Unraveling the Contribution of Morphological Awareness to Reading: A Longitudinal Analysis of Word-Level Outcomes for Latent Profiles of Young Readers

Theories of English literacy development assume that both phonological awareness and morphological awareness are metalinguistic skills involved in word identification. While there is robust empirical evidence supporting the key role of phonological awareness in reading, there is a smaller – though growing - body of empirical evidence suggesting morphological awareness makes a unique contribution to word identification. Much of the morphological awareness research has focused on its contribution to decoding in general; analysis of its specific role in the identification of different word types (i.e., morphologically complex words compared to non-morphologically complex words; real words compared to pseudowords) is inconsistent and limited. This study aims to fill this gap by examining Grade 2 students’ accuracy reading a variety of word types, controlling for morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and verbal cognitive ability. Results suggest that morphological awareness contributes to the recognition of morphologically complex and non-morphologically complex real words, but not to pseudowords. Also crucial to the field of morphological awareness research is a more developed understanding of the reader. Latent profile analysis was used to empirically determine unique student profiles of phonological and morphological awareness ability. Reading outcomes (e.g., decoding accuracy and reading comprehension) were analyzed longitudinally for each profile, across Grades 2-4, a critical developmental period when learning to read. Students in the morphologically dominant group and the phonologically dominant group performed similarly across time on all outcome measures. Students with commensurate development of these skills outperformed the other two groups on all measures at all time points, suggesting both skills are needed for higher levels of reading achievement during elementary school grade levels. Because many students struggle learning to read, this finding is useful in identifying the different skill profiles that are more or less at-risk for future reading outcomes

Unraveling the Contribution of Morphological Awareness to Reading: A Longitudinal Analysis of Word-Level Outcomes for Latent Profiles of Young Readers

Theories of English literacy development assume that both phonological awareness and morphological awareness are metalinguistic skills involved in word identification. While there is robust empirical evidence supporting the key role of phonological awareness in reading, there is a smaller – though growing - body of empirical evidence suggesting morphological awareness makes a unique contribution to word identification. Much of the morphological awareness research has focused on its contribution to decoding in general; analysis of its specific role in the identification of different word types (i.e., morphologically complex words compared to non-morphologically complex words; real words compared to pseudowords) is inconsistent and limited. This study aims to fill this gap by examining Grade 2 students’ accuracy reading a variety of word types, controlling for morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and verbal cognitive ability. Results suggest that morphological awareness contributes to the recognition of morphologically complex and non-morphologically complex real words, but not to pseudowords. Also crucial to the field of morphological awareness research is a more developed understanding of the reader. Latent profile analysis was used to empirically determine unique student profiles of phonological and morphological awareness ability. Reading outcomes (e.g., decoding accuracy and reading comprehension) were analyzed longitudinally for each profile, across Grades 2-4, a critical developmental period when learning to read. Students in the morphologically dominant group and the phonologically dominant group performed similarly across time on all outcome measures. Students with commensurate development of these skills outperformed the other two groups on all measures at all time points, suggesting both skills are needed for higher levels of reading achievement during elementary school grade levels. Because many students struggle learning to read, this finding is useful in identifying the different skill profiles that are more or less at-risk for future reading outcomes

The associations between child and item characteristics, use of vocabulary scaffolds, and reading comprehension in a digital environment:Insights from a big data approach

Scaffolding features that provide multimodal support for the pronunciation and meaning of words are increasingly common in digital reading environments. These vocabulary scaffolds are intended to aid the accurate pronunciation and understanding of individual words in context, thus supporting both vocabulary development and comprehension of text. However, the evidence on their efficacy remains inconclusive. The present study adds to the evidence base by examining: 1) whether child characteristics predict the use of vocabulary scaffolds; 2) whether the use of vocabulary scaffolds is associated with reading comprehension performance; and 3) whether the association between the use of scaffolds and reading comprehension is modulated by child and/or item characteristics. A large cohort (N ~ 120,000) of 5- to 8-year-old children in the United States interacted with a gamified digital reading environment with embedded vocabulary scaffolds, thereby generating a large observational dataset of user log files. Confirmatory analyses with Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) indicated that children with lower literacy skills, beginning readers, girls, and bilingual students were more likely to use the scaffold. Overall, the use of scaffolds was associated with better reading comprehension performance. The association between the use of scaffolds and reading comprehension was modulated by both child and item characteristics. We conclude that vocabulary scaffolds may be promising tools to facilitate reading comprehension and reduce performance differences amongst diverse learners in digital reading environments. Educational implications and recommendations for future research are discussed