Abstract

    Is early reading ability symptomatic of strong families, parents and children? What factors are related to the gender gap in reading ability? How important are education, parents, and religion for teen behaviour? These are some questions we wish to answer.

    To help answer these and related questions we provide detailed tables and charts of girls and boys by level of reading ability. In 1995 52% of girls and boys aged 6 to 11 read very well according to the parent, 58% of the girls, and 46% of the boys.

    Reading ability is associated with several qualities of the child, including ability in composition, math and overall ability; focus, taking lessons in the arts, and peacemaking.

    It is negatively associated with ignoring punishment, watching television, not getting along well with other children, not praising the work of the less able, and other qualities.

    It is positively associated with the education and worship frequency of the parents, never having to punish repeatedly for the same thing, and hope of child going to university.

    It is negatively associated with parental drinking and smoking, problems managing the child and parental depression, and not knowing the names of the child's friends.

    It is positively associated with the worship frequency of child and parent together, with family effectiveness in planning and decision making, and ease of talking about concerns.

    It is negatively associated with the child having a divorced or separated parent, low household income, and drinking being a source of family tension.

    And finally, reading ability is negatively associated with living in an area with high public alcoholism, littered streets or yards, and not getting along well with the teacher.

    After controlling for several factors, analyses of the behaviour of all teens revealed, negatively, girls more committed than boys to smoking, sexual intercourse, suicide, and sadness; while boys were more committed to marijuana smoking, other drug use, selling drugs, vandalism, and destroying things. They were more often questioned by the police.

    On the plus side teen girls were more committed than boys to helping others, while teen boys had closer relationships with their mother and father, were more hopeful about the future, and had parents who got upset with each other less frequently. These results control for the region, age and sex of the parent and child, education and religious commitment.

    Reading ability, measured as degree of inability, was found to have very few effects on the behaviour of teen boys: sadness, lower body mass index, and fewer months with a girlfriend. Reading inability among girls had several negative teen effects: smoking, marijuana use, vandalism, selling drugs, sexual intercourse, friends drink, and anger.

    Of the other influences on teen behaviour examined, the most important for girls was having separated or divorced parents, rather than married parents five years earlier. This resulted in greater commitments to smoking, marijuana and drugs, selling drugs, etc.

    Among teen boys the most important influence was worship frequency five years earlier. This resulted in less commitment to drinking, intoxication, drug use, selling drugs, etc.

    General conclusions include the importance for teen behaviour of early reading ability, especially for girls, together with having married parents. For both girls and boys, regular attendance at a place of worship is important for teen behaviour. Education of the parent and having a biblical faith are other important and positive determinants of teen behaviour.