Bloom's Model of Human Development: A Regression Surface Analysis

The Bloom model of development was used to examine relations between the family environment and measures of the reading development of a national sample of English children. The sample was divided into three age cohorts. The initial reading performance and the family environment of the children were assessed when the average ages in the cohorts were 7, 8 and 11 and assessed again four years later. Regression surface analysis, which provided only partial support for the Bloom model, was conducted separately for girls and boys and for middle and lower social status groups. From the analysis the following general propositions are suggested: (a) for children with low initial reading levels increases in the quality of the intervening family environment are not associated with changes in later reading performance, (b) at any initial reading level children who experience a poor intervening family environment show a decline in their later reading performance, relative to the achievement of other children, and (c) children with high initial reading scores either maintain or increase their relative position in reading performance, with respect to other children, if they experience an enriched intervening family environment.