The relationship of morphological analysis and morphological decoding to reading comprehension
Abstract
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.
Number of times cited: 9
- Kyle C. Levesque, Michael J. Kieffer and S. Hélène Deacon, Inferring Meaning From Meaningful Parts: The Contributions of Morphological Skills to the Development of Children's Reading Comprehension, Reading Research Quarterly, 54, 1, (63-80), (2018).
- I. Nocus, P. Guimard and A. Florin, Maîtrise de l’oral et de l’écrit en français et en tahitien : une étude longitudinale du CP au CM2 en Polynésie française, Psychologie Française, 10.1016/j.psfr.2017.09.004, 63, 4, (357-377), (2018).
- Joanne F. Carlisle and Devin M. Kearns, Learning to read morphologically complex words, Theories of Reading Development, 10.1075/swll.15.11car, (191-214), (2017).
- Irit Bar-Kochva and Marcus Hasselhorn, The Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Processing and Its Effects on Literacy Skills, Frontiers in Psychology, 8, (2017).
- Elizabeth Jean MacKay, Kyle Levesque and S. Hélène Deacon, Unexpected poor comprehenders: An investigation of multiple aspects of morphological awareness, Journal of Research in Reading, 40, 2, (125), (2017).
- Hélène Deacon, Rebecca Tucker and Bradley Bergey, The role of metalinguistic and socio-cognitive factors in reading skill, Developmental Perspectives in Written Language and Literacy, 10.1075/z.206.05dea, (2017).
- Kyle C. Levesque, Michael J. Kieffer and S. Hélène Deacon, Morphological awareness and reading comprehension: Examining mediating factors, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 160, (1), (2017).
- Lynne G. Duncan, Language and Reading: the Role of Morpheme and Phoneme Awareness, Current Developmental Disorders Reports, 10.1007/s40474-018-0153-2, (2018).
- Chase Young and Evan Ortlieb, Implementing Readers Theater in Secondary Classrooms, Reading Psychology, 10.1080/02702711.2018.1555364, (1-19), (2018).
