The contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in Arabic-speaking second graders

Reading and Writing - We examined the longitudinal contribution of awareness of inflections and derivations to reading comprehension in Arabic, a morphologically rich language, among 734 second...     

Effect of phonological and morphological awareness on reading comprehension in Hebrew-speaking adolescents with reading disabilities

This research explored phonological and morphological awareness among Hebrew-speaking adolescents with reading disabilities (RD) and its effect on reading comprehension beyond phonological and word-reading abilities. Participants included 39 seventh graders with RD and two matched control groups of normal readers: 40 seventh graders matched for chronological age (CA) and 38 third graders matched for reading age (RA). We assessed phonological awareness, word reading, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension. Findings indicated that the RD group performed similarly to the RA group on phonological awareness but lower on phonological decoding. On the decontextualized morphological task, RD functioned on par with RA, whereas in a contextualized task RD performed above RA but lower than CA. In reading comprehension, RD performed as well as RA. Finally, results indicated that for normal readers contextual morphological awareness uniquely contributed to reading comprehension beyond phonological and word-reading abilities, whereas no such unique contribution emerged for the RD group. The absence of an effect of morphological awareness in predicting reading comprehension was suggested to be related to a different recognition process employed by RD readers which hinder the ability of these readers to use morphosemantic structures. The lexical quality hypothesis was proposed as further support to the findings, suggesting that a low quality of lexical representation in RD students leads to ineffective reading skills and comprehension. Lexical representation is thus critical for both lexical as well as comprehension abilities.     

The relationship of morphological analysis and morphological decoding to reading comprehension

The ultimate goal of children's reading development is the full and fluid understanding of texts. Morphological structure awareness, or children's awareness of the minimal units of meaning in language, has been identified as a key skill influencing reading comprehension. Here, we evaluate the roles of morphological structure awareness and two related skills, morphological analysis and morphological decoding, in Grade 3 and Grade 5 children's reading comprehension. Respectively, morphological decoding and analysis refer to the use of morphemes in reading and in understanding words. Critically, our analyses show that, together, morphological structure awareness, morphological decoding and morphological analysis account for 8% of the variance in reading comprehension, after controlling for children's age, phonological awareness, nonverbal reasoning and word reading skill. Further, of these dimensions, each of morphological decoding and morphological analysis makes a unique contribution to reading comprehension. We discuss these findings in terms of current theories of reading development and educational curricula.     

Vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) reading comprehension ability

This study explored the role of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in reading comprehension ability of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) learners. One hundred ninety five CHL students participated in this study and completed a series of measures including two sets of vocabulary knowledge (one consisting of items pertaining to early exposure to spoken Chinese and the other comprised of items selected from a pool of words in Chinese as a foreign language classrooms), morphological awareness (structural awareness and functional awareness), and reading comprehension ability (lexical inference and passage comprehension). Drawing upon structural equation modeling with a bootstrap estimation method, the study found that vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness both contributed to reading comprehension among CHL learners. More critically, the results indicated that morphological awareness mediated the relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in CHL learners. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses probed the relative contributions of vocabulary knowledge measures to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, and found that vocabulary knowledge acquired in formal Chinese instruction contributed to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, to a greater extent, than that gained through early exposure to spoken Chinese.     

Preschool morphological training produces long-term improvements in reading comprehension

We evaluated the effect of morphological awareness training delivered in preschool (8 months before school entry) on reading ability at the end of grade 1 and 5 years later (in Grade 6). In preschool, one group of children received morphological awareness training, while a second group received phonological awareness training. A control group followed the ordinary preschool curriculum. The comparison between each training condition and the control condition is quasi experimental, whereas the comparison between the morphological and phonological treatments is randomized at group level. In Grade 1 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores than children in the control group on both word reading and text reading measures, but no differences were found between the experimental groups. In Grade 6 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores compared with the control group on a latent measure of reading comprehension, whereas the children in the phonological awareness training group did not differ from the controls; although the experimental groups did not differ significantly from each other. The results suggest that early training in morphological awareness can have long-term effects on children’s literacy skills.     

The contribution of phonological processing skills to reading comprehension in grades one and three.

Abstract

During the last decade, the importance of the relationship between phonological processing skills to reading performance has been highlighted. The aim of this study was to examine differences between above average and below average readers (determined by a reading comprehension test) on phonological processing skills at grade one and at grade three. There were 35 grade one, and 34 grade three students from two primary schools. Data from phonemic awareness and phonological awareness tests were subjected to t‐tests. The below average readers in both grade one and three had fewer phonological processing skills than the above average readers. The importance of students’ cognitive functioning to reading comprehension appeared more important at the grade one level than at the grade three level. The study indicated that below average readers, particularly at grade one, would benefit from explicit teaching in both phonemic and phonological awareness skills.     

The contribution of knowledge about anaphors,organisational signals and refutations to reading comprehension

Expository texts contain rhetorical devices that help readers to connect text ideas (within a text and with prior knowledge) and to monitor reading. Rhetorical competence addresses readers' skill in detecting, understanding and using these devices. We examined the contribution of rhetorical competence to reading comprehension on two groups of 11‐ to 13‐year‐old students: low‐level (Study 1) and high‐level (Study 2) reading skills. The measures of rhetorical competence assessed students' knowledge about anaphors, organisational signals and refutations. In both studies, each measure of rhetorical competence contributed significantly to reading comprehension once prior knowledge, working memory and decoding skills were controlled for. This contribution was higher in Study 2. Furthermore, whereas in Study 1, each measure of rhetorical competence had a unique contribution to reading comprehension when controlling for the other measures of rhetorical competence, in Study 2, only the knowledge about organisational signals and refutations had this unique contribution.     

Improving early reading comprehension using embodied CAI

An embodied approach to reading comprehension suggests that emerging readers must learn to map words and phrases onto their remembered experiences, but this is made difficult by the necessity of focusing attention on decoding. Having children manipulate toys to correspond to what they are reading overcomes this problem, but introduces its own problem for the classroom, namely having to provide a classroom full of children with manipulative. In this article, we demonstrate that having first- and second-grade children manipulate images of toys on a computer screen benefits their comprehension as much as physical manipulation of the toys. In addition, manipulation on one day facilitates reading in the same domain one week later. These findings encourage the use of manipulation of text-relevant images as an educational technology for enhancing early reading comprehension. The findings also set constraints on theoretical accounts of embodiment while reading.     

Word and sentence level tests of morphological awareness in reading

Reading and Writing - Common tests of morphological awareness measure both morphology and syntax by requiring participants to fit words and pseudowords into sentences by adding or removing affixes....     

The effects of morphological and syntactic knowledge on reading comprehension in spanish speaking children

Reading and Writing - Reading comprehension is a complex task requiring many underlying skills. Syntactic awareness and morphological awareness are two such skills that have been shown to be...     

The role of vocabulary components in second language learners' early reading comprehension

Background

In countries with German as an official language, children with German as a second language perform overall worse in school than their German native speaking peers. This particularly affects written language skills, which require advanced language knowledge. The reasons are manifold, but one is prominent, namely poor vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary, however, consists not only of the number of known words but also of a complex and hitherto under-researched lexico-semantic framework, which is referred to as vocabulary depth.

Method

In the present study, a sample of 373 children (322 German native speakers and 51 with German as a second language) was examined longitudinally in Grade 2 and 3 for their reading comprehension and vocabulary breadth and depth. Vocabulary depth was defined as relational and semantic word knowledge. Latent change score models on vocabulary breadth and depth development including reading precursor skills, non-verbal intelligence and SES were conducted.

Results

The children with German as a second language scored lower than the native German speakers in reading and vocabulary tests, with the difference in vocabulary depth being more pronounced than in vocabulary breadth. Importantly, the differences did not tend to diminish over time, which could have been expected. The differences in reading comprehension can be accounted for mainly by the variations in vocabulary, especially in vocabulary depth.

Conclusions

These findings emphasise the importance of including not only vocabulary breadth but also vocabulary depth in the context of reading research on children who do not speak the majority language.

     

The effects of morphological versus phonological awareness training in kindergarten on reading development

The aim of this study was toinvestigate the long-term effects of twodifferent training programs in kindergarten onreading development. One group received aprogram focusing on the phonological structureof words, while a second group received aprogram focusing on morphology. Both groupsalso had some print exposure focusing onphonological or morphological elementsrespectively. During their last pre-schoolyear, participants received training for 30minutes per week for a total of 17 weeks. Acontrol group received no intervention but wasregularly visited by the researcher and hadextensive print exposure. Both trained groupsshowed improvements in phonological,morphological and reading skills in comparisonto the Control Group. The effects of trainingvaried according to mother's educational level:Children of relatively highly educated mothersentered the pre-school training with betterdeveloped metalinguistic abilities thanchildren of less well educated mothers.Significant interactions between the groups andthe mother's educational level, for some of theschool reading measures, indicated thatdifferent training programs had differenteffects on different groups of children.Children of poorly educated mothers profitedthe most from metaphonological training whilechildren of highly educated mothers profitedthe most from metamorphological training.     

The importance of early phonics improvements for predicting later reading comprehension

The role of phonics instruction in early reading development has been the subject of significant conjecture. Recently, England implemented a phonics screening check to assess the phonetic decoding of 6-year-old students, to ensure that all students master this foundational literacy skill and attain adequate phonemic awareness in the early years of primary schooling. Students who fail this check are obliged to retake the assessment the following year. In this article, we compare the performance of students who initially pass this check (pass) and students who fail the original assessment but pass the retaken assessment (fail–pass), with students who fail both the original and retaken assessments (fail–fail). Using data from the Key Stage 1 assessment of reading and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), we examined the reading comprehension performance of these students approximately 1 and 4 years after their first phonics screening. The results suggested that fail–pass students performed substantially better than fail–fail students, even after performance on the initial phonics check was controlled for. While fail–pass students do not appear to entirely catch up with pass students in reading comprehension, their relatively better performance underscores the importance of intervening for those students who are identified as having problems with phonetic decoding to increase their likelihood of success at reading comprehension in later schooling.     

Unpacking the relation between morphological awareness and Chinese word reading: Levels of morphological awareness and vocabulary

The nature of the relations among morphological awareness, vocabulary and word reading in Chinese children remains relatively unclear. The present study aimed to distinguish between sublexical morphological awareness, referring to the ability to use the meaning cues of semantic radicals embedded in a compound character, and lexical level morphological awareness, defined as the ability to understand and manipulate single characters (i.e., morphemes) comprising Chinese compound words, on word reading. We also examined the role of vocabulary knowledge on the relation between morphological awareness and word reading at both the sublexical and lexical levels. A group of 172 Chinese second graders were administered measures of sublexical and lexical level morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, nonverbal ability, and word reading. Both sublexical and lexical levels of morphological awareness were moderately correlated with word reading. Vocabulary knowledge appeared to partially mediate the effect of sublexical morphological awareness on word reading, but it fully mediated the effect of lexical level morphological awareness on word reading. These results suggest that sublexical and lexical level morphological awareness play distinct roles in Chinese word reading; vocabulary knowledge is an important factor influencing the relation between morphological awareness and word reading in Chinese.