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Background: Middle school students use the information conveyed by morphemes (i.e., units of meaning such as prefixes, root words and suffixes) in different ways to support their literacy endeavours, suggesting the likelihood that morphological knowledge is multidimensional. This has important implications for assessment. Methods: The current study investigates the dimensionality of morphological knowledge considering the performance of 3,214 fifth through eighth graders on a range of morphological tasks (N = 14 across the project's development and 10 for dimensionality analyses) and items (N = 491) using multiple-group item response modelling. It then presents validation evidence related to performance of 1,140 fifth through eighth graders on a gamified, computer-adaptive, multidimensional assessment of morphological knowledge, which consists of seven morphological tasks and 181 items that make four morphological skills. Results: Results indicate morphological knowledge is multidimensional and best represented via a bifactor model of four skills as well as task-related variance. These skills are Skill 1: Morphological Awareness; Skill 2: Morphological-Syntactic Knowledge; Skill 3: Morphological-Semantic Knowledge; and Skill 4: Morphological-Orthographic/Phonological Knowledge. The assessment designed after this model, called Monster, PI, was shown to be both reliable and valid, with each morphological knowledge skill explaining unique variance in standardised reading vocabulary. Conclusions: Findings suggest that morphological skills play unique roles in language and literacy outcomes. This indicates the importance of conceptualising and assessing morphological knowledge as multidimensional. Implications for theory, research, policy and practice are considered.

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Purpose The current study takes a practical and theoretically grounded look at assessment of morphological knowledge and its potential to deepen understanding of how morphological knowledge supports reading comprehension for students with limited reading vocabulary. Specifically, we explore how different morphological skills support reading comprehension for students with typical reading vocabulary development compared to students with limited reading vocabulary. Method A sample of 1,140 fifth through eighth graders were assessed via a gamified, computer-adaptive measure of language that contained a morphological knowledge assessment. Links to standardized reading comprehension were explored with a focus on determining differences for the 184 students in the sample who showed limited reading vocabulary knowledge. Specifically, multiple regression analyses were used to test for the relation between morphology skills and standardized reading comprehension, as well as the moderator effect of reading vocabulary on the relation between morphological knowledge and standardized reading comprehension. Results Findings indicate that the four instructionally malleable morphological skills identified by the assessment differentially supported reading comprehension. These skills were (a) Morphological Awareness, (b) Syntactic Morphological Knowledge, (c) Semantic Morphological Knowledge, and (d) Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge. Significant interactions for students with limited reading vocabulary were shown in how the skills of Syntactic Morphological Knowledge, Semantic Morphological Knowledge, and Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge supported standardized Reading Comprehension. Conclusions Given the challenges students with limited reading vocabulary have with semantic information, Syntactic Morphological Knowledge and Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge were particularly supportive, suggesting the compensatory role of these morphological skills. In contrast, Semantic Morphological Knowledge had a negative relationship with Reading Comprehension for students with limited reading vocabulary. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Morphological awareness (MA) is an important predictor of reading outcomes in different languages. The consonantal root is a salient feature of Arabic lexical structure and critical to MA. The goals of this study were to (a) develop a measure of root awareness (RA) as one dimension of MA in Arabic, and (b) validate the RA measure by predicting reading outcomes in an Arabic population. A set of RA items was administered to 194 Arabic-speaking third-grade children. A one-factor model was specified using confirmatory factor analysis to examine the model fit of the RA measure. A structural equation model was then developed to examine the relation between the RA measure and important reading outcome measures including word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. The results of these analyses indicated good model fit, and the RA measure accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in the outcomes. The establishment of the RA measure is an important preliminary step to efficiently assessing MA in Arabic and could serve as an integral tool for studying reading development.