The influence of family socioeconomic status (SES) on the development of children’s reading ability has been widely studied. A meta-analysis by Li and colleagues explored a mechanism through which SES affects reading ability. They proposed that SES not only has a direct effect on reading outcomes (reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension), but also indirectly affects reading ability through two linguistic skills, namely, phonological awareness (PA) and vocabulary knowledge (VK). To test this proposed mediation role, meta-analytic structural equation modeling was employed.

The results of the modeling, based on 385 studies with participants age ranging from 2.16 to 17.9 years, revealed that SES had significant direct effect on linguistics skills and reading outcomes. Both PA and VK played a significant mediation role in the relation between SES and reading. Put differently, SES influenced students’ reading both directly and through its impact on phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge.

Moderation effects were also observed in the mediation process, specifically age, measurement of family SES, and writing system:

• The effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading accuracy and reading comprehension increased with age.
• With limited samples, the analysis found that measurement of SES moderated the effect of PA on reading accuracy, i.e., PA became a stronger predictor when composite SES was used rather than single item SES.
• PA had stronger effect on reading accuracy in alphabetic languages (e.g., English) compared to logographic language (i.e., Chinese). Similarly, the influence of VK on reading comprehension was stronger in alphabet languages than in the logographic language.

The authors noted that resources should be invested in foundational literacy skills, which are proximal variables, to support further reading development. Notably, while significant moderation effects were found on specific correlation paths in the mediation pathway, no statistical test was conducted to determine whether these moderators significantly modified the mediation effects.

Source: Li, J., Peng, P., Ma, X., Ding, N., & Zhao, J. (2023). How does family socioeconomic status influence children’s reading ability? Evidence from meta-analytic structural equation modeling. Educational Psychology Review, 35(4), 119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09834-1