Leisure Reading (But Not Any Kind) and Reading Comprehension Support Each Other—A Longitudinal Study Across Grades 1 and 9
Open accessAbstract
This study examines associations between leisure reading and reading skills in data of 2,525 students followed from age 7 to 16. As a step further from traditional cross-lagged analysis, a random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to identify within-person associations of leisure reading (books, magazines, newspapers, and digital reading), reading fluency, and reading comprehension. In Grades 1-3 poorer comprehension and fluency predicted less leisure reading. In later grades more frequent leisure reading, particularly of books, predicted better reading comprehension. Negative associations were found between digital reading and reading skills. The findings specify earlier findings of correlations between individuals by showing that reading comprehension improvement, in particular, is predicted by within-individual increases in book reading.
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Adolescents felt that fiction reading provided opportunities to develop their academic skills in addition to their general knowledge and knowledge of the wider world.
“Finally, adolescents felt that fiction reading provided opportunities to develop their academic skills in addition to their general knowledge (Martin-Chang et al., 2020; Nation et al., 2022; Torppa et al., 2020) and knowledge of the wider world (Howard, 2011).”
From How Does Reading Fiction Support Adolescents’ Wellbeing? A Qualitative Study Examining Positive Affect, Connection and Personal Growth (2025) · cites this paper as Torppa et al., 2020
Difficulties with reading could in turn impact motivation and enjoyment of reading in middle childhood.
“It has also been shown that dif fi culties with reading could in turn impact motivation and enjoyment of reading in middle childhood (Torppa et al., 2020; van Bergen et al., 2021).”
From Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience. (2025) · cites this paper as Torppa et al., 2020
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Responsible Reading: Children’s Literature and Social Justice
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“For example, fiction books have been found to support adolescents’ language and literacy skills, and other academic outcomes (Jerrim & Moss, 2019; Martin-Chang et al., 2020; Torppa et al., 2020).”
Influentialvan der Kleij, S. W., Devine, R. T., Shapiro, L. R., Ricketts, J., & Apperly, I. (2025) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0001965 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“An uphill battle”: school library professionals fostering student reading engagement
Merga, M. K., & Mat Roni, S. (2025) · English in Education · doi:10.1080/04250494.2025.2456718 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…need to foster their students’ reading engagement to build and maintain literacy skills, particularly given the benefits regular RfP can offer for enhancing vocabulary and reading comprehension (Allington and McGill-Franzen 2021; Pfost and Heyne 2023; Sullivan and Brown 2015; Torppa et al. 2020).”
- Authors
- Torppa, M., Niemi, P., Vasalampi, K., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Tolvanen, A., & Poikkeus, A.-M.
- Affiliations
- University of Jyväskylä (FI)
- University of Turku (FI)
- University of Stavanger (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Torppa, Minna
- ORCID
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2020-05-01
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 876-900
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- OpenAlex
- W2927217560
- Cited by
- 177
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 27.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- urn.fi
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Jyväskylä University Digital Archive (University of Jyväskylä) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Education › Literacy and Educational Practices
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Keywords
- reading for pleasure, reading comprehension, reading fluency, reading books, digital reading, reading skills, within-person associations, longitudinal development, children and adolescents, reading motivation
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Child Development, Female, Humans, Leisure Activities, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Reading, Comprehension, Adolescent Development
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