The article Matthew Effects in Reading Comprehension: Myth or Reality? by Protopapas et al. (2011) explores whether the Matthew effect—a concept suggesting that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” in reading development—applies to reading comprehension in elementary school students.
The researchers followed 587 Greek students from Grades 2 through 6 across five testing points over two years, assessing reading comprehension along with spelling, decoding, fluency, and vocabulary.
The Matthew effect suggests that stronger readers will improve more rapidly than weaker readers, widening the gap over time. To test this, the study grouped students into low- and high-ability groups based on performance in reading-related skills and then tracked their progress using hierarchical linear modeling.
The findings did not support the Matthew effect in reading comprehension. Although high-ability students started with better comprehension scores, the growth rates of low-ability students were often equal or even slightly faster. This indicates a converging trend rather than the expected divergence. In other words, while poor readers did not fully catch up, they also didn’t fall further behind.
Some skill areas, like pseudoword decoding and vocabulary, showed modest convergence. However, even in these areas, the gap remained. The researchers also found no evidence of the “fan-spread pattern,” where performance variability increases over time, which would be expected under a full Matthew effect model.
The study concludes that reading comprehension development may follow a compensatory rather than cumulative model. Instead of the gap increasing, performance differences appear relatively stable or slightly narrowing over time. This calls into question widespread assumptions that early reading disadvantages necessarily lead to increasing difficulties.
Implications
These results challenge the idea that the Matthew effect applies to reading comprehension. While early intervention remains crucial, the study suggests that low-performing readers can make steady gains with proper support. The findings encourage a balanced, skills-focused approach, emphasizing vocabulary and decoding as key predictors of reading growth.
