A Study of the Correlation Between Attitude and Reading Success

Abstract

There is evidence to suggest that when children come to school they already have an attitude in place that will begin to shape their feelings toward and success in learning to read. Parents, significant others, and teachers play an important role in creating, changing, and maintaining a student's attitude toward reading. This research examined the possibility of a correlation between children's attitude and reading achievement. Third graders in a school district in southeastern Wisconsin served as the samples for this correlational study. The ranked scores from the the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) and the ranked scores from the Reading subtest of the Iowa Test of Basic Ski Its Form G (ITBS) were used to compute the Spearman equation of rank-order correlation coefficient. The results of this study accepted the H0: There is no significant correlation between a student's reading attitude and reading achievement as measured by the ERAS and the ITBS.