Early motivation toward learning and performance reader: longitudinal study

The aim of the present longitudinal study was to examine the predictive power of different variables of motivation towards learning, evaluated in Kindergarten on different aspects of reading performance in the 2nd grade of Primary School. The initial sample consisted of 209 pre-schoolers from 5 to 6 years old and their teachers, of whom 179 were evaluated again two years later. In Kindergarten, teachers completed the Preschool Learning Behaviours Scale (PLBS, McDermott, Green, Francis, Stott, 2000) that assesses competency-motivation learning behaviours (behaviours related to the anticipation of success), attention-persistence (ability to persist doing a task until it is completed) and attitude towards learning (willingness to participate in learning activities). Two years later, a Spanish standardized assessment of reading performance (PROLEC-R, Cuetos et al., 2007) was administered to evaluate different aspects related to reading performance: letter identification, access to the lexicon, syntactic and semantic processes. The results showed that the variables of motivation towards learning evaluated in Kindergarten are able to predict the subsequent reading performance, with a special weight of the ability to persist doing a task until it is completed. The implications of these findings for research and psychoeducational practice are discussed