Relationships Between Anxiety, Attention, and Reading Performance in Children

Many studies link anxiety in children with reading difficulties, but some facets of anxiety have been found to be positively associated with reading achievement. Attentional Control Theory offers a potential explanation for these seemingly contradictory findings, positing that anxiety can both interfere in attentional processes and enhance effort and use of compensatory processing strategies. The current study examines the relationships between anxiety, attentional control, and reading performance (word reading/decoding and passage comprehension) in a racially−diverse sample of 251 s−grade students, 152 of whom had not met reading benchmarks using screening measures. Results showed that harm avoidance was positively associated with reading performance and physical symptoms of anxiety were negatively associated with reading performance. These links were attenuated when including attentional control in the model, suggesting mediation and lending support to Attentional Control Theory. Further research is needed to confirm causal mediation effects between anxiety, attentional control, and reading performance.