title: Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, and Unpopular?
abstract: We investigated whether being poorly skilled in reading contributes to children's self-reported feelings of anger, distractibility, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and social isolation. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal sub-sample of children (N=2,751) participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Multi-level logistic regression analyses indicated that poor readers in 3rdgrade were more likely to consider themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular in 5thgrade than those who had not been poor readers in 3rdgrade. About 20% of 3rdgrade poor readers reported feeling angry and unpopular in 5thgrade. 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 socio-emotional maladjustment in young children.
authors.affiliation: Population Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Paul L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.affiliation: University of California, Irvine.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Farkas
authors.affiliation: The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
keywords: Matthew effect; behavior problems; mathematics difficulties; poor readers; reading difficulties; self-perceptions; socio-emotional maladjustment