What Is the Influence of Morphological Knowledge in the Early Stages of Reading Acquisition Among Low SES Children? A Graphical Modeling Approach

Abstract

Children from low-SES families are known to show delays in aspects of language development which underpin reading acquisition such as vocabulary and listening comprehension. Research on the development of morphological skills in this group is scarce, and no studies exist in French. The present study investigated the involvement of morphological knowledge in the very early stages of reading acquisition (decoding), before reading comprehension can be reliably assessed. We assessed listening comprehension, receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, morphological awareness as well as decoding, word reading and non-verbal IQ in 703 French first-graders from low-SES families after 3 months of formal schooling (November). Awareness of derivational morphology was assessed using three oral tasks: Relationship Judgment (e.g., do these words belong to the same family or not? heat-heater … ham-hammer); Lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who runs is a …? (runner)]; and Non-lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who lums is a…? (lummer)]. The tasks differ on implicit/explicit demands and also tap different kinds of morphological knowledge. The Judgement task measures the phonological and semantic properties of the morphological relationship and the Sentence Completion tasks measure knowledge of morphological production rules. Data were processed using a graphical modeling approach which offers key information about how skills known to be involved in learning to read are organized in memory. This modeling approach was therefore useful in revealing a potential network which expresses the conditional dependence structure between skills, after which recursive structural equation modeling was applied to test specific hypotheses. Six main conclusions can be drawn from these analyses about low SES reading acquisition: (1) listening comprehension is at the heart of the reading acquisition process; (2) word reading depends directly on phonemic awareness and indirectly on listening comprehension; (3) decoding depends on word reading; (4) Morphological awareness and vocabulary have an indirect influence on word reading via both listening comprehension and phoneme awareness; (5) the components of morphological awareness assessed by our tasks have independent relationships with listening comprehension; and (6) neither phonemic nor morphological awareness influence vocabulary directly. The implications of these results with regard to early reading acquisition among low SES groups are discussed.

Music training with Démos program positively influences cognitive functions in children from low socio-economic backgrounds

“…Which factors contribute most to reading success is still a hotly debated issue [7]. For instance, recent results from a large sample of French children (N = 703) from low SES families [6] highlighted the primary importance of listening comprehension on the earliest phases of reading acquisition. Thus, lexical and semantic knowledge (e.g., what the words mean) seem to strongly influence reading abilities, while other factors, such as vocabulary, morphological and phonemic awareness may only indirectly contribute to reading skills (via listening comprehension).…”

“…The second objective was to evaluate the impact of the Démos music program on phonological awareness and reading skills that are frequently impaired in children from low income families [6–8]. While there is evidence that music training improves phonological skills in typically developing children [9,10] (see also results of meta-analysis [11] as well as studies in children with dyslexia [10,12]), the evidence for an impact of music training on reading skills is more controversial [11,13].…”

Morphological awareness and learning to read: impact of socio‐economic status in French third graders

“…We also observed that either morphological awareness (in a marginal way) or vocabulary contributed to word‐reading fluency and reading comprehension, making their contribution more dissociated compared with middle‐SES children. Such a dissociation was observed in first grade children with low‐SES for word reading (Colé et al, 2018). Thus, studies in low‐SES children complement research on the relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary in reading skills as they highlight a new pattern of connexion between reading‐related skills.…”

Rethinking Emergent Literacy in Children With Hearing Loss

“…Recent data suggest that vocabulary and morphosyntax are uncoupled in children with low vocabulary levels (Colé et al, 2018), where growth in vocabulary has no influence on growth in morphosyntax and vice versa. In addition to their documented delays in expressive morphosyntax, children who use CIs have lower vocabulary levels (Lund, 2016).…”