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A defining feature of language lies in its capacity to represent meaning across oral and written forms. Morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language, are the fundamental building blocks that encode meaning, and morphological skills enable their effective use in oral and written language. Increasing evidence indicates that morphological skills are linked to literacy outcomes, including word reading, spelling and reading comprehension. Despite this evidence, the precise ways in which morphology influences the development of children's literacy skills remain largely underspecified in theoretical models of reading and spelling development. In this paper, we draw on the extensive empirical evidence base in English to explicitly detail how morphology might be integrated into models of reading and spelling development. In doing so, we build on the perspective that morphology is multidimensional in its support of literacy development. The culmination of our efforts is the Morphological Pathways Framework – an adapted framework that illuminates precise mechanisms by which morphology impacts word reading, spelling and reading comprehension. Through this framework, we bring greater clarity and specificity on how the use of morphemes in oral and written language supports the development of children's literacy skills. We also highlight gaps in the literature, revealing important areas to focus future research to improve theoretical understanding. Furthermore, this paper provides valuable theoretical insight that will guide future empirical inquiries in identifying more precise morphological targets for intervention, which may have widespread implications for informing literacy practices in the classroom and educational policies more broadly.

Skilled reading comprehension is an important goal of educational instruction and models of reading development. In this study, the authors investigated how core skills surrounding morphemes, that is, the minimal units of meaning in language, support the development of reading comprehension. The authors specifically contrast the roles of morphological awareness and morphological analysis; the first refers to the awareness of and ability to manipulate morphemes in language, and the second refers to the use of morphemes in inferring the meaning of unfamiliar morphologically complex (multimorphemic) words. The authors evaluated these morphological skills in 197 English‐speaking students who were followed from grade 3 to grade 4; the analyses used stringent autoregressor controls to home in on predictors of gains over time. In addition to morphological awareness and morphological analysis, the authors assessed students' reading comprehension and controls for word reading, vocabulary, phonological awareness, nonverbal ability, and age. Multivariate autoregressive path analysis revealed that morphological analysis, but not morphological awareness, predicted gains in reading comprehension. Morphological awareness, for its part, predicted gains in morphological analysis. Taken together, the findings allude to a developmental trajectory whereby students' use of morphemes to infer the meanings of unfamiliar complex words supports the development of reading comprehension over time. The development of this skill, in turn, appears to be supported by a more general awareness of morphemes in language. These findings contribute to theory and reading instruction by clarifying the ways in which morphological skills support the development of students' reading comprehension.

A defining feature of language lies in its capacity to represent meaning across oral and written forms. Morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language, are the fundamental building blocks that encode meaning, and morphological skills enable their effective use in oral and written language. Increasing evidence indicates that morphological skills are linked to literacy outcomes, including word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. Despite this evidence, the precise ways in which morphology influences the development of children’s literacy skills remains largely underspecified in theoretical models of reading and spelling development. In this paper, we draw on the extensive empirical evidence base in English to explicitly detail how morphology might be integrated into models of reading and spelling development. In doing so, we build on the perspective that morphology is multidimensional in its support of literacy development. The culmination of our efforts is the Morphological Pathways Framework—an adapted framework that illuminates precise mechanisms by which morphology impacts word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. Through this framework, we bring greater clarity and specificity on how the use of morphemes in oral and written language supports the development of children’s literacy skills. We also highlight gaps in the literature, revealing important areas to focus future research to improve theoretical understanding. Furthermore, this paper provides valuable theoretical insight that will guide future empirical inquiries in identifying more precise morphological targets for intervention, which may have widespread implications for informing literacy practices in the classroom and educational policies more broadly.

Three experiments are reported that investigate the cognitive processes underlying contextual and isolated word reading. In Phase 1, undergraduate participants were exposed to 75 target words under three conditions. The participants generated 25 words from defi nitions, read 25 words in context and read 25 in isolation. In Phase 2, volunteers completed either an explicit recall task (Experiment 1), an implicit word stem completion task (Experiment 2) or both tasks (Experiment 3). Our fi ndings provide converging evidence that contextual and isolated word reading elicit different patterns of cognitive processing. Specifi cally, Experiments 1-3 demonstrated that words read in context were remembered similarly to words generated from defi nitions: words from both conditions were recalled more frequently in the surprise memory task and selected less often to complete the word stems in the implicit memory task. The opposite pattern was noted for words read in isolation. Reading in context is discussed in terms of its greater reliance on semantic processing, whereas isolated word reading is discussed in relation to perceptually driven processes.When humans read, the letters encountered on the page are translated into verbal pronunciations that are either spoken aloud or read silently. Of course, words are inseparably bound with meaning; therefore, introspectively it can feel as if seeing a word grants access to its meaning and pronunciation simultaneously. However, mounting evidence suggests that the exchange between orthography, phonology and semantics is more intricate than it fi rst appears. In fact, it has been proposed that 'word meaning' exerts infl uence early in the reading process (Balota, Cortese, Sergent-Marshall, Spieler & Yap, 2004), so that semantic knowledge shapes word recognition before the verbal referent has been fully formed (Nation, 2008;Ouellette, 2010;Ouellette & Fraser, 2009). Yet, it remains unclear whether the role of semantic processing differs depending on the context in which the words are read. The current investigation presents three experiments that elucidate the varying degrees of semantic processing (thinking of a word's meaning) and visual processing (analysing a word's orthographic form) when adults read words in isolation and in context.Acknowledging that there are three main contributors to reading (orthography, phonology and semantics) rather than two (orthography and phonology) is the cornerstone of the 'triangle' connectionist model (Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg & Patterson, 1996;Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989). According to this model, the reading process can be simulated by presenting activity to grapheme units (letters) and allowing it to fi lter through the system

Poor comprehenders have age-appropriate word reading skills but struggle with understanding what they read. The purpose of this study was to investigate how poor comprehenders perform on multiple aspects of morphological awareness, a skill implicated in reading comprehension. In keeping with current research and theory, we look at three aspects of morphological awareness: morphological structure awareness, morphological analysis and morphological decoding. Using a regression-based approach, we identified 64 poor and average comprehenders out of a large sample of children in grade 3. Our results show that poor comprehenders and average comprehenders performed remarkably similar on morphological structure awareness, analysis, and decoding. Poor comprehenders performed more poorly than average comprehenders only on word analogy, a specific measure of morphological awareness. These results identify an area with which poor comprehenders are likely to struggle, while simultaneously providing evidence for areas of relative strength within this population. HighlightsWhat is already known about this topic • Poor comprehenders are individuals who have age-appropriate word reading and phonological processing skills, but have specific impairments in understanding text • Poor comprehenders seem to have impairments in certain aspects of morphological awarenessWhat this paper adds• Here, we investigated the one aspect of morphological awareness studied in past research, but with a larger sample size. This allowed us to clarify mixed results of past research • We also investigated two other aspects of morphological awareness, morphological analysis and morphological decoding, that have not yet been studied in poor comprehenders

Background Reading comprehension is a complex skill, drawing on a range of resources. One is morphological awareness, or the awareness of the smallest meaningful units in language. Testing the predictions of the Simple View of Reading, we evaluate how morphological awareness relates to reading comprehension in a relatively transparent orthography. Method There were 70 Portuguese‐speaking children in Grade 2 in our study. The children completed measures of morphological awareness and reading comprehension, along with two potential mediators: word reading and listening comprehension. Children also completed control measures of phonological awareness and nonverbal ability. Results Path analysis showed that there were indirect effects of morphological awareness on reading comprehension through each of word reading and listening comprehension. There was no significant direct effect of morphological awareness on reading comprehension beyond these mediators and controls. Conclusions Our results provide a novel empirical confirmation of the predictions of current models of reading comprehension. We do so for readers of a relatively transparent orthography. Highlights What is already known about this topic Many studies with English‐speaking children have demonstrated that morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension. Much less is known about how this relation works and if it holds for readers of relatively transparent orthographies. What this paper adds This study shows that the relation between morphological awareness and reading comprehension holds for children learning to read in the relatively transparent orthography of Portuguese. This study also shows just how these relations work. For Portuguese‐speaking children in Grade 2, the relation between morphological awareness and reading comprehension is fully mediated by word reading and listening comprehension. Implications for theory, policy or practice Our findings provide support for the Simple View of Reading, highlighting the dual roles of word reading and listening comprehension in reading comprehension. Our findings point to targets for intervention; morphological awareness instruction might be most effective if paired with instruction on how morphology impacts both word reading and oral language.

Teacher reading-related knowledge (phonological awareness and phonics knowledge) predicts student reading, however little is known about the reading-related knowledge of parents. Participants comprised 70 dyads (children from kindergarten and grade 1 and their parents). Parents were administered a questionnaire tapping into reading-related knowledge, print exposure, storybook reading, and general cultural knowledge. Children were tested on measures of letter-word knowledge, sound awareness, receptive vocabulary, oral expression, and mathematical skill. Parent reading-related knowledge showed significant positive links with child letter-word knowledge and sound awareness, but showed no correlations with child measures of mathematical skill or vocabulary. Furthermore, parent reading-related knowledge was not associated with parents' own print exposure or cultural knowledge, indicating that knowledge about English word structure may be separate from other cognitive skills. Implications are discussed in terms of improving parent reading-related knowledge to promote child literacy.