Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023
The roots of reading for pleasure:
Recollections of reading and current habits
Manzar Zare , Stephanie Kozak , Monyka L. Rodrigues
Sandra Martin-Chang
Abstract
Children’s early literacy experiences are critical, yet it
remains unclear whether memories of early reading
instruction continue to be associated with reading
habits into adulthood. We examined the association
between recollections of reading experiences and
present-day reading habits in an adult population.
University students responded in writing to three
open-ended prompts asking about their memories of
reading during early childhood, elementary school
and high school. They also completed two question-
naires inquiring about reading enjoyment and
frequency in elementary school and high school. For
the concurrent measures of reading, participants
described their current reading habits in an
open-ended prompt and completed an author
recognition test. Results showed positive links
between favourable memories of reading during
elementary and high school years and present-day
reading habits. Conversely, unfavourable memories
during high school were associated with unenthusias-
tic present-day reading habits. We found that reading
instruction in school forms long-lasting memories,
and these memories are linked in meaningful ways
with print exposure during adulthood.
Key words: Autonomy Support, Reading Instruction,
Reading Motivation, Print Exposure
The scientific community has known for over three
decades that recreational reading is associated with a
host of positive outcomes (Stanovich and West, 1989;
Martin-Chang et al., 2021). It is also well established
that implementing research-based classroom practices
in schools is critical for developing reading habits
during childhood (e.g. De Naeghel et al., 2014).
However, it is less clear whether these early reading
experiences leave lasting impressions and whether
they are associated with the tendency to read for
pleasure into adulthood. Here, we examined relations
between concurrent reading habits of university
students and their most salient memories from learn-
ing to read to reading in high school (Garces-Bacsal
et al., 2018; Vanden Dool and Simpson, 2021).
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1
and
The Matthew effect in reading
The Matthew effect (Stanovich, 1986) has been
summarised as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
A ‘fast start’ (Sparks et al., 2014, p. 207) into the literate
world is associated with reading for pleasure, the
benefits of which accrue over the lifetime (Allington
and McGill-Franzen, 2021; Martin-Chang et al., 2021).
However even when children get off to a ‘slow start’
(characterised by difficult decoding and/or unsuccess-
ful comprehension), those that can be enticed to read
during their free time will show steeper trajectories in
skill development (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1997).
Students’ reading abilities ultimately lie at the
crossroads between their aptitudes and their encoun-
ters with texts and other expert readers (Carreker
et al., 2007). Thus far, the bulk of the research has
focused on children’s innate potential and their
exposure to print (Torppa et al., 2019). Although it is
recognised that perceived instructional quality is also
paramount to reading motivation (Guay et al., 2019;
Locher et al., 2021), few studies have examined
whether adults remember their previous classroom
literacy experiences. Here, we aimed to better
understand the role of students’ lasting subjective
experiences across school levels in developing their
desire to read.
Classroom practices
There is no question that the home literacy
environment significantly impacts children’s literacy
development (see Sénéchal and Lefevre, 2014).
Similarly, the school literacy environment curated by
teachers also carries great sway over children’s reading
skills and motivation (Daisey, 2010). Applegate and
Applegate (2004) found that teachers who are not avid
readers themselves, sometimes lack the enthusiasm
that is instrumental in sharing a love of reading with
their students. They called this the Peter effect, referring
to the parable about being unable to give what one is

2 RECOLLECTIONS OF READING
inherently lacking. When viewed through the
opposite lens, individuals can liberally share what they
hold in abundance. From this perspective, teachers
who have positive attitudes and pedagogical knowl-
edge are better positioned to nurture leisure reading
in their students (Vanden Dool and Simpson, 2021).
For example, Garces-Bacsal et al. (2018) noted that
teachers, who described themselves as being ‘devoted’
readers, were far more likely to respond to questions
about motivating students to read in their classrooms.
They were also more likely to share books and recom-
mend their favourite titles with students.
Binks-Cantrell et al. (2012) discuss the Peter effect in
relation to content knowledge, pointing out that
teachers with more content knowledge have stronger
pedagogical skills to foster reading development in
their students. Thus far, much of the work in teacher
knowledge has been focused on the basic building
blocks of literacy, but recently more inquiry has been
aimed at understanding teachers’ preparation to
increase reading motivation in their students (Kozak
and Martin-Chang, 2019).
Self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000)
dictates that to be intrinsically motivated, students
need to feel connected, competent and autonomous.
Thus, recreational reading should increase when
individuals feel connected to other readers and/or
fictional characters, capable of understanding the text,
and self-directed in their reading choices or
assignments. Accordingly, De Naeghel et al. (2016)
found that reminding teachers to increase time for
students to talk (i.e. relatedness), allow more indepen-
dent work (i.e. autonomy) and provide students with
optimal challenges (i.e. competence) was associated
with increased student reading motivation. These
findings suggest that classroom practices are related
to students’ ongoing reading habits as they develop
into adolescents.
In a similar vein, Fisher and Frey (2018) conducted a
teacher intervention where they stressed the impor-
tance of giving students access to books, choice of
reading materials, time for book discussions and the
opportunity to learn about new books through book
talks. Twelve weeks later, 93% of the teachers in
Grades 1, 3 and 5 indicated that the programme
significantly impacted students’ extracurricular
reading. In addition, participating families reported
reading more books compared to the past, and library
circulation increased from the previous year. The
authors concluded that teachers could influence
students’ exposure to print by adopting targeted
practices within their classrooms. However, it is still
unknown whether these strategies are remembered
by students beyond the school years, and if so,
whether they are associated with concurrent print
exposure into adulthood.
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Recollections of past experiences
Students who benefit from having enthusiastic and
knowledgeable teachers might be expected to
have higher levels of print exposure later in life
(Binks-Cantrell et al., 2012; Applegate et al., 2014).
One method of examining possible links between
formative school reading experiences and adult leisure
reading habits is to ask students what they remember
about past reading-related events. Notably, some
scholars (e.g. Norman, 2009; Kahneman, 2010) have
suggested that memories (what we recall) should be
distinguished from actual past experiences (what
actually happened) because even if memories are
not verbatim factual reports, people nevertheless
inform their decisions based on their recollections
of the past, irrespective of what transpired (Braun
et al., 2018).
Emotions are essential for shaping memories;
people remember experiences that include strong
emotions more vividly and with more details than
events without strong emotional ties (Strijbosch
et al., 2019). Having happy or unpleasant emotions
about experiences affects new choices. When individ-
uals have positive memories of an experience, they
are more likely to repeat it. The opposite is also true.
Activities that are connected to negative or unpleasant
memories are likely to be avoided (Redelmeier and
Kahneman, 1996).
Therefore, listening to adults’ positive and negative
experiences can help researchers and educators
determine which classroom practices leave lasting
impressions on students, both good and bad. Knowing
which activities have impacted students’ memories
can inform classroom practices to create memories of
enjoyable reading experiences. In doing so, they might
also be able to prevent negative experiences that
discourage students from future reading.
Here, we used a retrospective correlational design
to examine whether memories of learning to read and
reading practices in school are associated with reading
habits into adulthood.
Method
Research questions
This study sought to answer three research questions:
(1) Do memories of reading in elementary school and
in high school correlate with reading habits in
adulthood? (2) Are university students’ levels of print
exposure associated with how frequently they read?
(3) Are university students’ levels of print exposure
associated with how much they report enjoying
reading?

Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023
Participants
The host university granted ethical approval for the
study. Social media posts were used to recruit
participants. Surveys were collected with LimeSurvey
GmbH (Version 3.23.1, 2020) over 3 weeks in 2020
when all data were being collected online due to
COVID-19. Note that Limesurvey assigns a participant
number each time the link is accessed. Thus, an initial
triage was done to separate surveys from the piloting
and revision stages; then, another triage was done to
isolate the completed surveys from those that had
merely been opened. According to this criterion,
77 surveys were completed. Surveys were excluded
if they were duplications of other submissions
(e.g., participants’ exact information was included
twice) or if they were nonsensical (e.g., filled with
random letter strings). The resulting sample consisted
of 67 surveys that were complete and unique.
The final sample was drawn from 12 universities
across North America. A power analysis was
conducted a priori with G*Power (Faul et al., 2007); it
is a software used to estimate the sample size based
on the required power to detect an effect between
variables of interest. An estimated sample size of
42 participants was required to achieve a medium
effect size of .30 with .80 power and alpha set to .05.
Therefore, our sample size of 67 was deemed
sufficient. At the time of data collection, 4.5% of the
participants were pursuing a diploma, 58.2% a
bachelor’s degree, 32.8% a master’s degree, and 4.5%
a doctoral degree. Approximately 73% of participants
were enrolled in the humanities and social sciences,
while the remainder were enrolled in natural science
and engineering.
Most of our sample identified as female (77%), and
the remaining identified as male. Participants’ age
ranged from 19 to 41 years (M = 24.94, SD = 4.72).
The majority of participants (65.7%) identified as
White (e.g. Italian, Irish, Greek), 29.2% identified as
Asian (e.g. Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, Arab,
Lebanese, Iranian), and the remaining (5.1%) identified
as Black (e.g. Caribbean, African American).
All participants reported English as their dominant
language. More than 80% of the participants reported
speaking a second language. As is typical in the region
where the study took place, French was listed as the
most common second language spoken, consisting of
83.6% of all second languages spoken. A quarter of
the participants reported speaking more than two
languages. Other languages spoken were Arabic
(6%), Mandarin (6%), Urdu (3%), Romanian (3%),
Constance (1.5%), Farsi (1.5%), Greek (1.5%), Gujarati
(1.5%), Italian (1.5%), Tamil (1.5%) and Naval
Chaudhary (1.5%).
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3
Materials
Memories of reading. Participants were asked to provide
a written response to four open-ended prompts re-
garding their memories of reading. The prompts asked
about participants’ memories of reading in chronolog-
ical order from learning to read to current reading
habits. Prompt 1 (learning to read) stated:
Please take a few minutes to write down your most
salient memories of learning to read. Feel free to answer
with the first thing that comes to mind. (This should take
2–3 minutes. A good guideline is 1–2 paragraphs. Don’t
worry about spelling or grammar.)
In the subsequent prompts, ‘Learning to read’ was
replaced with ‘Reading during elementary school’
(Prompt 2) and ‘Reading during high school’
(Prompt 3), respectively. For current reading habits
(Prompt 4), participants were asked, ‘How would
you describe your leisure reading habits now?’ These
open-ended questions inquired only about partici-
pants’ most salient memories and resulted in a wide
range of responses ranging between highly positive
and highly negative.
Deductive coding (Kuckartz, 2014) was used to
analyse the written responses to the prompts. Each
submission was examined by phrase or meaningful
statement (a group of words forming a conceptual
unit). Statements were sorted based on their valence,
as being either Favourable or Unfavourable and then in
relation to the three components of self-determination
theory: Autonomy (the perception of choice and
willingly endorsing one’s behaviour), Competence
(experience of developing mastery in one’s activity)
and Relatedness (feeling connected and a sense of
belongingness with others, in this case to both real
people and fictional characters) (Deci and Ryan, 2000).
Statements that did not contain enough information to
sort into the self-determination categories were
categorised as General. After these eight categories
were established, no new categories emerged (Fusch
and Ness, 2015; for data saturation, see also Francis
et al., 2010; Vasileiou et al., 2018). Table 1 contains
further details and examples.
Additional coding units for each subcategory
included the use of modifiers, repetition and emphasis.
For example, ‘I really liked reading’ was counted as
two instances of General Favourable: one for ‘liked
reading’ and an additional tally for ‘really’. No
further categorisation was possible because the
participant did not indicate why they liked it, only that
they did.
Notably, any statement that referred to having or
building autonomy, competence or relatedness were
coded as being favourable, whereas statements that
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4 RECOLLECTIONS OF READING

Table 1: Coding Categories and Valence for Statements Written in Response to the Prompts with Description and Examples.
Category and Valence Description Example

Competence
Favourable - Descriptions of practicing reading
- Noting reading instruction or materials
- Positively mentioning own reading
skills
- Descriptions of competence
- Discussing benefits of reading
Unfavourable - Negatively mentioning own reading
skills
- Feeling insecure about reading abilities
- Mentioning reading difficulties
- Lacking reading comprehension
Autonomy
Favourable - Engaging in reading-related activities
by choice
- Having choice in selecting reading
materials
Unfavourable - Lack of choice in reading activities
- Choosing not to read
- Lack of choice in reading materials
- Lack of time to read due to work/
school
Relatedness
Favourable - Positive relationship between
participant and other people shaped
because of reading activities
- Feeling attached to books or characters
Unfavourable - Negative relationships between
students and others around reading
activities
- Feeling disconnected from books,
reading, or stories
General
Favourable - Demonstrated positive affection or
emotions
Unfavourable - Demonstrated negative feelings and
emotions
‘I was learning to make metaphors…’
‘I could read thick novels’
‘I was one of the best’
‘We had many book essays’
‘I thought my world widened’
‘Even though I was in grade 3 or 4 I was
probably at a kindergarten level’
‘Everyone in my class was so much
better than me and that did impact my
confidence’
‘It was always something about the text
that I probably didn’t understand’
‘Most of my spare time at home was
spent reading’
‘I wanted to read the books that I was
interested in …’
‘I remember having free time to read in
school’
‘I remember trying to do anything to
avoid reading the books assigned in
class’
‘We definitely didn’t read enough books
that suited our genre tastes as teenagers’
‘I remember learning to read with my
mom’
‘I often shed tears for the joys and
sorrows of the protagonists in the novels’
‘I remember really not liking the special
ed teacher who would work one on one
with me’
‘I haven’t found a book I can identify
with in a long time’
‘loved reading’, ‘obsessed with reading’,
‘reading is my favourite’
‘hated reading’, ‘reading was stressful’,
‘reading was boring’

referenced being denied or lacking these qualities were
coded as unfavourable. For example, ‘We would
practice reading every single day. I found reading
difficult’ would be coded as two instances of
Favourable Competence and one instance of Unfavourable
Competence. ‘We would practice reading’ was deemed
as building skill and was therefore coded as compe-
tence, and ‘every single day’ was counted as a second
statement that amplified the first. In contrast, ‘I found
reading difficult’ indicated lacking skill and was there-
fore coded as Unfavourable Competence. In this sense,
Favourable and Unfavourable can be conceptualised as
being favourable or unfavourable conditions for foster-
ing autonomy, competence or relatedness.
The categories (Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness,
General) were summed to form a favourable and

© UKLA.

Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023
unfavourable score for each of the four-time prompts.
A higher score indicated responses that contained
more favourable or unfavourable coded statements in
relation to the period being remembered.
A second rater independently coded 30% of the
responses to the prompts. Cohen’s κ indicated
substantial agreement between the two raters,
κw = .78, P < .001 (Laerd Statistics, 2019). No new
categories emerged during the secondary coding
process.
Print exposure. Participants’ print exposure was
assessed using a version of the Author Recognition
Test (ART; Stanovich and West, 1989), adapted by
Kozak and Martin-Chang (2019) to include authors of
children’s and young adult literature. The ART is a
proxy of print exposure over the lifespan (Moore and
Gordon, 2014), which has come to be an indication of
leisure reading or reading for pleasure (Stanovich
and West, 1989). It has repeatedly demonstrated
high internal consistency ranging from α = .75 to .89
(e.g. Mol and Bus, 2011). Participants were given a list
of names and asked to select those they knew to be real
authors. Embedded foils served to detect guessing.
The proportion of incorrectly identified foils was
subtracted from the proportion of correctly identified
authors to determine the final score.
Reading Frequency and Enjoyment Questionnaire. The
Reading Enjoyment and Frequency Questionnaire
elicited responses to activities during elementary
school and high school. These complemented the
responses to the prompts because rather than being
open-ended, the questionnaire gave participants the
chance to respond to a set of uniform experiences that
may not have come to mind immediately as being
salient.
Nine items asked about reading enjoyment and
frequency during elementary school. Participants
reported whether they remembered: teachers reading
to them, reading themselves in school, reading in their
free time, talking about books in small groups, having
classroom discussions about books, teachers suggest-
ing fiction books, teachers suggesting non-fiction
books, teachers sharing their own reading preferences
and teachers giving them the choice over what they
read.1 Participants also rated how frequently these
activities occurred (1 = never to 5 = very often) and
how much they enjoyed them (1 = disliked a lot to
5 = liked a lot). Overall, each of the nine questions were
asked twice: once to assess frequency and once to assess
enjoyment. An option of ‘I don’t remember’ (0) was also
included for the frequency measure because of the
retrospective nature of the question. Responses were
1
We also asked about having access to books in school, but this ques-
tion was uniformly answered positively and was hence excluded
from all further analyses.
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5
averaged to create the elementary reading frequency
score and the elementary reading enjoyment score.
The highest score that could be obtained in each
measure was 5 (e.g. 5 × 9/9).
The format was repeated for high school reading
frequency and enjoyment but with an additional five
questions about non-fiction books. This resulted in a
total of 14 questions. The same scale and procedure
was used for scoring the frequency and enjoyment
portions (e.g. 5 × 14/14).
The data were inspected to ensure that the inclusion
of zeros for ‘I don’t remember’ was not artificially
lowering the scores; less than 3% of all responses fell
in this category. Running the analyses excluding the
participants who selected this response did not impact
any of the findings; thus, all participants were
included in the analyses to follow.
Procedure
On average, participants completed all tasks in a
20-min session. The order of the tasks was held
constant: Consent, Prompt 1, Demographics, Prompt 2,
ART, Prompt 3, the Elementary School Reading
Frequency and Enjoyment Questionnaire, the High
School Reading Frequency and Enjoyment Question-
naire and Prompt 4. It was suggested that the prompts
be answered in 2–3 min using one or two paragraphs;
however, no time or word limits were set.
Results
Preliminary analyses
The average word length for the prompts was 77.43
words; each of the 67 participants completed all
prompts resulting in approximately 20,636 words to
be analysed. Within these responses, there were 1781
statements coded as being either favourably (1394) or
unfavourably (387) related to literacy (see Figure 1).
To gain a sense of whether the statements were
divided equally among the four self-determination
derived categories, we ran two repeated measure
ANOVAs for the favourable and unfavourable
recollections.
For the favourable statements, a 3 (Prompt: learning
to read, elementary, high school) × 4 (Category:
competence, autonomy, relatedness, general)
within-subject ANOVA showed main effects for
both prompt, F(2,132) = 3.82, P = .02, η2p = .06, and
category, F(3,198) = 33.43, P < .001, η2p = .34. The
Prompt × Category interaction was also significant,
F(6,396) = 5.14, P < .001, η2p = .07. Post hoc comparisons
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6 RECOLLECTIONS OF READING

Figure 1: Mean Number of Positive Statments Written in Response to the Prompts as a Function of Category and Time Period
Being Recalled.

with Bonferroni corrections revealed that participants
shared more positive statements about competence
while learning to read compared to what they
said about high school (P = .04). Participants
wrote more favourable comments about having
autonomy in elementary school and in high school
compared to when they were learning to read (both
P’s < .001). No other pairwise comparisons were
significant.
Turning to the unfavourable statements, we ran a 3
(Prompt) × 4 (Category) within-subjects ANOVA.
It revealed a significant main effect for prompt,
F(2,132) = 7.60, P < .001, η2p = .10, no significant effect
for category, F(3,198) = 2.23, p = .09, η2p = .03, and a
significant Prompt × Category interaction,
F(6, 396) = 3.31, P = .003, η2p = .05. Post hoc comparisons
with Bonferroni corrections showed that participants

Figure 2: Mean Number of Negative Statements Written in Response to the Prompts as a Function of Category and Time Pe-
riod Being Recalled.

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Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023 7

shared more negative statements about autonomy (Prompt 1–3). The main effect of the valence was
while remembering high school compared to remem- significant, F(1,64) = 85.70, P < .001, η2p = .57, indicating
bering their experiences learning to read (P < .001) that participants were more likely to share favourable
and more negative experiences regarding autonomy statements about past reading experiences compared
when remembering high school than elementary to unfavourable statements. By contrast, the main
school (P = .03). Finally, with regard to the statements effect of prompt was not significant, F(2,128) = 1.99,
that could not be divided according to P = .14, η2p = .032. This was qualified by a significant
self-determination subcategories and were thus put in interaction between Valence and Prompt,
the general subcategory, participants wrote fewer
F(2,128) = 7.89, P < .001, η2p = .11. Post hoc comparisons
negative comments about learning to read than either
elementary school (P = .005) or high school (P = .009). with Bonferroni corrections in place showed that
No other pairwise comparisons were significant favourable statements significantly decreased from
(see Figure 2). elementary school to high school (P = .014). There
was also a significant increase in unfavourable
We were interested in students’ lasting subjective
statements from learning to read to high school
experiences when prompted about salient memories
(P < .001).
from various school levels; thus, the categories were
summed to create a favourable and unfavourable
composite for learning to read, elementary school and
high school (see Table 2). A two-way repeated- Memories about past reading experiences and
measures ANOVA was conducted with Valence present-day reading habits
(Favourable and Unfavourable) and Prompts
The first research question sought to determine
whether memories of learning to read or reading in el-
Table 2: The Number of Statements Written in Response to ementary school and high school correlated with read-
the Prompts as a Function of Valance and Time Period, the ing habits in adulthood. Because not all variables were
ART, Reading Frequency, Reading Enjoyment during normally distributed (Shapiro–Wilk’s test, P = .05),
Elementary and High School. Kendall’s tau correlation (rτ), a non-parametric
Measures M Min–Max SD correlation test, was used to assess links between the
variables of interest.
Learning to read (Prompt 1)a Positive associations were found between the ART
Favourable 6.22 0–19 4.46 scores and participants’ favourable statements
Unfavourable 0.72 0–10 1.68 about reading in elementary school and high school
Elementary (Prompt 2)a (see Table 3). This suggests that the more fondly adults
Favourable 6.58 0–22 4.83 wrote about their reading experiences during elemen-
Unfavourable 1.56 0–15 2.58 tary and high school, the more authors they recognised
High school (Prompt 3)a on the ART. In contrast, participants’ ART scores were
Favourable 5.06 0–16 3.60 not correlated with the number of unfavourable state-
Unfavourable 2.49 0–17 3.86 ments they made in response to any of the time points
Current reading habits or to the favourable statements they made about learn-
(Prompt 4)a ing to read.
Favourable 2.57 0–14 2.52 We were also interested in whether statements
Unfavourable 0.93 0–7 1.50 made about reading experiences across schooling
Print exposureb,c (ART) 0.16 .08.64 .19 levels correlated with participants self-described read-
Elementary school ing habits (Prompt 4). First, examining the favourable
Reading frequency 3.11 1–4.78 .80 responses, results indicated positive correlations
School reading enjoyment 3.60 1–5.00 .80 between each schooling level and responses about
High school current, self-described reading habits. These findings
Reading frequency 3.05 1–4.64 .82 suggest that individuals who described their current
School reading enjoyment 3.29 1–4.86 .72 reading habits favourably also wrote more compli-
mentary statements about their memories from all
ART, Author Recognition Test. other time periods.
a
Based on the number of coded statements. Regarding the unfavourable statements, only two
b
Higher scores indicate higher exposure to print. significant associations were noted. First, a significant
c
The pattern of the results remained the same when positive correlation was observed between responses
participants with the negative ART scores were to Prompt 4 (unfavourable current reading habits)
removed. and responses to Prompt 3 (unfavourable high school).

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8 RECOLLECTIONS OF READING

Table 3: Correlations Between Favourable and Unfavourable Statements Written in Response to the Prompts and Current
Reading Habits.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. ART -
2. Favourable: Learning to read (Prompt 1) .11 -
3. Favourable: Elementary (Prompt 2) .18* .36** -
4. Favourable: High School (Prompt 3) .18* .33** .32** -
5. Favourable: Current (Prompt 4) .32** .21* .29** .23* -
6. Unfavourable: Learning to read (Prompt 1) .09 .17 .11 .01 .05 -
7. Unfavourable: Elementary (Prompt 2) .14 .06 .08 .01 .00 .27* -
8. Unfavourable: High School (Prompt 3) .01 .06 .29** .03 .09 .39** .22* -
9. Unfavourable: Current (Prompt 4) .14 .04 .05 .00 .34** .21* .14 .39**

ART, Author Recognition Test.

*
P < .05.
**
P < .01.
***
P < .001.

Second, as expected, a negative association was found
between the favourable and unfavourable statements
made in responses to Prompt 4 (current reading
habits). Interestingly, favourable responses to all three
prompts regarding past reading experiences (i.e. learn-
ing to read, elementary school and high school) were
intercorrelated. In other words, participants who had
more favourable early recollections about learning to
read (Prompt 1) also remembered more favourable
reading experiences in elementary school (Prompt 2)
and high school (Prompt 3). Surprisingly, there was a
positive association between favourable elementary
school statements (Prompt 2) and unfavourable high
school statements (Prompt 3), suggesting that those
wrote more fondly about their elementary reading
recollections were more likely to voice discontent
about their reading experiences in high school.
The ART and reading frequency and enjoyment in
school
The second research question addressed whether
associations would be noted between participants’
ART scores and their reported reading frequency
and reading enjoyment. As illustrated in Table 4, the
correlation between reading frequency and reading
enjoyment was positive for both elementary and high

Table 4: Correlations between the ART, Statements from the Prompts, Reading Frequency and Reading Enjoyment Separated
by Elementary and High School.
Elementary school High school

1 2 3 4 5

1. ART – .18* .01 .15 .21* 1. ART

2. Favourable .18** – .03 .17 .23** 2. Favourable
3. Unfavourable .14 .08 – .31** .15 3. Unfavourable
4. Reading frequency .33** .01 .09 – .43** 4. Reading frequency
5. Reading enjoyment .40** .07 .05 .46** – 5. Reading enjoyment

Note: Correlations for elementary school are below the diagonal in black whereas, the correlations for high school
are above the diagonal in grey ink.
ART = Author Recognition Test. Favourable = Favourable Statements and Unfavourable = Unfavourable State-
ments written in response to the prompts.
*
P < .05.
**
P < .01.

© UKLA.

Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023
school. There was also a positive correlation between
the ART and both reading frequency and enjoyment
in elementary school. In other words, the more
frequently adults reported that they remembered
participating in, and enjoying literacy activities during
elementary school, the better they fared on the ART. By
contrast, a positive link between the ART and high
school reading enjoyment was found, but no links
were noted with reading frequency. In fact, the
participants who responded that they did a lot of
reading activities during high school tended to write
more unfavourable comments about their most salient
memories of that time. In contrast, participants who re-
ported enjoying those classroom activities responded
more positively to the high school writing prompt
and scored higher on the ART.
Discussion
The Matthew effect states that early reading success
paves the way to future reading habits and that
well-maintained reading habits increase facility with
language over time (Stanovich, 1986). Recently much
discussion has centred on how early reading
proficiency and genetic make-up influence reading
propensity later in life (e.g. Keenan et al., 2006; Olson
et al., 2017; van Bergen et al., 2018; Torppa
et al., 2019). Here, we asked a different but related
question, namely, whether associations would be
found between adults’ memories of early reading
experiences and their current recreational reading
behaviours. We were also interested in the types of
memories people shared when they were asked to re-
call events that were personally significant from three
different developmental time spans.
To begin, we found that favourable early memories
of learning to read were significantly correlated with
positive responses to the prompts inquiring about all
later time periods, including describing reading habits
in adulthood. This indicates that those who recalled
more warm experiences from early childhood were
more likely to describe themselves as avid readers
throughout their schooling. Interestingly, when asked
about their memories of learning to read, more than half
of the participants (60%) recalled shared reading with
family members, specifically mothers. For example, in
the current study, one participant responded by
saying: ‘My mom used to read me books before bed.
It was one of my favourite activities that my mom
and I would do. I remember I would ask her to read
me the same storybook over and over again’
(Participant 41). Our results are in line with Tremblay
et al. (2020), who found that shared storybook reading
with parents in childhood correlated with print expo-
sure and literacy skills in adolescence. These responses
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9
were based on an open-ended question about learning
to read, not storybook reading with parents. It seems
that early family communication around books is a
salient event that creates lasting impressions into
adulthood.
Relatedly, during the prompt about learning to read,
individuals were most likely to talk about building
competence and feeling connected to the people they
were reading with. During this prompt, it was rare
for individuals to discuss wanting or enjoying auton-
omy. When they did discuss autonomy, it was often
in relation to choosing a favourite book repeatedly, as
was highlighted in the quote above. Indeed, many of
memories people shared were about participating in
literacy events with others rather than wanting per-
sonal choice. It makes sense that before individuals
are competent readers themselves, they might be con-
tent to rely on the choices made by others. Perhaps it
is not surprising then, that there were no unfavourable
statements made about a lack of autonomy during the
prompts about this time period. Thus, it would appear
that individuals’ most salient memories of learning to
read are tipped in favour towards activities that build
competence and relatedness.
When prompted to remember salient aspects of
reading during school years, we found a positive
association between favourable statements made
about elementary and high school and later print expo-
sure (i.e. the ART). We also found that participants
who were inclined to share positive comments about
reading during elementary and high school were more
likely to be enthusiastic when asked to describe their
current reading habits. These findings suggest that
recollections of reading experiences throughout the
school years are related to reading practices years later.
In contrast, only unfavourable memories of reading in
high school were linked to negative descriptions of
reading habits in adulthood. For example, one
participant wrote about a teacher insisting that they
read aloud in front of the class. When asked about
their current reading habits, that same participant
wrote: ‘Reading would be the last thing I would do
[for pleasure] in this life for sure’ (Participant 122).
However, others remembered their teachers helping
in various ways, including improving their basic
reading skills, teaching effective comprehension
strategies and incorporating captivating books into
classroom activities. Indeed, our participants
highlighted the use of engaging books as being a very
positive motivational force. Previous research has
shown certain characteristics are more likely to be
considered ‘high-interest’ to children and preteens.
For example, children seem to be especially interested
in literature containing same-aged protagonists, and
futuristic settings, as well as plots that included
danger, monsters and action (Jensen et al., 2016). Thus,

10
in line with self-determination theory (Deci and
Ryan, 2000), participants positively described teachers
who introduced them to engaging literature and made
them feel connected to the characters, as well as to
their classmates. This can be highlighted by one partic-
ipant who wrote:
… when reading plays such as Hamlet and Dracula.
We would often get in groups in front of the class and
reenact what was happening in the play and play
different characters. It made it easier to understand. After
reading a chapter for homework the following class we
would take 10 minutes to discuss what happened. It
would be in small groups or the whole class together.
(Participant 106).
Often it was not the activity per se (e.g. reading in
front of the class) that influenced whether the memory
was held in a positive or negative light, but rather the
perception of choice (or lack of choice) and connected-
ness (or isolation) that was reported along with the
experience. This lends support to research highlighting
the power teachers hold to create positive classroom
literacy environment—a good teacher can help shape
readers, while a lesser teacher may inadvertently de-
rail students’ desire to read (Martin-Chang et al., 2021).
Participants’ recollections support the idea that
students’ psychological needs for competence,
autonomy and relatedness must be met for students
to feel motivated to read (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Our
data suggest that classroom practices combining all
three elements of the self-determination theory were
vividly recalled as positive. In contrast, participants
expressed feelings of frustration when these
psychological needs were not met. For example,
several participants commented on the lack of choice
when selecting reading materials in high school and
compared it to the autonomy-supportive practices in
elementary school. Indeed, in response to a neutral
prompt, people were more likely to share negative
memories about being forced to read specific books
in high school compared to in elementary school.
Although speculative, the perceived imbalance in
autonomy possibly contributed to the association
between the favourable memories of reading in
elementary school and the unfavourable memories of
reading in high school. Reviewing the responses
showed that many participants, even those with
positive memories from elementary school, disliked
reading the assigned books during high school. Similar
findings were observed by Locher et al. (2019), who
found a negative association between mandatory
reading of classic literature and ninth graders’
reading motivation. Our results add to this by indicat-
ing the importance of increasing autonomy to support
reading activities during the school years, especially
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RECOLLECTIONS OF READING
during high school (see also Hughes-Hassell and
Rodge, 2007).
In sum, the literature shows that providing
classroom discussion (Woodford, 2016; Fisher and
Frey, 2018), emphasising students’ choices (Ivey and
Johnston, 2013; Miller, 2015), using engaging literature
(Kozak and Martin-Chang, 2019; Locher et al., 2019)
and providing a safe and entertaining environment
for students to discuss difficult topics (Fletcher
et al., 2012; Cushing and Carter, 2021) are effective
classroom practices. Our data extend these findings
by showing that the more frequently participants
reported activities like listening to stories, reading in
school, talking to teachers and other students about
books and having the choice to pick the materials they
wanted to read during elementary school years, the
higher they scored on the ART as adults. Interestingly,
in high school, reading enjoyment rather than reading
frequency was linked to later print exposure. This sug-
gests that years later, remembering the reading activi-
ties per se seemed to be less critical than remembering
that the reading activities were enjoyable.
Limitations
As with any investigation of this nature, our study has
some limitations that merit consideration. First, when
asked a neutral question, participants might feel
more comfortable sharing positive memories with
researchers, rather than negative ones, which might
account for the larger number of positive recollections
in our data set. Alternatively, our participants were all
university students and were, therefore, presumably,
skilled readers. Perhaps in a more representative
sample, an increased number of negative memories
would have emerged.
However, it has been argued that reading skill leads
to recreational reading, rather than the other way
around (Torppa et al., 2019). Thus, it is interesting that
differences in print exposure (i.e. the ART) and
self-described reading habits (Prompt 4) were noted
even within a highly literate sample.
Second, the current study was correlational. There-
fore, we cannot comment on the direction of the associ-
ations between the participants’ recollections of their
early reading experiences and current print exposure.
However, at this juncture, we can conclude that people
with higher print exposure (as measured by the ART)
and who report positive current reading habits (as
measured by Prompt 4) are more likely to remember
past reading experiences positively compared to those
who have lower print exposure and reading habit
scores. There are three possible directions that this
association could take. It could be that (1) positive

Literacy Volume Number xxxx 2023
educational experiences lead to a proclivity to read for
pleasure throughout the lifetime, or (2) that partici-
pants who read for pleasure might be more likely to re-
call their past reading experiences fondly, or (3) that a
separate variable, such as reading ability, influences
both reading experiences and reading habits in adult-
hood. Only a longitudinal research design would be
able to unravel these three competing hypotheses
(e.g. see Erbeli et al., 2019). However, if the correlations
were entirely driven by either current attitudes or by a
higher-order variable such as reading ability, we
would not expect the positive link between favourable
elementary and unfavourable high school memories.
In other words, if current attitudes or reading ability
were driving the effects, we would expect to see simi-
larities between responses on the prompts rather than
differences. Thus, the unexpected result of having
more positive memories of reading in elementary
school related to reporting more negative memories
from high school makes us more confident that partic-
ipants were able to discriminate between good and
bad memories from all three time points somewhat in-
dependently and that they did not simply view their
past experiences through one monochromatic lens.
Implications
The findings of the current study have important
implications for parents and teachers in terms of
meeting the fundamental psychological needs of
competence, relatedness and autonomy. First, we
noted a shift where the most salient memories from
early life revolved around meeting the needs for
competency and relatedness and the need for
autonomy-supportive practices seemed to be more
critical later. Thus, parents and educators of young
children should provide opportunities to build connec-
tions to and develop a solid foundation of skills
around book reading. While we recommend staying
sensitive to children’s book preferences, the memories
adults shared with us were mainly about the people
who read with them and taught them. When recalling
the events that took place in high school, participants
still voiced a need for connection and competence,
but they also talked about times where autonomy
and choice were either granted or withheld. High
school teachers might benefit by leveraging this desire
for autonomy to make reading in their classes more
appealing.
Thus, our findings suggest that reading habits
formed in childhood and throughout school years
have long-lasting effects. The undergraduate students
surveyed here remembered positive reading practices
such as enjoying books and participating in engaging
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11
classroom activities. They also remembered negative
experiences, such as uninteresting books, being unable
to choose their own reading materials and tedious
classroom practices. Parents and teachers might find
solace in the fact that what they do remains salient to
children even into their university years.
Conclusion
This is one of the first studies in the field to survey
adults about their formative impressions of reading.
We asked neutral, open-ended prompts that provided
opportunity for participants to share memories
about reading that stood out as being impactful. We
did not sway the participants towards favourable or
unfavourable memories or to memories about certain
activities. Nevertheless, when asked about reading at
various points across development; not one participant
indicated that they had no memories related to read-
ing. Said differently, every participant recalled some-
thing, be it good or bad, from the three time periods.
The reading frequency and enjoyment question-
naire, which was completed after the reading prompts
to avoid cross-contamination, provided a different
vantage point by asking participants to report on a
uniform set of classroom practices selected based on
motivational theory (i.e. self-determination theory;
Deci and Ryan, 2000). On the questionnaire, only 3%
of responses indicated that the participants ‘did not
remember’ classroom activities. While we are not
claiming that the participants’ memories were
accurate, nevertheless, they were able to share their
subjective experiences, indicating that learning to read
and subsequent reading activities seem to occupy a
special place in childhood and adolescence that is
remembered into adulthood. Our participants
remembered what their teachers did (or did not do),
reinforcing the push to encourage reading for pleasure
in primary school classrooms (Cremin and Moss, 2018),
which calls into question the notion raised by some
teachers that reading motivation cannot be taught
(Garces-Bacsal et al., 2018).
Together, the associations between the prompts, the
questionnaire and the ART underscore the value of
creating positive past and present reading experiences.
Participants’ memories were linked in meaningful
ways to how many authors they recognised on the
ART, which is a proxy for reading over the lifetime.
Findings from the present research have significant
implications for understanding how memories of
positive and negative experiences may align with
future reading habits. Our results stress the importance
of increasing teachers’ knowledge about motivational
strategies that satisfy students’ autonomy, competence

12
and relatedness (Deci and Ryan, 2000), as many of the
reported memories were related to these three basic
needs, rather than being generally positive or negative
in nature.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in
the absence of any commercial or financial relation-
ships that could be construed as a potential conflict
of interest.
Funding
This research was funded by a grant to S.
Martin-Chang from the Social Sciences and Humani-
ties Research Council of Canada (435-2020-1228).
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CONTACT THE AUTHORS
Manzar Zare, Department of Education,
Concordia University, Montreal, QC Canada
Stephanie Kozak, Department of Education,
Concordia University, Montreal, QC Canada
Monyka L. Rodrigues, Department of Education,
Concordia University, Montreal, QC Canada
Sandra Martin-Chang, Department of Education,
Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
email: s.martin-chang@concordia.ca