The associations of psychological and ecological factors with word reading in first grade Chinese children

According to the Componential Model of Reading (CMR), factors from three domains (namely cognitive, psychological and ecological) contribute to children’s reading development. However, currently most of the existing studies focused on the role of cognitive factors, with the roles of psychological and ecological factors not paid enough attention. In the present study, the associations of psychological and ecological factors with word reading in first grade Chinese children were explored. A total of 194 first grade Chinese children participated in this study (mean age = 7.18, SD = .41, boy = 119). They were from a primary school in Shenzhen, China. The psychological factor was measured with the student-rated reading self-efficacy (RSE). The ecological factors include socioeconomic status (SES, measured with parents’ educational levels and their occupations) and home literacy environment (HLE, measured with the number of children’s book at home and parent-child reading-related activities). Children’s word reading ability was measured with both word reading accuracy and word reading fluency. All psychological and ecological factors significantly correlated with word reading (rs ranged from .18 to .36). In the regression analysis, after controlling for age, non-verbal IQ, vocabulary, morphological awareness, phonological awareness and RAN, HLE and RSE, but not SES, significantly predicted word reading (Beta_HLE = .22, p < .01; Beta_RSE = .18, p < .05). These two factors accounted for 3.3% and 3.1% of the variance in word reading respectively. The findings highlighted the importance of proximal ecological factors and reading-related psychological factors on the reading development in young Chinese children. Copyright © 2020 ARWA.