Past research has indicated that a significant relationship exists between children's home
environment and reading achievement. However, most such studies have been conducted in
Western countries where the concept of home environment is different from that in developing
countries. In developed countries, almost all students have amenities like electricity and piped
water in their homes, and these factors are never thought of being influential in a student’s
academic performance. In the current study, the home environment factors considered among
other factors were: possession of such things like piped water, electricity, refrigerator and TV.
Collectively, these possessions were taken to be a measure of social economic status (SES). SES,
together with several other factors were used as measures of the students’ home environment. The
student’s score on a reading test was used as a measure of reading achievement. The study
utilised a sample of 2697 sixth grade students who were randomly sampled across the schools in
Zimbabwe.