Cultural capital is a key term from the Social Reproduction Theory, and it is defined as the codes and practices that parents pass on to their children (Bourdieu, 1984). Previous empirical studies have confirmed the importance of cultural capital, and it is positively related to students' reading achievement (e.g., Kosutic, 2017; Noble &…

In this study, we examined students' access to text, defined as the number of texts freely available to children in their classrooms. From 60 elementary classrooms across five states, we catalogued the books in first, third and fifth grades in both high- and low-achieving schools (based on state-wide reading test scores) to create a database of…

This paper examines the relation between children's summer activities before fourth through sixth grade and their vocabulary knowledge in fifth grade and at age fifteen using the NICHD SECCYD dataset (N = 1,009). We used OLS regression and propensity score analyses to understand how children's summer reading, library visits, participation in…

Today's primary schools are being designed in a totally different way from those of only a few years ago. In Australia, both the Victorian Government and the Catholic education authorities have changed their notion of schooling. The most significant change has been the linking of curriculum, pedagogy and the types of spaces in which children…

This article shares the voices of preadolescent girls as they participated in an eight-month book selection study which enabled them to be active agents in their book and reading experiences. The girls, school-identified as struggling readers and self-identified as resistant readers, complicate current notions of reading, as influenced by…