The Relations of Morphological Awareness with Language and Literacy Skills Vary Depending on Orthographic Depth and Nature of Morphological Awareness

Abstract

We examined the relation of morphological awareness with language and literacy skills, namely phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, vocabulary, word reading, spelling, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension. We also examined potential moderators of the relations (grade level, orthographic depth of language, receptive vs. productive morphological awareness, inflectional vs. derivational vs. compound morphological awareness, and L1/L2 status). After systematic search, a total of 232 articles (965 unique samples, N = 49,936 participants, and 2,765 effect sizes in 17 languages) met inclusion criteria. Morphological awareness was, on average, moderately related to phonological awareness (r = .41), orthographic awareness (r = .39), vocabulary (r = .50), word reading (r = .49), spelling (r = .48), text reading fluency (r = .53), and reading comprehension (r = .54). Importantly, morphological awareness had a stronger relation with word reading in orthographically deep languages (.52) than in orthographically shallow languages (.38). The relation with vocabulary was stronger for upper elementary grades than for primary grades. The magnitude of the relation also varied by the nature of morphological awareness: productive morphological awareness had a stronger relation with phonological awareness and vocabulary than receptive morphological awareness; derivational morphological awareness had a stronger relation with vocabulary and word reading compared to inflectional morphological awareness; and compound morphological awareness had a weaker relation with phonological awareness but a stronger relation with vocabulary compared to inflectional morphological awareness. These results underscore the importance of morphological awareness in language and literacy skills, and reveal a nuanced and precise picture of their relations.

Morphological awareness and DHH students’ reading-related abilities: A meta-analysis of correlations

“…Morphological awareness (MA) is a type of metalinguistic awareness often defined as the ability to manipulate morphemes (the smallest unit of meaning) and reflect on morphological structures of words (Carlisle, 2003;Kuo & Anderson, 2006;Levesque et al, 2021;Nagy et al, 2014). MA has been identified as a significant correlate and predictor, often independent of PA, of various reading-related abilities, including word reading (fluency), vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension, in hearing students of diverse backgrounds (Ke et al, 2021;Lee et al, 2022;Ruan et al, 2018). In the literature on DHH students, other than a few narrative reviews (e.g., Cannon & Trussell, 2021;Gaustad, 2000;Nielsen et al, 2011), there has been little effort to systematically review studies on MA and reading (see, however, Trussell & Easterbrooks, 2017), not to mention any meta-analysis on their correlations.…”

“…Developmentally, the importance of MA, and its relative importance with that of PA, is also in line with stage/phase models of reading acquisition where English-speaking children at a relative late stage (e.g., the consolidated alphabetic phase in Ehri, 2005) employ chunking (e.g., syllables and morphemes) to read multisyllabic/multimorphemic words. Numerous studies have found MA as a significant predictor, over and above phonological skills, of both word reading accuracy and fluency across languages and reader groups (see the meta-analytic findings reported in Ke et al, 2021Ke et al, , 2023Lee et al, 2022;Ruan et al, 2018).…”

“…Concurrently, none of the recent meta-analyses on correlations of MA with reading outcomes (Ke et al, 2021(Ke et al, , 2023Lee et al, 2022;Ruan et al, 2018) focused on DHH students in specific.…”

“…Finally, vocabulary knowledge is defined as the knowledge of meanings of words in a spoken language. Vocabulary knowledge is language-related but is often conceptualized as a reading-related competence as well because of its strong implication on reading development especially comprehension (see, for example, the meta-analysis in Lee et al, 2022). Second, the study must report at least one correlation of MA with one of the three reading-related variables.…”

“…• Advanced (k = 3): grade 6 or above (12 years or older) MA Task Type. Following previous meta-analyses (Ke et al, 2021;Lee et al, 2022;Ruan et al, 2018), we coded MA for three task types: 1) oral vs. written; 2) judgment (e.g., making a yes/no judgment on morphological relations or selecting a choice from given options) vs.…”