Exploring Heterogeneity in the Relationship between Reading Engagement and Reading Comprehension by Achievement Level

Abstract

The present study examined potential synergistic relationships between reading engagement and reading comprehension among 3,689 third and fourth graders across 59 schools in North Carolina. Using hierarchical regression analyses, we replicated previous findings that reading engagement explains unique variance in reading comprehension. Our results indicated that reading engagement explained an additional 4% of variance in end-of-year reading comprehension above and beyond initial skill, student demographics, and school membership. We then utilized multilevel modeling to examine the tenability of two common hypotheses in the literature: that reading engagement is more strongly related to the reading comprehension of below-average readers (the compensatory hypothesis) and that reading engagement is more strongly related to the reading comprehension of above-average or competent readers (the cognitive-constraint hypothesis). Students were broken into above-average, average, and below-average skill groups based on their beginning-of-year score on a nationally normed assessment of reading comprehension. Results supported the cognitive-constraint hypothesis that the relationship between reading engagement and reading comprehension is attenuated for below-average readers. The strength of the relationship for average and above-average readers did not significantly differ, suggesting homogeneity in the strength of the relationship among these students.