Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, and Unpopular?

Paul L. Morgan, George Farkas, Qiong Wu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

57 Scopus citations

Abstract

We investigated whether being poorly skilled in reading contributes to children's reported feelings of anger, distractibility, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and social isolation. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal subsample of children (N = 3,308) participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Multilevel logistic regression analyses indicated that poor readers in third grade were about twice as likely to consider themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular in fifth grade as those who had not been poor readers in third grade. Being poorly skilled in mathematics increased children's risk of feeling sad or lonely but not of feeling angry, distractible, or unpopular. The results provide additional empirical evidence that reading failure contributes to generalized socioemotional maladjustment in young children.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)360-381
Number of pages22
JournalScientific Studies of Reading
Volume16
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • Psychology (miscellaneous)

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