Exploring the Relations of Morphological Awareness with Phonological Awareness and Vocabulary: The Case of the Greek Language.

Abstract

Although relations between morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary have been widely observed, questions remain about their precise associations. The purpose of the present study was to explore the relations of morphological awareness with two highly related linguistic skills (phonological awareness and vocabulary) in a transparent orthographywith rich morphology. The study sample consisted of 121 (58 males, Mean age = 93.94months, SD = 3.32) 2nd grade Greek-speaking children. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three-factor model provided the best fit to thedata, indicating that although morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary are highly correlated, they represent distinct linguistic constructs. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the bidirectional effects between the three linguistic skills. Results revealed that both phonological awareness and vocabulary significantly contributed to morphological awareness, with phonological awareness having a stronger effect. Conversely, morphological awareness significantly affected both phonological awareness and vocabulary. The effect size from phonological awareness and vocabulary to morphological awareness was similar to the effect size reported from morphological awareness to phonological awareness and vocabulary. These results suggestthat morphological awareness is highly associated with phonological awareness and vocabulary, being though a distinct skill. In addition, it seems that these linguistic skills have bidirectional effects with each other in first grades.