Modeling Complex Word Reading: Examining Influences at the Level of the Word and Child on Mono- and Polymorphemic Word Reading

Steacy, Laura M.; Rigobon, Valeria M.; Edwards, Ashley A.; Abes, Daniel; Marencin, Nancy C.; Smith, Kendra L.; Elliott, James D.; Wade‐Woolley, Lesly; Compton, Donald L.

doi:10.1080/10888438.2022.2077109

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…To fully tease apart the role of morphology in simple vs. complex word reading, future research may consider matched measures that ask children to read polysyllabic, monomorphemic words (e.g., elephant, umbrella) as compared to polymorphemic words (e.g., entirely, unworkable). A particular challenge will be to match words on frequency and concreteness, as monomorphemic words tend to be more concrete (Steacy et al, 2022;Strik Lievers et al, 2021). Reconciling the complexities of English word reading will be important in future work.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and Longitudinal Word Reading 32mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain bases of morphological awareness and longitudinal word reading outcomes

Marks,

Eggleston,

Kovelman

2023

Preprint

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Children’s spoken language skills are essential to the development of the “reading brain,” or the neurocognitive systems that underlie successful literacy. Morphological awareness, or sensitivity to the smallest units of meaning, is a language skill that facilitates fluent recognition of meaning in print. Yet despite the growing evidence that morphology is integral to literacy success, associations between morphological awareness, literacy acquisition, and brain development remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, we conducted a longitudinal investigation with seventy-five elementary school children, ages 5-11, who completed an auditory morphological awareness neuroimaging task at Time 1 as well as literacy assessments at both Time 1 and Time 2 (1.5 years later). Findings reveal longitudinal brain-behavior associations between morphological processing at Time 1 and reading outcomes at Time 2. First, activation in superior temporal brain regions involved in word segmentation was associated with both future reading skill and steeper reading gains over time. Second, a wider array of brain regions across the language network were associated with polymorphemic word reading as compared to broader word reading skill (reading simple and complex words). Together, these findings reinforce the importance of word segmentation skills in learning to read and highlight the importance of considering complex word reading skills in building comprehensive neurocognitive models of literacy. This study fills a gap in our knowledge of how processing meaningful units in speech may help to explain differences in children’s reading development over time and informs ongoing theoretical questions about the role of morphology in learning to read.

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Section: Morphological Awareness and Longitudinal Word Reading 32mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain bases of morphological awareness and longitudinal word reading outcomes

Marks,

Eggleston,

Kovelman

2023

Preprint

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“…Efficient and accurate word reading plays a critical role in early reading development (Castles et al, 2018). Difficulty reading words accurately and fluently in isolation is one of the most consistent predictors of later reading problems (Steacy et al, 2022). Therefore, beginning readers must develop the skills needed to access the words on the page to learn to read well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What predicts word reading in Arabic?

Hassanein¹,

Johnson²,

Ibrahim³

et al. 2023

Front. Psychol.

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Efficient and accurate word reading ability is critical for later reading success. As such, it is important to understand the component skills that underlie strong word reading ability. Although a growing research base points to the importance of phonological processing, morphological processing and orthographic processing for accurate and fluent word reading in Arabic, there are few studies that examine all three areas at one time to better understand their role in word reading. Additionally, it remains unclear whether the contribution of the various processes might differ across the early years when children are learning to read. 1,098 pupils in grades 1–3 participated in this study and took tests for phonological processing, morphological processing, orthographic processing, and word reading accuracy and fluency. According to the findings of regression analyses, the relative contribution of these underlying processes differed according to the method used to test word reading and the student’s grade level. Regarding accuracy, several subscales of phonological processing and two measures of orthographic processing accounted for significant differences in word reading accuracy for first graders. For second grade students, nonword repetition, elision, and all three measures of orthographic processing accounted for variance. In third grade, elision and memory for digits, word creation and morpheme identification, and letter/sound identification and orthographic fluency were significant predictors of word reading accuracy. In terms of fluency, two subscales of phonological processing, two measures of orthographic processing, and two measures of morphological processing explained significant differences in word reading fluency for first graders. For second grade students, nonword repetition, elision, RAN-digits, isolation, segmenting and all the measures of orthographic processing and word creation explained unique variance in word reading fluency. In third grade, elision, RAN-letters, RAN-digits and phoneme isolation, all measures of orthographic processing and morphological processing, explained variance in word reading fluency. Implications and future directions in research are discussed.

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