Does Purpose of Text Matter

Texts with different purposes and features have been rarely emphasized in early schooling. In particular, informational texts have received less attention during primary grades in the United States. By analyzing the data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), this study explored some genre-related variables to see their differential prediction of student reading performance between literary and informational reading. Results supported the genre-specific nature of reading. Most of all, experience with texts had a significant prediction of reading performance, but the prediction was genre-specific and context-dependent. More reading with informational texts had a significant prediction of better informational reading performance only if it happened with teachers at school. These results suggest that we should provide students with genre-specific and genre-rich experiences in reading instruction where they have explicit and systematic opportunity to learn to read with texts from different genres.