Primary school reading problems predict later reading anxiety, long-term study suggests

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Western Australian author Hamish Kelly has struggled with reading for almost two decades. In his first of two books, he describes his experience of learning to read: "The letters in words were confusing and words often looked the same […] Each year it got harder.

Reading got harder and math got twice as hard, as math has lots of reading as well […] By year 5, I was down on myself. My mom, dad and teachers told me I wasn't, but I still felt that I was. There [were] other challenges […] like anxiety and loss of confidence." What Kelly is describing is reading anxiety.

This involves excessive worry and apprehension about reading activities. In the past eight years, there has been a fivefold increase in studies of reading anxiety, as we learn more about this educational challenge. One of the things researchers are trying to work out is whether reading difficulties cause reading anxiety or vice versa.

A new longitudinal study provides some clues. The results of this study, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, support the former idea—that reading ability can cause reading anxiety. The study tested 499 Bulgarian children's reading ability eight times between grades 1 and 8.

Most of these children (294) were also tested for reading anxiety in grade 8. The researchers also considered other factors, such as socioeconomic status, working memory (the ability to temporarily hold and manipulate information) and IQ scores. The study found that children's reading in grade 1, as well as their reading gains between grades 1 and 3 and between grades 6 and 8, predicted reading anxiety in grade 8.

This suggests problems with reading at any time in primary school might cause reading anxiety in children. These findings align with a study from Finland, published earlier this year. Here, researchers found poorer reading skills among grade 1 students predicted higher reading anxiety in grade 2.