Change in Reading Ability and Attitudes from Childhood to Adulthood: A Life Span Perspective

Abstract

Research on the development of reading abilities has often failed to view the discontinuous nature of how reading skills are used in different reading contexts throughout the life span. Reading skills and abilities will vary in forms, contents, and purposes at different times, depending upon both environmental and intrapersonal factors. Reading for a job-related task relies upon much different skills than reading a child’s bedtime story, for example. There is also evidence that reading in high school does not prepare the individual for the often specialized forms of reading found in the adult world of work (Mikulecky, 1982). There may be as much skill development in reading-to-learn in adulthood as there is when learning-to-read in childhood. A life span examination of reading can inform both researchers and practitioners about: (a) how the process of leaming-to-read enhances reading-to-learn and (b) how reading-to-learn enhances cognitive development.KeywordsReading ComprehensionReading SkillReading AbilityComprehension TestReading AchievementThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.