The aims of this project are to examine the links between attitudes, self-belief and literacy behaviour and attainments. It is likely that these factors form a reciprocal relationship - i.e. success at reading means that a child believes that they can do well at reading, and they are therefore motivated to a) try harder when decoding unknown words and b) read for pleasure. In turn, both of these activities are likely to improve reading attainments. Previous studies have indicated a correlation between these areas but it is difficult to establish the cause of this correlation. Large-scale longitudinal work is required to assess whether these relationships exist and whether they vary with ability or age (for example, it could be that self-belief is more important for poor readers or in adolescence)