Morphological Development in Children's Writing.

Abstract

This study focused on the development of children's control of morphological markers in their writing. The authors examined inflectional and derivational morphological forms within narratives written by 247 3rd and 4th graders. The majority of 3rd and 4th graders used inflectional forms consistently and accurately in their writing. In contrast, fewer students used derived forms, and significantly more 4th than 3rd graders used them accurately. Results indicate that children's control of morphological structures in their writing mirrors that in their speech: Inflectional morphology is largely mastered by age 9 or 10, but skills with derivational morphology continue to develop in middle childhood. The relationships among written morphological accuracy, reading, and spelling were also examined. Written morphological accuracy predicted reading and spelling performance at both grade levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)