1 word decoding explained variance in print exposure. This finding is unsurprising because L1 reading researchers have found that individual differences in reading ability predicts individual differences in print exposure (van Bergen et al, ). In addition, individual differences in L1 print exposure have predicted unique variance in L2 proficiency (Sparks et al, ).…”

Intergenerational transmission of education and ADHD: Effects of parental genotypes

“…Passive gene-environment correlations may explain well-established associations between home characteristics and child outcomes. Examples thereof are, the association between the number of books in the home and children's reading skills (van Bergen et al 2018;Sikora et al 2019) and the association between household chaos and children's problem behaviour (Coldwell et al 2006). What is needed is a design that controls for children's genetic propensities to demonstrate genuine family environmental influences.…”