Does it matter what students read? Evidence from Andalusia

Abstract

There is a great amount of literature which states that promoting reading among students is of public interest. Nevertheless, there is scarce evidence on the differential influence that each type of readings can have on students’ progression. Because of that, in the present research work we study the association between the frequency children read five different types of text (comics, short stories, books, newspapers and magazines) and their performance on standardised reading and mathematics tests, using census and longitudinal data from the most populated region of Spain, i.e. Andalusia. We suggest that institutional campaigns should be aimed at promoting the reading of books.