Abstract:  Reading ability is one of the most extensively investigated topics in education research. Several studies found that self-regulated reading was the core to improve reading ability while social economic status was important to self-regulated reading. However, the inner mechanisms were unknown. Both external factor (e.g., parents' encouragement) and internal factor (e.g., reading motivation) were likely to be mediating factors between socioeconomic status and reading autonomy. Therefore, it’s important to discuss the mediating effect of parents' encouragement and reading motivation on reading autonomy. The present study investigated the mediating effect between family socioeconomic status and reading autonomy among elementary school students. Three hypotheses were tested: Hypothesis 1: family socioeconomic status directly affects the reading autonomy. Hypothesis 2: family socioeconomic status affects the reading autonomy through parents' encouragement and reading motivation, respectively. Thus, parents' encouragement and reading motivation are parallel mediator factors. Hypothesis 3: family socioeconomic status affects reading motivation through parents' encouragement, and then affects the reading autonomy. Hence, parents' encouragement and reading motivation are chain intermediary roles. Participants were 313 fourth-grade students from two cities. All students completed the reading autonomy scale and questionnaire test. Participants were 175 (55.9%) male students and 138 (44.1%) female students. They completed four measures: socioeconomic status questionnaire, parents' encourage reading questionnaire, reading motivation questionnaire and reading autonomy scale. Preliminary and descriptive analyses showed that Cronbach’s alpha of parents' encourage reading questionnaire, reading motivation questionnaire, and reading autonomy scale was 0.828, 0.843, 0.749, respectively. Firstly, the statistic analysis showed that the total effect of family socioeconomic status on reading autonomy was significant, γ = 0.32, p < 0.01. Model fit indices in SEM were χ2/df = 2.05, TLI = 0.90, CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.063, SRMR = 0.053. Secondly, after the intervening variables (i.e. parents' encouragement and reading motivation) were included in the model, the direct effect of family socioeconomic status on reading autonomy was not statistically significant, but other path coefficients were statistically significant. Model fit indices in SEM were χ2/df =1.39, TLI = 0.93, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.038, SRMR = 0.052. Finally, the bias-corrected bootstrap method was used for significant tests. The results indicated that the direct effect of family socioeconomic status on reading autonomy was not significant and three intermediary effects were statistically significant. In conclusion, parents' encouragement and reading motivation play the intervention role between family socioeconomic status and reading autonomy.

Key words:  family socioeconomic status, parents' encouragement, reading motivation, reading autonomy, mediating effect