A key factor in determining a child's level of reading achievement is the amount of reading experience. More reading experience contributes to vocabulary growth, and vocabulary development facilitates reading comprehension, an example of reciprocal causation. This reciprocal causation leads to the rise of Matthew effects: children who have strong vocabularies and reading skills read more, and continue to improve their vocabularies/reading skills, whereas children with weak vocabularies and poorer reading skills will read less, hindering the development of their vocabularies/reading skills.

Reciprocal Causation in Reading Achievement underlies Matthew Effects

To elaborate on a point made by the previously linked node, the idea of a student's reading skill affecting their later vocabulary growth is an example of the Matthew Effect in education. The paper discussed in the following nodes involves a research study that looks at the influence of reading skill as a variable for vocabulary growth by assessing 4th grade students in word-reading skills and oral vocabulary knowledge and then looking at their progress through continued assessments in the 8th and 10th grade. Although the paper surmises that early reading skills can be an influence that exemplifies the Matthew Effect, it also looks into what kind of Matthew Effect can emerge as a result of this difference in reading skills (whether high or low) for students.

The Influence of Reading on Vocabulary Growth- Summary

Among the research on the Matthew Effect in education, there have been several studies on its existence regarding differences in reading skills starting from children of an early age. The article titled "Matthew Effects for Whom?" asks the question what kind of children are at risk for experiencing this phenomenon and being at an advantage or disadvantage compared to other students. The study was designed to look at children of certain demographics from kindergarten to third grade, whose reading skills were assessed through the Reading Test that covered several aspects of reading comprehension.

Matthew Effects for Whom- Summary

The presence of Matthew effects in education can be partially accounted for by individual differences in reading ability from an early age, but the Matthew effect also contributes to reading ability itself. This can be seen when children who are already good readers tend to get even better, while children who initially struggle with reading tend to fall even further behind. These differences compound with time, and eventually initial difficulty with reading leads to generalized cognitive deficits and overall lower academic achievement, contributing to the Matthew effect in education. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The Matthew effect exists in education, in which students seen as low performing  will continue performing at low levels, while high performing students will continue to perform at high levels. 

The Matthew Effect in Education

-  A review done by Raizada & Kishyama, reference 85, looks specifically at the effects of socioeconomic status on brain development. The study draws on the Matthew effect, in particular as a potential triggering mechanism for a long-term self-reinforcing trend in training executive function in young children, with improved self control enabling greater attentiveness and learning, which would in turn help to make a child’s educational experiences more rewarding, therefore facilitating greater intellectual growth.
-  Cohen et al,, references 157 and 158, have shown that even brief self-affirmation writing assignments aimed at reducing feelings of academic threat in ethnic minority high-school students had the effect of producing significant improvements in grade-point average, a potential indication that the Matthew effect might have caused this. 

"The Matthew effect in empirical data" by Matjaz Perc: References supporting the Matthew effect in education 

-  There is evidence that early deficiencies in literacy may lead to problems with learning new skills all throughout life. Because of the Matthew effect, these early deficiencies cause an individual to fall behind during formative primary school years which may create disadvantages that can be difficult to compensate for all the way to adulthood. 
-  Arguments of the Matthew effect come from cognitive neuroscience as well, where it is hypothesized that the Matthew effect could be exploited by means of intervention with the goal of improving the brain development of children with low socioeconomic status 

"The Matthew effect in empirical data" by Matjaz Perc: The Matthew Effect in Education

-  Preferential attachment in network science is described where the more connected nodes are bound to obtain many more connections in the future than supplemental nodes. Complex Networks have vertices which are elements of the system and edges which represent the interactions between them (Reference 16, Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks). Therefore, the nodes being described vary depending on the system being studied. 
-  In preferential attachment, choice is not random but rather linearly biased by the number of links that the pre-existing nodes have with other nodes. This in turn triggers the rich-get-richer effect which and therefore allows the more connected nodes to gain more links at the expense of their less-connected counterparts. 
-  In the paper, they review the methodology for measuring preferential attachment in empirical data and discuss observations of the Matthew effect in many areas including in education and brain development. 

"The Matthew effect in empirical data" by Matjaz Perc: Preferential attachment in network science 

Reading Abilities and the Matthew Effect in Education

Teachers were told that some students (that were randomly assigned) were gifted. These "gifted" children showed significantly more progress than the rest of the children in the class. This effect might be due to the fact that more is expected of smart children: higher expectations lead to higher performance, Pygmalion Effect. 

Matthew effect-perceptions of gifted vs nongifted students 

Many schools track students into high performing and low performing tracks from a young age. This practice sends the high performing students upward and the low performing students downward, widening the divide between their skill sets 

Matthew effect-tracking students

- inner city schools face mutually reinforcing problems with poverty including : "high unemployment and crime rates, industrial and middle class flight, and family instability"
- schools are funded by property taxes so these schools do not have a lot of money
- poor schools have a lower budget per pupil 
- low ranked school systems exacerbates the problem because it deters people from living in the area-there is thus no opportunity for the property values to increase and therefore increase the quality of the schools 
- argument against increased funding for poor districts (from highly funded districts)- increasing quality fo everyone decreases the excellence of some 

Problems with poor schools and the matthew effect

- economically disadvantaged students do not have access to top of the line higher education 
- the gathering of small advantages over the first 18 years of life makes a huge difference in college preparation/college applications 
- kids from a high SES family are 6x more likely and kids from a college educated family are 7x more likely to be considered competitive in college admissions 
- there is competition amongst colleges for prestige because prestigious universities get more resources which can be divested back into the college. to further their lead (large endowments)

Matthew effect in higher education 

- cultural capital= "knowledge, skills and even aesthetic tastes"
- passed on and reproduced through generations 
- people who are born with cultural capital (ex. access to resources and elite schools/universities) use it further their own advantage
- accumulation of cultural capital can. be positive when it benefits greater society (ex. scientific discoveries)


Cultural capital (and the matthew effect)

- When there are two scientists who are equal in everything else/productivity, the one with the most impressive university background and general credentials is more likely to be recognized 
- can be positive because a famous name on a piece of work certifies its importance and accuracy and the highest achievers can serve as role models for up-and-coming scientists 
- Linked to a self fulfilling prophecy-the general expectation that a famous scientist’s work is important causes people to give it more weight, thus furthering the scientist’s fame 
- When papers are written by a group of scientists, one of which is known well and the others not as much, people will over look the less known authors  

Matthew effects in science 

- Technology builds upon itself-it’s known as an autocatalytic process 
- In the boom of the 1990s, a large divide started to form amongst people who had access to technology and those who didn’t 
- Eventually the gap wasn’t that large at the individual level as technology became more accessible-wide on global scale though amongst different countries 
- A large technology gap in the world is concerning because Divide in the world is bad because connectivity is needed for advancement in other areas connectivity is needed for advancement in different areas 
- People in disadvantaged countries might be able to close the gap because there is more room to grow-however, experts do not know the upper limit of the technology gap because the technological gap is exponential 

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