Gender Differences in the Relationship of Nascent Conservation and Reading Abilities

Abstract

Eighty five-year-old children were administered the Reading Recognition subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAI ), the Concept Assessment Kit-Conservation (CAK), the Concepts About Print test (C AP), and Taking Inventory of Children’s Literary Background in a study of gender differences in the relationship of early conservation ability with reading and linguistic awareness. Regression analyses revealed a correlation of .72 between the C AK and PIAI for the girls, but the same coefficient was only - .10 for the boys. A similar difference also occurred in the relationship between the C AK and C AP. These findings and available evidence from other studies consistently support the hy pothesis that conservation ability is more highly correlated with performance on reading and reading-related tasks in girls than in boys.