Reading anxiety's longitudinal associations with reading skills and reading interest from second to third grade

To support literacy acquisition, abundant research has focused on cognitive predictors. However, reading processes also involve affective factors. The present study explored children's reading-related anxiety and its longitudinal associations with reading skills and reading interest value among a sample of 790 Finnish children followed from Grade 2 to Grade 3. The assessments administered in the classrooms included the children's self-reported reading anxiety and reading interest, followed by reading fluency skills tests. The latent cross-lagged panel model suggested that having lower reading fluency in Grade 2 was associated with developing more reading anxiety and less reading interest in Grade 3. The multigroup analysis further suggested that reading interest may support girls against developing anxiety in reading. The results show that the developmental associations between reading skills, interest, and anxiety emerge early on and that to prevent reading anxiety, both skills and interest can be useful targets.