In contrast, in Morawski and Brunhuber's study, the proficient readers' memories occurred much earlier, commonly when they were three to six years old. In general, the mother, or another parent, rather than the teacher was central in their recollections. These better readers took ownership of their learning and were committed to learning to read. They had a positive attitude about reading with feelings of satisfaction and determination.

There are direct implications from Morawski's and Brubaker's (1993) study. Those with positive self–concepts view reading as enjoyable, motivating, and relevant and are more likely to want to read more. On the contrary, those with negative self–concepts see reading as stressful, discouraging, meaningless, and anxiety–laden. Holding negative attitudes such as these can lead to avoidance or minimally to a reduction in reading activities. When a child finds reading difficult, he or she may enter into a vicious cycle, read less and therefore get less practice and so reading is even harder. Since so many of the parents in the study had reading problems as children, it would be important for them and their children to engage in functional, relevant, enjoyable, realistically challenging, and success–oriented reading to break this cycle and help them become more positive about reading.

High Aspirations

Low–income parents in this study have the same goals and high aspirations for their children as other parents in higher socioeconomic echelons. The difference is that they face more barriers in trying to help their children achieve these goals. For example, with insufficient financial resources and with no reliable means of low–cost transportation, they may lack the means to enable their children to participate in the same activities as the middle class. They are restricted in their ability to take their children on outings where they would acquire cultural capital, such as to the public library, museums, art galleries or cultural centres; or go on trips to places outside their neighbourhood. Their children cannot participate in extracurricular activities that have an associated cost such as music lessons, sports activities or the guiding or scouting movement. Thus they miss opportunities to develop a habitus for these activities and to acquire additional cultural capital.