Evaluating models of how morphological awareness connects to reading comprehension: A study in Portuguese

Abstract

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.

How morphology impacts reading and spelling: Advancing the role of morphology in models of literacy development

“…These include languages represented with alphabets that are highly phonologically transparent, such as Finnish (e.g., Bertram et al, 2000;Lehtonen & Bryant, 2005), Spanish (e.g., D'Alessio et al, 2018;Suárez-Coalla et al, 2017), and Italian (e.g., Angelelli et al, 2017) and those that are less so, such as French (Quémart et al, 2011). This extends to languages with more complex syllable structure, such as German (e.g., Hasenäcker et al, 2017) and those less so, such as Greek (e.g., Diamanti et al 2017;Manolitsis et al, 2017) and Portuguese (e.g., Oliveira et al, 2020). It also extends to languages represented with abjads, such as Hebrew (e.g., Schiff et al, 2012), and those with morphosyllabic writing systems, such as Chinese (e.g., Tong et al, 2017).…”

“…And yet, effects of morphological processing on literacy skills may be observable in younger children for transparent orthographies where grapheme-phoneme correspondences are mastered earlier in development than in English (Hasenäcker et al, 2017;Lehtonen & Bryant, 2005). Relatedly, questions remain in transparent orthographies as to whether morphology influences reading and spelling accuracy (e.g., Angelelli et al, 2017;Oliveira et al, 2020) or whether effects are more clearly observed on fluency (e.g., Burani et al, 2008;D'Alessio et al, 2018;Marcolini et al, 2011; but see Diamanti et al, 2017;Manolitsis et al, 2017). Further still, the division of labor between morpho-orthographic and morpho-semantic segmentation is a likely candidate for cross-linguistic differences, with unanswered questions pertaining to how much the semantic properties of morphemes support reading and spelling in transparent versus opaque languages across development (e.g., Beyersmann et al, 2012;Feldman et al, 2009;Schiff et al, 2012).…”

How morphology impacts reading and spelling: advancing the role of morphology in models of literacy development

“…These include languages represented with alphabets that are highly phonologically transparent, such as Finnish (e.g., Bertram, Laine, & Virkkala, 2000;Lehtonen & Bryant, 2005), Spanish (e.g., D'Alessio, Jaichenco, & Wilson, 2018;Suárez-Coalla, Martínez-García, & Cuetos, 2017) and Italian (e.g., Angelelli, Marinelli, De Salvatore, & Burani, 2017), and those that are less so, such as French (Quémart et al, 2011). This extends to languages with more complex syllable structure, such as German (e.g., Hasenäcker, Schröter, & Schroeder, 2017), and those less so, such as Greek (e.g., Diamanti et al, 2017;Manolitsis, Grigorakis, & Georgiou, 2017) and Portuguese (e.g., Oliveira, Levesque, Deacon, & da Mota, 2020). It also extends to languages represented with abjads, such as Hebrew (e.g., Schiff et al, 2012), and those with morphosyllabic writing systems, such as Chinese (e.g., Tong, Tong, & McBride, 2017).…”

“…And yet effects of morphological processing on literacy skills may be observable in younger children for transparent orthographies where grapheme–phoneme correspondences are mastered earlier in development than in English (Hasenäcker et al, 2017; Lehtonen & Bryant, 2005). Relatedly, questions remain in transparent orthographies as to whether morphology influences reading and spelling accuracy (e.g., Angelelli et al, 2017; Oliveira et al, 2020) or whether effects are more clearly observed on fluency (e.g., Burani, Marcolini, De Luca, & Zoccolotti, 2008; D'Alessio et al, 2018; Marcolini, Traficante, Zoccolotti, & Burani, 2011; but see Diamanti et al, 2017; Manolitsis et al, 2017). Further still, the division of labour between morpho‐orthographic and morpho‐semantic segmentation is a likely candidate for cross‐linguistic differences, with unanswered questions pertaining to how much the semantic properties of morphemes support reading and spelling in transparent versus opaque languages across development (e.g., Beyersmann et al, 2012; Feldman, O'Connor, & del Prado Martín, 2009; Schiff et al, 2012).…”

Morphological awareness and its role in early word reading in English monolinguals, Spanish-English, and Chinese-English simultaneous bilinguals

“…In contrast to Chinese, Spanish predominantly uses derivational affixes to create multimorphemic words such as person+al+ity (personalidad). Sensitivity to derivational morphology aids children's recognition of long, polysyllabic words, and may even serve as a mechanism for children with reading difficulties (Suárez-Coalla & Cuetos, 2013), both in Spanish and other closely related, derivationally rich languages such as Portuguese (Oliveira et al, 2020).…”