Morphological Awareness Tasks Research Articles

Development of morphological awareness in Arabic: the role of morphological system and morphological distance

AbstractThis study is a cross-sectional developmental investigation of inflectional and derivational morphological awareness (MA) in Arabic diglossia. It examines the impact of the morphological distance between Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) on inflectional morphological awareness and derivational morphological awareness in a sample of 200 speakers of Palestinian Arabic (PA) in 2nd through 10th grade from mid-high and low SES backgrounds (N = 40 per grade, 20 per SES group). Eight MA tasks using morphological analogies and sentence completion were used that tested inflectional MA and derivational MA in SpA and in StA. Results showed a growth in inflectional and in derivational awareness across grades in both SES groups despite generally higher scores in the mid-high SES group. More interestingly, the results showed a consistent effect of morphological distance on morphological awareness in both morphological systems and in both SES groups, with MA for unique StA morphological structures lower than that for structures available in SpA. Moreover, the impact of morphological distance was more prominent in younger than in older children and in low than in mid-high SES. Finally, when morphological awareness in SpA was tested, inflectional awareness was higher than derivational awareness and showed a shorter cross-sectional developmental trajectory, reflecting universal linguistic and distributional properties of inflections. In contrast, when morphological awareness in StA was analyzed, inflectional awareness was lower than derivational awareness and showed a longer trajectory reflecting the wider linguistic distance between SpA and StA in inflectional morphology. The results underscore the significance of morphological system characteristics and morphological distance in understanding morphological awareness development in Arabic.

Morphological Awareness and DHH Students' Reading-Related Abilities: A Meta-Analysis of Correlations.

This article presents the first meta-analysis on correlations of morphological awareness (MA) with reading-related abilities in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students (k = 14, N = 556). The results showed high mean correlations of MA with all three reading-related abilities: rs = 0.610, 0.712, and 0.669 (all ps < 0.001), respectively, for word reading, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. A set of moderator analysis was conducted of language, DHH students' age/reading stage and degree of hearing loss, and task type. The correlation of MA with word reading was significantly stronger in alphabetic than in non-alphabetic languages, and for fluency than accuracy; for vocabulary knowledge, the correlation was significantly stronger for production MA tasks than for judgment tasks; for reading comprehension, derivational MA tasks showed a stronger correlation than those having a mixed focus on inflection and derivation. While no other moderator effects were significant, the correlations for subsets of effect sizes were largely high for a moderator. These findings reaffirmed the importance of morphology in DHH students' reading development. The present synthesis, while evidencing major development of research on the metalinguistic underpinnings of reading in DHH students, also showed that the literature on MA is still very limited.

Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary Size among Chinese Tertiary ESL Learners in English-Speaking Countries

Morphological awareness is one of the determinant factors in language development, which can facilitate word reading and then facilitate later vocabulary knowledge. This study investigates morphological awareness and vocabulary size of Chinese ESL learners studying in universities in English-speaking countries and seeks to explore the relationship between these two factors. This study contributes to the existing literature on vocabulary development and enhances the understanding of English proficiency of ESL tertiary learners. Two morphological awareness tasks and a three-level Vocabulary Test are given to Chinese students studying in universities in English-speaking countries. The purpose of this study is to answer the following research questions: (1) To what extent international students in the higher education sector are aware of the morphemes?; (2) What is the average English vocabulary size of them ESL students studying in English-speaking countries?; (3)Is there any correlation between morphological awareness and vocabulary level? The result reveals that students have a good understanding of both the Morpheme Identification Test and the Morphological Structure Test. All the students have mastery of academic vocabulary, and some students reach a 5,000-word level vocabulary size. No significant correlation was found between students morphological awareness and their vocabulary level, which might be due to L1 influence, learner differences, and the lack of morphology teaching in the curriculum.

Using Dynamic Assessment to Measure Morpheme Identification and Predict Character Reading Among Chinese Children

AbstractIn the present study, we designed a dynamic measure to assess emerging morphological awareness in Chinese children and examined its concurrent and longitudinal relations with character recognition. The initial question of the dynamic assessment of morphological awareness (DAMA) task asked children to judge whether the first morphemes in a pair of words shared the same meaning. Subsequently, up to four prompts were provided for each word in the word pair to draw children's attention to the meaning of the target morpheme as well as the morphological structure of the word. The participants included 154 first‐grade Chinese children. In addition to the DAMA task, they received a battery of measures including nonverbal intelligence, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and Chinese character reading. While all measures were administered at the beginning of grade 1, the character reading measure was administered again at the end of grade 1, and at the beginning and end of grade 2. The results showed that the prompts provided in the DAMA task increased children's ability to identify morpheme meanings in compound words by helping them separate morpheme meanings from word meanings. Furthermore, the DAMA task accounted for significant unique variance in character recognition concurrently at the beginning of grade 1 and longitudinally at all three other time points after controlling for static morphological awareness and other reading related variables. Our study suggests that dynamic assessment can be used to effectively assess morphological awareness and predict character reading abilities in young Chinese children.

Effects of Affix Type and Base Word Transparency on Students' Performance on Different Morphological Awareness Measures

We examined whether affix type and base word transparency explained variation in third- through sixth-grade students' performance on a number of morphological awareness tasks. Third- through sixth-grade students (n > 500 at each grade) completed morphological awareness tasks from the Morphological Awareness Test for Reading and Spelling, which represent the ways individuals may use their morphological awareness to support reading and spelling. Explanatory item response models were used to understand the role of affix type and base word transparency on students' performance on six morphological awareness tasks. For all grades, 73%-83% of variance in students' performance was due to differences across individual items. Furthermore, when task effects, affix type, and base word transparency were included simultaneously in the model, affix type was not a significant predictor; there was a significant effect of base word transparency and task. Specifically, the probability of a correct response was greater on task items in which inflected or derived words were transparent with their base word (e.g., friend > friendly) compared to items in which there was a shift in both the phonological and orthographic aspects of the base word (e.g., attend > attention). These findings emphasize the importance of considering base word transparency when assessing students' morphological awareness skills with less emphasis on affix type, at least for third- through sixth-grade students. Our results also point to the importance of administering a variety of morphological awareness tasks to fully capture an individual's morphological awareness skills. Collectively, researchers and practitioners should ensure assessment items on multiple measures of morphological awareness vary in their base word transparency to potentially capture a range of student performances.

A Meta-analysis of Morphological Awareness Deficits in Developmental Dyslexia

ABSTRACT Purpose We performed a meta-analysis to examine if children with dyslexia experience deficits in morphological awareness (MA) and if the effect sizes are influenced by different moderators (age, aspect of MA measured, type of MA task, language, modality input, semantic knowledge, and selection criteria). Method We reviewed 40 studies published in English between January 1990 and August 2021, representing a total of 5,018 participants (age range = 5.1–13.9 years). Studies with adults or English language learners were excluded. There were 49 independent samples in the chronological-age (CA) – dyslexia (DYS) comparison and 18 independent samples in the comparison between DYS and reading–level (RL) controls. Results A random-effects model analysis revealed a large effect size for the CA–DYS comparison (g = 1.11) and a non-significant effect size for the RL–DYS comparison (g = −0.08). Age was the only significant moderator of the effect sizes. Conclusion These findings suggest, first, that individuals with dyslexia experience significant difficulties in MA and second, that the effect sizes are as large as those reported for phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and orthographic knowledge. The lack of a significant RL-DYS difference indicates that MA is not a core causal feature of dyslexia.

Predicting word and pseudoword reading in Arabic‐speaking children: the independent contributions of phonological and morphological awareness and visual attention

The present study explored whether phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA) and visual attention (VA) independently predict word and pseudoword reading accuracy in native Arabic‐speaking children from grades 4 and 5. A total of 141 participants took part in the study, and were divided into two groups of readers with (n = 30) and without (n = 111) dyslexia. PA was measured with orally administered syllable manipulation and deletion tasks. The MA task targeted the dismantling of composite Arabic words into meaningful parts in oral modality. VA was assessed by objects and letters cancellation tasks. The results showed that the two groups differed significantly in all of the measures. The regression analysis output showed that VA emerged as a significant predictor of word and pseudoword reading beyond the predictive role of PA and MA. These results have implications for the understanding of the underlying factors of word and pseudoword reading development in Arabic.

Associations between morphological awareness and literacy skills in German primary school children: the roles of grade level, phonological processing and vocabulary

Studies investigating relations between morphological awareness and literacy in German, a language with a rather transparent but asymmetric orthography, are sparse. Little is known about the role of grade level for these relationships and of their relative strength compared to those between other language-related variables and literacy skills. This cross-sectional study was conducted with German-speaking second-, third- and fourth-graders (n of final sample ≥ 85 per grade). Morphological awareness tasks required the production of inflections, derivations and compounds. Additionally, phonological processing, vocabulary, reading fluency, reading comprehension and spelling were measured. Factor analyses revealed two facets of morphological awareness: morphological fluency and morphological awareness for pseudowords. These were correlated with both reading and spelling skills in all grades. More literacy variables were related to morphological fluency in Grade 4 than in Grades 2 and 3. In regression analyses, variance in literacy skills was predominantly explained by phonological awareness. Morphological awareness did not explain additional variance. The results reveal that different facets of morphological awareness are related to literacy skills in German primary school children. Despite the asymmetry of German orthography, no evidence was found for differences in the association of morphological awareness with spelling versus reading. Phonological processing shows stronger relations with literacy than morphological awareness does. This might indicate that in the transparent German orthography, alphabetic reading and spelling strategies are particularly relevant until the end of Grade 4. Yet, morphological fluency might start to unfold its relevance for reading and spelling near the end of fourth grade in German.

Morphological Awareness Performance Profiles of First- Through Sixth-Grade Students.

We examined whether diverse profiles of strengths and weaknesses would emerge when assessing different aspects of morphological awareness in first- through sixth-grade students using a recently developed standardized test, the Morphological Awareness Test for Reading and Spelling (MATRS; Apel et al., 2021). Four thousand fifty-nine first- through sixth-grade students completed the eight morphological awareness tasks of the MATRS. The eight tasks represent the multiple ways that morphological awareness impacts both spoken and written language skills for the English language. Exploratory finite mixture models estimated the number of latent subgroups that best reflected heterogeneity in task-level performance by grade level. Specific profiles were chosen that demonstrated strong reliability and included a set of tasks that were consistent between first- and second-grade students and between third- and sixth-grade students. Different performance profiles emerged when the students completed multiple morphological awareness tasks. At each of the six grades (first through sixth), clusters of students performed differentially on specific tasks. The findings demonstrate that students can differ in patterns of strength and weaknesses of their morphological awareness given a range of tasks that assess different aspects of morphological awareness. The clinical implications of these findings suggest that by identifying students struggling in specific areas of morphological awareness, clinicians can develop and implement specific prescriptive instructional plans.

Reading Comprehension in Both Spanish and English as a Foreign Language by High School Spanish Students.

Several studies have highlighted that reading comprehension is determined by different linguistic skills: semantics, syntax, and morphology, in addition to one’s own competence in reading fluency (accuracy, speed, and prosody). On the other hand, according to the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis, linguistic skills developed in one’s own native language (L1) facilitate the development of these skills in a second one (L2). In this study, we wanted to explore the linguistic abilities that determine reading comprehension in Spanish (L1) and in English (L2) in Secondary Education students. To do this, 73 Secondary Education Students (1st and 3rd year) participated in this study. The students carried out a battery of tasks in English and Spanish, all of them related to reading comprehension (expository text) and different linguistic skills, which included syntactic awareness tasks, synonymy judgment tasks (vocabulary), and morphological awareness tasks. The results indicated a positive correlation between linguistic competencies in both languages (indicating a transfer effect between languages), which were determined by school year, with a lower performance in the 1st year than in the 3rd year. Moreover, we found more skills with correlations in English reading comprehension than in Spanish. Finally, reading comprehension in L1 was mainly explained English reading comprehension, while English reading comprehension was predicted by grade, and syntactic awareness, as well as Spanish reading comprehension. This could be explained by the different levels of exposure to L1 and L2 of sample subjects, as the linguistic variables have different influences on the reading comprehension of both languages.

Morphological Awareness and Word Complexity in an EFL Context

This study examined the relationship between morphological awareness and word complexity (simple versus complex words) in an EFL context. The participants in this study were 100 fourth-year secondary school Arts students in Tunisia. Students’ morphological awareness was measured by the Morphological Awareness Test. Vocabulary size was tested using an adapted version of Nation’s (2001) Vocabulary Levels Test as a receptive measure of vocabulary size. Half of the vocabulary test items were made complex to check the participants’ performance on simple and complex words. The informants’ scores were high on the overall morphological awareness task, and the best performance was on inflectional morphemes. This could be very useful for teachers to build on, improve, and construct better future teaching practices. Finally, morphological awareness differentiated between students’ performance on simple versus complex words.

Morphological Awareness in L2 Chinese Reading Comprehension: Testing of Mediating Routes.

This study aims to examine the contribution of morphological awareness to second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension through potential mediating factors. Adult L2 Chinese learners (n = 447) participated in the study and completed two morphological awareness tasks (segmentation and discrimination), two vocabulary knowledge tasks (character knowledge and word-meaning knowledge), one lexical inference task, and one reading comprehension task. By testing alternative path models, this study identified the preferred model assuming the covariates of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge jointly contributed to L2 Chinese reading comprehension through lexical inference. The written modality of morphological awareness induced the activation of both morphological and orthographic information in print. The result suggests that morphological awareness (in the form of grapho-morphological knowledge) and vocabulary knowledge seem to be two parallel components under the same construct predicting Chinese reading comprehension. More importantly, this study underscores the intermediary effect of lexical inference in associating morphological awareness and reading comprehension in L2 Chinese learners.

The neurocognitive basis of morphological processing in typical and impaired readers.

Morphological awareness, or sensitivity to units of meaning, is an essential component of reading comprehension development. Current neurobiological models of reading and dyslexia have largely been built upon phonological processing models, yet reading for meaning is as essential as reading for sound. To fill this gap, the present study explores the relation between children's neural organization for morphological awareness and successful reading comprehension in typically developing and impaired readers. English-speaking children ages 6-11 (N = 97; mean age = 8.6years, 25% reading impaired) completed standard literacy assessments as well as an auditory morphological awareness task during functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging, which included root (e.g., PERSON + al) and derivational (e.g., quick + LY) morphology. Regression analyses revealed that children's morphological awareness predicted unique variance in reading comprehension above and beyond demographic factors, vocabulary knowledge, and decoding ability. Neuroimaging analyses further revealed that children with stronger reading comprehension showed greater engagement of brain regions associated with integrating sound and meaning, including left inferior frontal, middle temporal, and inferior parietal regions. This effect was especially notable for the derivational morphology condition that involved manipulating more analytically demanding and semantically abstract units (e.g., un-, -ly, -ion). Together, these findings suggest that successful reading comprehension, and its deficit in dyslexia, may be related to the ability to manipulate morpho-phonological units of word meaning and structure. These results inform theoretical perspectives on literacy and children's neural architecture for learning to read.

Effects of a Morpheme-based Spelling Intervention Challenging Previous Results

Morpheme-based training programs to improve literacy skills are widely used with older children in the morphologically complex German language. This study investigated whether (1) morphological training is effective early in development (Grade 2) and (2) effects can be attributed to advanced morphological processing. Fifty-two German-speaking second-graders received an eight-week morpheme-based training, while an age-matched control group (n = 41) attended regular language classes. We observed training effects for spelling and reading morphologically complex words, whereas performance on standardized reading tests and a morphological awareness task improved similarly across groups. In a masked priming task assessing implicit word segmentation, response times for lexical decisions decreased more strongly in the intervention than the control group, but there was no clear training impact on the pattern of morphological priming. Thus, while written language processing improved, it is unclear whether these effects can be attributed to morphological processing or unspecific gains in orthographic knowledge.

Behavioral and Brain Measures of Morphological Processing in Children With and Without Familial Risk for Dyslexia From Pre-school to First Grade

School-age reading skills are associated with and predicted by preschool-age cognitive risk factors for dyslexia, such as deficits in phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory. In addition, evidence exists that problems in morphological information processing could be considered a risk factor for dyslexia. In the present study, 27 children at pre-school age and the same 27 children at first grade age performed a morphological awareness task while their brain responses were measured with magnetoencephalography. Our aim was to examine how derivational morphology in Finnish language, and concomitant accuracy and reaction times are associated with first grade reading, in addition to the preschool age reading-related cognitive skills. The results replicated earlier findings; we found significant correlations between pre-school phonological skills and first-grade reading, pre-school rapid naming and first-grade reading, and pre-school verbal short-term memory and first-grade reading. The results also revealed a significant correlation between the pre-school children's reaction time for correctly derived words in the morphological task and the first-grade children's performance in rapid automatized naming for letters. No significant correlations were found between brain activation measures of morphological processing and first-grade reading.

Morphological Awareness Skills of Second- and Third-Grade Students With and Without Speech Sound Disorders.

Purpose Morphological awareness is the ability to consciously manipulate the smallest units of meaning in language. Morphological awareness contributes to success with literacy skills for children with typical language and those with language impairment. However, little research has focused on the morphological awareness skills of children with speech sound disorders (SSD), who may be at risk for literacy impairments. No researcher has examined the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD and compared their skills to children with typical speech using tasks representing a comprehensive definition of morphological awareness, which was the main purpose of this study. Method Thirty second- and third-grade students with SSD and 30 with typical speech skills, matched on age and receptive vocabulary, completed four morphological awareness tasks and measures of receptive vocabulary, real-word reading, pseudoword reading, and word-level spelling. Results Results indicated there was no difference between the morphological awareness skills of students with and without SSD. Although morphological awareness was moderately to strongly related to the students' literacy skills, performance on the morphological awareness tasks contributed little to no additional variance to the children's real-word reading and spelling skills beyond what was accounted for by pseudoword reading. Conclusions Findings suggest that early elementary-age students with SSD may not present with concomitant morphological awareness difficulties and that the morphological awareness skills of these students may not play a unique role in their word-level literacy skills. Limitations and suggestions for future research on the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD are discussed.

Exploring Inflectional Morphological Awareness Skills in Greek-speaking Children with Poor Reading Comprehension

ABSTRACT The study explored the inflectional morphological awareness of Greek-speaking poor comprehenders identified in grade 3. The sample consisted of 13 poor comprehenders and 27 good comprehenders. The poor comprehenders were selected from 126 children attended 19 primary schools in metropolitan area of Athens using a cut-off-based approach. All the participants completed two oral experimental tasks of inflectional morphological awareness (i.e. verb inflections and noun–adjective inflections). Noun–adjective inflection task assessed children’s ability to produce the plural of articles, adjectives and nouns in the context of a sentence. Verb inflection task required children to change the tense of the verb in a sentence. Furthermore, phonological awareness, oral receptive vocabulary, word reading and reading comprehension were measured with standardised tasks. It was revealed that the two reading groups differed in verb inflections and oral receptive vocabulary. However, poor comprehenders had well-developed noun–adjective inflections and intact phonological skills. Overall our findings lead us to suggest that in an alphabetic language with shallow orthographic system and rich morphology poor comprehenders appear to have impaired inflectional morphological awareness and impaired vocabulary. Moreover, these results suggest the significance of teaching morphological skills in improving reading comprehension. However, further research is needed to substantiate these findings.

Morphological processing influences on dyslexia in Greek-speaking children.

The study explored the inflectional morphological awareness of Greek-speaking children with dyslexia in grade 3. The sample consisted of 24 dyslexic children and 32 chronological age-matched typically developing readers. All participants completed two oral experimental tasks of inflectional morphological awareness (i.e., verb inflections and noun-adjective inflections). The noun-adjective inflection task assessed children's ability to produce the plural of articles, adjectives, and nouns in the context of a sentence. The verb inflection task required children to change the tense of the verb in a sentence. Furthermore, phonological awareness and oral receptive vocabulary were assessed. Greek-speaking children with dyslexia faced difficulties in both inflectional tasks and in receptive vocabulary. They appeared to have greater difficulty in elicitation of non-past tense from past tense. Binary logistic regression targeted at understanding whether dyslexia can be predicted based on phonological and non-phonological oral language skills revealed that phonological awareness had a significant effect on distinguishing dyslexics from typically developing readers. Overall, our findings lead us to suggest that in an alphabetic language with a shallow orthographic system and rich morphology, children with dyslexia appear to have impaired inflectional morphological awareness and impaired vocabulary in comparison to their peers. Moreover, these results suggest the significance of teaching morphological skills in improving reading skills. However, further research is needed to substantiate these findings.

The contribution of morphological instruction to morphological awareness and reading: An integrative experiment on Turkish EFL learners

The present study attempts to investigate the contribution of morphological instruction on awareness of morphology and its effects on reading. The participants were 74 freshmen studying at Translation and Interpreting Department and were distributed into experimental and control groups. The results have shown that the experimental group outperformed the control group on all four tasks of morphological awareness including root analysis, derivations and correction of affixes. On the tasks of reading vocabulary experimental group outperformed the control group again, demonstrating positive effects of morphological instruction. It is concluded that morphological treatment benefited morphological awareness and in turn, reading comprehension. The results also demonstrate that submitting an explicit treatment to the EFL learners on morphology helps them improve morphological awareness which is correlated with reading comprehension

Kindergartners’ morphological awareness, its instruction and guidance in the Indonesian context

Children's language development is an arguably integral part of early childhood education. This research departs from the assumption that morphological awareness encompassing sensitivity to word units plays a critical role in ascertaining the success of children's reading skills in school. The purpose of the present study was two-fold: i) to assess the level of morphological awareness of preschool children, and ii) to reveal the types of learning and guidance activities in the classroom that facilitate the development of children's linguistic awareness and early literacy in general. Data were obtained through a set of morphological awareness tasks (a judgment task and a word analogy task) to kindergarten students aged 4-6 years, classroom observations, and interviews with the teachers. By virtue of an exploratory nature of this research, the data stemmed from one kindergarten in a North Bandung area, Indonesia. Findings reveal that the kindergarten children, in general, have demonstrated early signs of morphological awareness owing to ongoing language development. Their morphological awareness level appears to be contingent on the extent of their morphological knowledge. Pedagogically, it is found that the teachers have provided the students with various types of morphological knowledge learning and guidance activities in the school to help hone the awareness. Implicationally, explicit morphological awareness and vocabulary instruction need to be implemented in a preschool context to prepare children’s later academic success.