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Published: 06 November 2013

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Dr Kerry Hempenstall, Senior Industry Fellow, School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

 All my blogs can be viewed online or downloaded as a Word file or PDF at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olxpifutwcgvg8j/AABU8YNr4ZxiXPXzvHrrirR8a?dl=0

New addition - March 2025 

So, this document is a new variant of the original paper. As my original document goes back quite some time, this one is focusing on recent times – it is reporting only on those released between 2000 and 2050. I’m interested to see how the various elements of education may have changed. You can find the original document at the end of this section.

Evidence for Matthew effects or compensation? (2020)

“Abstract: The Matthew effect hypothesis of academic development predicts that students with higher initial achievement will develop further skills at a faster rate resulting in cumulative advantages. Prior research has focused on the development of reading competence in primary school. To extend this research, we used a sample of N = 1,010 German students in Grades 5 to 9 to compare the development of reading and mathematics skills between high-achieving high-track secondary school students and their peers to clarify whether rates of academic development differ between these groups. Using latent growth curve modeling, we found a pattern of compensation in both domains—that is, the achievement gap became smaller and this was the case particularly in the early grades of secondary school. Thus, our results provide no evidence for the existence of Matthew effects in reading and mathematics in lower secondary school.”

Claudia Neuendorf, Malte Jansen, Poldi Kuhl, Competence development of high achievers within the highest track in German secondary school: Evidence for Matthew effects or compensation?, Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 77, 2020, 101816, ISSN 1041-6080, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2019.101816

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608019301529)

“The old saying does often seem to hold true: the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, creating a widening gap between those who have more and those who have less. The sociologist Robert K. Merton called this phenomenon the Matthew effect, named after a passage in the gospel of Matthew. Yet the more closely we examine the sociological effects of this principle, the more complicated the idea becomes. Initial advantage doesn't always lead to further advantage, and disadvantage doesn't necessarily translate into failure. Does this theory need to be revisited?

Merton's arguments have significant implications for our conceptions of equality and justice, and they challenge our beliefs about culture, education, and public policy. His hypothesis has been examined across a variety of social arenas, including science, technology, politics, and schooling, to see if, in fact, advantage begets further advantage. Daniel Rigney is the first to evaluate Merton's theory of cumulative advantage extensively, considering both the conditions that uphold the Matthew effect and the circumstances that cause it to fail. He explores whether growing inequality is beyond human control or disparity is socially constructed and subject to change. Reexamining our core assumptions about society, Rigney causes us to rethink the sources of inequity.”

Understanding the Matthew Effect: Unlocking the Mystery Behind Why the Rich Get Richer Paperback

Mark Wilburn

https://www.amazon.com.au/s?i=books-single-index&rh=p_27%3AMark%2BWilburn&s=relevancerank&text=Mark+Wilburn&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

“Abstract

Background and aims

This study focuses on individual differences in the math competencies of primary-school children in Germany. It considers whether or not there are Matthew or compensatory effects in math literacy and which factors and background characteristics of primary-school children can affect competence development. Despite the abundant research on this topic, the findings are often ambiguous, and studies in the German context are sparse.

Sample and methods

We used the Starting Cohort 2 of the German National Educational Panel Study and a weighted multilevel mixed-effects panel regression for our analyses (N = 4,982).

Results

Our results revealed compensatory effects for low-achieving students in math literacy. There were also small gender differences, but lower achieving girls can close the gap with boys during primary school. With respect to the educational background of the parents, almost no longitudinal effects were observed.

Conclusions

The results indicated that the joint primary-school period has a compensatory effect on lower performing students. However, higher achieving students retained their lead, implying that social inequalities persist to some extent. …

Several results indicate the presence of Matthew effects in primary-school math. Wei, Liu, and Barnard-Brak (2015) observe a Matthew effect by focusing on the period between kindergarten and eighth grade in the United States. The results reveal that children who start with a higher intercept also show faster growth. Furthermore, the results demonstrate a quadratic growth pattern in math achievement, meaning that improvements slow down as soon as students reach a certain competence level and decline afterwards. Aunola, Leskinen, Lerkkanen, and Nurmi (2004) also identify Matthew effects during the period from preschool to second grade in Finland. The results show a cumulative pattern in the development of math performance. Initially, high-performing children show accelerated developmental trajectories compared to those with a lower performance level. The authors identify small gender differences in favour of boys, which is in line with other studies (Leahey & Guo, 2001; Wei et al., 2015). The results expose that boys show faster growth in math despite similar initial performance levels. One explanation for these gender differences is a higher level of boys’ mathematical motivation and self-concept, which may result from both parental and school socialization (Aunola et al., 2004).”

Herrmann S, Meissner C, Nussbaumer M, Ditton H. Matthew or compensatory effects? Factors that influence the math literacy of primary-school children in Germany. Br J Educ Psychol. 2022 Jun;92(2):e12462. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12462. Epub 2021 Oct 11. PMID: 34633063. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12462

Bridging Gaps in Early Intervention with High-Impact Tutoring

The concept of the Matthew Effect finds empirical grounding in the science of reading, an interdisciplinary bank of knowledge that incorporates research from psychology, linguistics, and education. This scientific approach offers valuable insights into how reading proficiency develops and why early advantages or disadvantages can have lasting impacts. 

Understanding the Matthew Effect

First coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton, the term "Matthew Effect" originates in a biblical passage from the Gospel of Matthew: "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away." In reading, this effect represents a phenomenon where minor initial differences in ability can compound over time, leading to a widening divide between strong and weak readers.

How it Works

• Early Success: Grounded in the science of reading, children who exhibit strong foundational skills early on are more likely to engage in reading activities. This foundation sets them on a rewarding path as reading becomes less cumbersome and more enjoyable.
• Increased Exposure: These proficient readers gain access to a broader range of vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and various subject matter, enriching their reading proficiency measures.
• Feedback Loop: The cycle perpetuates itself; the more they read, the better they get. This positive feedback loop is explained and supported by the scientific understanding of how reading skills develop over time.

The Opposite Effect

Conversely, children who struggle early on with reading tend to disengage from these activities, missing out on the foundational skills texts that could help them improve. Their lack of engagement often exacerbates their struggles, leading to lower self-esteem and a dwindling motivation to read.

Various environmental factors influence The Matthew Effect, such as socioeconomic status, quality of education, and familial support. These factors can exacerbate or mitigate the effects, contributing to educational inequity.

Educational Equity and the Matthew Effect

The Matthew Effect is a vivid illustration of disparities in educational equity. To effectively prevent this phenomenon, educational systems must be grounded in the science of reading and focus on early identification of reading challenges.

The Matthew Effect is a poignant illustration of the systemic educational inequities within educational systems, making it an essential focus within the broader discussion of educational equity. The Matthew Effect amplifies existing student disparities, often entrenched in socioeconomic conditions, access to quality academic resources, and systemic biases. These disparities extend beyond academic achievement into future career prospects, social mobility, and overall well-being when left unaddressed.

Unequal Access to Quality Instruction

The issue of access to high-quality, research-driven instruction is a significant contributor to educational inequity. Students in under-resourced schools often receive less effective instruction, exacerbating the Matthew Effect's adverse effects. By investing in quality instructional materials and teacher training grounded in the science of reading, schools can offer fair opportunities for all students to develop foundational reading skills.
The Role of Policy and Systemic Change

Educational policy plays a crucial role in mitigating the Matthew Effect. Policymakers must advocate for equitable allocation of resources, which includes providing under-resourced schools with the tools needed for effective reading instruction. Data-driven decision-making, grounded in educational research, should inform these policies to ensure that interventions are both practical and effective.
The Imperative of Early Identification

Addressing educational inequities requires an integrated approach grounded in the science of reading. This scientific lens enables educators to diagnose reading difficulties and implement evidence-based interventions accurately. Early identification becomes paramount in this context. When we identify struggling readers early, they can receive targeted support, helping to close the widening achievement gap perpetuated by the Matthew Effect.

High-Impact Tutoring for Early Intervention

High-impact tutoring, which aligns with principles from the science of reading, can offer targeted early intervention. Unlike traditional classroom settings, high-dosage tutoring allows tailored learning experiences in a one-to-one or small-group format. This specialized focus can significantly elevate reading proficiency measures, enabling children to catch up and more fully engage in their education.

Not only does high-impact tutoring aim to improve reading skills, but it also fosters a love for reading by making it less daunting. Success in this setting often leads to a positive feedback loop, breaking the vicious cycle instigated by the Matthew Effect.

The Matthew Effect, deeply grounded in the science of reading, is a pressing issue with lifelong implications. However, it is possible to level the educational playing field through early identification, environmental adjustments, and the use of research-driven high-impact tutoring. Concentrating on these aspects during early interventions can make a significant difference, setting the stage for long-term academic success.”

What is The Matthew Effect in Reading (2024) Connie Warren 

https://blog.booknook.com/the-matthew-effect-reading

“Typically, students with reading difficulty have struggled academically throughout school, often just barely passing each grade level. Some students never received good reading instruction and experienced poor environmental conditions in childhood. Some have a specific learning disability in reading, often called dyslexia.

Dyslexia has been recognized as a learning disability for many decades. Some dyslexia experts maintain that the term “dyslexia” should be reserved only for people who experience difficulty with reading. Other experts argue that dyslexia describes a broad set of neurological differences that impact various capacities, including listening, speaking, reading, writing, sequencing, and remembering.

All dyslexia experts agree that dyslexia accounts for why some children have more difficulty learning to read than their peers. Even a slight reading delay can translate into a significant gap between what a child is expected to read at school and what they can learn from reading in a few short years..

This gap is often exacerbated for children with dyslexia because they tend to avoid reading. It is an understandable avoidance; for these children, reading is arduous. However, avoidance puts them at an even greater disadvantage. This phenomenon is referred to as the Matthew Effect, a term coined by Robert K. Meron in 1968 and adopted for education by psychologist Keith Stanovich in 1986.

In the biblical story of Matthew, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. In the case of young readers, good readers read more and get better at reading, whereas less-skilled readers read less and fall farther and farther behind their peers. In time, the difference in reading ability can become significant and begin to impact other areas of learning, such as vocabulary development and comprehension.

Other capacities, such as speaking and writing, can also be influenced by how much reading a child does. For many children with dyslexia, delayed progress in these areas diminishes their self-esteem and motivation to complete schoolwork, which can further hinder their ability to learn at school (Franklin, 2018). In the words of Stanovich (1986):

Slow reading acquisition has cognitive, behavioral, and motivational consequences that slow the development of other cognitive skills and inhibit performance on many academic tasks. In short, as reading develops, other cognitive processes track the reading skill level. Knowledge bases in reciprocal relationships with reading are also inhibited from further development.

The longer this developmental sequence is allowed to continue, the more generalized the deficits will become, seeping into more and more areas of cognition and behavior. Or, to put it more simply – and sadly – in the words of a tearful nine-year-old, already falling frustratingly behind his peers in reading progress, “Reading affects everything you do.”

Studies on the Matthew Effect report mixed results

Studies attempting to confirm the Matthew Effect in reading report mixed results. Protopapas and team (2015) followed 587 Greek students of varying reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills for two years, from Grades 2 through 4.

The authors conclude that the Matthew Effect pattern was not evident. However, there was no evidence of eventually closing the gap either. Thus, “although the poor students may not be getting poorer, they do not get sufficiently richer either.”

Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) followed up on 11th graders who were administered a battery of reading tasks in 1st grade. Ten years later, they were administered measures of exposure to print, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and general knowledge. First-grade reading ability was a strong predictor of all of the 11th-grade outcomes and remained so even when measures of cognitive ability were partialled out.

A meta-analysis of 78 studies reports that 33 studies (42.3%) indicated a decreasing achievement gap, 20 (25.6%) indicated stable achievement differences, and 18 (23.1%) indicated an increasing achievement gap or Matthew Effect. Furthermore, 6 (7.7%) results indicated a pattern of delayed compensation, which means that these studies first found increasing and subsequently found decreasing achievement differences (Pfost et al., 2014).

The Matthew Effect has led to several legal issues over the years, such as the 1997 court case of James Brody versus the Dare County Public Schools. James Brody was found eligible for special education after being administered an IQ test in the 3rd grade. After three years of special education, he was retested. According to the new testing, his IQ had dropped from 127 to 109.

Two years later, when James was retested again, his IQ had dropped even further. Experts testified that James’s declining IQ test scores were an example of the Matthew Effect and evidence that James was not receiving appropriate remediation. The Administrative Law Judge and the Review Officer agreed and found that the school district had not provided James with an appropriate education (Briggs, 2013).”

du Plessis, S., “Matthew Effect” in Reading: Why Children with Reading Difficulties Fall Farther and Farther Behind. Edublox Online Tuto https://www.edubloxtutor.com/matthew-effect-in-reading/ 

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This next segment is the original, broader document and includes earlier periods.

“For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matthew, XXV: 29).

Though the Matthew Effect in education was first coined by Walberg and Tsai in 1983, it was Stanovich (1986) who used it to describe how, in reading, those who start well tend to continue to do so, while those who do not are unlikely to catch up. Not only do they not catch up, according to Stanovich, but there will also be a widening gap between the slow starters and fast starters as their school career continues.

There is ample evidence that students who do not make good initial progress in learning to read find it increasingly difficult to ever master the process. Stanovich (1986, 1988, 1993) outlined a model in which problems with early phonological skills can lead to a downward spiral where even higher cognitive skills are eventually affected by slow reading development.

Children with a good understanding of how words are composed of sounds (phonemic awareness) are well placed to make sense of our alphabetic system. Their rapid development of spelling-to-sound correspondences allows the development of independent reading, high levels of practice, and the subsequent fluency which is critical for comprehension and enjoyment of reading.

Unfortunately, children without good phonemic awareness tend to fall into a downward spiral of achievement in which initial lack of success in reading can develop into widespread language and cognitive deficits (Ceci, 1991).

Large differences in reading practice occur, consequent upon initially low phonological skills and failure to master the alphabetic principle. Allington (1984) in a study of Year One students noted that the number of words per week read ranged from 16 in the less skilled group to 1933 in the upper group. Nagy and Anderson (1984) estimated that, in school, struggling readers may read around 100,000 words per year while for keen mid-primary students the figure may be closer to 10,000,000, that is, a 100 fold difference. For out of school reading, Fielding, Wilson and Anderson (1986) suggested a similar ratio noting that children at the 10th percentile of reading ability in their Year Five sample read about 50,000 words per year out of school, while those at the 90th percentile read about 4,500,000 words per year.

Exacerbating this problem of differential exposure is the finding that struggling readers are often presented with reading materials which are too difficult for them (Stanovich, 1986). Slow, halting error-prone reading of difficult material, unsurprisingly, militates against comprehension, and usually leads to avoidance of reading activities and further disadvantage.

Language skills such as vocabulary knowledge, general knowledge, syntactic skills, and possibly even memory, rely heavily on reading for their development (Stanovich, 1988). These skills impinge on most areas of the curriculum and hence what began as a narrow deficit becomes progressively larger, amplified by the negative motivational consequences of failure. Contrary to the hope that initial slow progress is merely a maturational lag to be redressed by a developmental spurt at some later date, typically even relatively minor delays tend to become increasingly major over time (Stanovich, 1993). A study by Juel (1988) reported a probability that a poor reader in Year One would still be so classified in Year Four was 0.88. Jorm, Maclean, Matthews and Share (1984) in their longitudinal study noted similar outcomes. A performance difference in reading of 4 months in Year One had increased to nine months in Year Two in favour of the phonemically aware group (who had been matched in their first year on verbal IQ and sight word reading), over a low phonemic awareness group.

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