Family Resources and Children’s Reading Comprehension Performance

Abstract

This study investigated family resources and their relation to reading comprehension performance in students from the third to the fifth grade, in a public and a private schools from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The study aimed to explore the differences concerning the type of school (public or private). The sample consisted of 404 children aged 7 to 13 years (M = 9.10; SD = 1.20). The instruments used were the Inventário dos Recursos do Ambiente Familiar - RAF and two Cloze's tests. Results revealed a positive significant correlation between the categories and the total scores in RAF and Cloze's tests. It was also found that there was a statistically significant difference between the averages of students in the RAF and the Cloze's, favoring private school children. The importance of assessing these variables in order to develop preventive actions in the context of public education is also discussed.