1.

The study is written by Margaret Elizabeth Middleton, from the Graduate Program in Human
Ecology at the Ohio State University. It was conducted in 2011. The purpose of the study was to
examine the relationship between reading motivation and reading comprehension in a sample
of 421 paired respondents recruited from The Western Reserve Reading Project in the same
school, a longitudinal study examining genetic and environmental interactions of young
children’s reading and mathematical abilities. Reading motivation was assessed using the
Motivation for Reading Questionnaire, a specific set of scales based on 11 dimensions of reading
motivation. Reading comprehension was assessed using the Peabody Individual Achievement
Test – Revised and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test – Revised comprehension subtests.
Latent factors were formed for reading motivation and reading comprehension using data from
three annual home visits, beginning when children were 6 years old.

2. The analyses are based on tester-administered measures for general reading skills (i.e. word
identification, comprehension, and fluency), math skills, and psychometric batteries of cognition
(i.e. working memory). The assessments were obtained via a three-hour battery of reading and
math related measures by trained testers during an in home observation. The motivational
reading questions were administered within a larger subset of questionnaires during the home
visit. These self-reports were used to elicit information relative to the child’s reading, home,
and school environment and achievement. Separate testers were assigned to each twin and
testing was conducted in two different areas of the home. These measures were taken from a
larger longitudinal sample, assessing the development of reading and math
skills across seven annual waves of data. The measures used for this study are only available for
the past 3 waves of data collection.
Reading comprehension was assessed during the home visit protocol using two
measures. First, the Peabody Individual Achievement Test – Reading Comprehension Subtest
and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test. The PIAT-R Reading Comprehension Subtest
measures the child’s ability to derive meaning from printed words. The child must read a
sentence silently and then select among four pictures that best represents the meaning of the
sentence just read. The test measures the child’s overall ability to integrate decoded text and
print comprehension. Additionally, the WRMT-R Passage Comprehension test is cloze-based
comprehension assessment. The task requires the child to read a sentence and be able to
correctly identify the missing word. Thus, the child exhibits comprehension skills by filling in the
missing word using knowledge and understanding presented in prior sentences.

3. According to the results of the study, there were no statistically significant shared
environmental effects for either reading motivation or reading comprehension. Moreover, non-
shared effects were statistically significant for both reading comprehension and reading
motivation. More importantly, because analyses were based on latent measures, these non-
shared environmental estimates were free from measurement error. Thus, they represent
child-specific effects on reading comprehension and reading motivation.
Results suggested statistically significant genetic and non-shared environmental
contributions to the overlap between reading motivation and reading comprehension. In
contrast, shared environmental contributions to the covariance between reading motivation
and reading comprehension were not statistically significant. In sum, these results suggest that
the relationship between reading motivation and reading comprehension is influenced
primarily by genetics as well as within-family, child-specific influences.
The variation in sources and the presence of social and cultural influences on abilities
and skills employed may demand reconsideration of the skills and underlying constructs
influencing individual performance. Thus, it is possible that the results of the current study may
not generalize beyond the measures of reading comprehension used in this study.

4. The research followed the IMRAD approach in thesis presentation, a simple design wherein only
the important parts are presented. It is therefore concluded that it is a well-researched article,
though many errors are seen in the grammar aspect of the study. Further, a simplified, reader-
 friendly version of the article is much preferred, as many of the words used are highly-technical,
and common readers may be confused while reading the whole article, especially with the
presentation of results.

5. Children’s reading motivation can be impacted by a number of factors (e.g. interest, efficacy,
and goals). These factors may be important untapped dimensions for improving engagement in
reading. Because these factors may be child-specific they may offer particularly powerful
alternatives for improving comprehension outcomes, above and beyond genetic risk and
protective factor for reading cognition. Improving motivation may ultimately lead to better
comprehension outcomes for children with poor reading comprehension skills.
This study is valuable, especially at this age where children have poor reading
comprehension skills because of their reliance in technology. That is why it is very vital to use
common words for this study to gain readers.