We synthesized zinc glycerolate (ZnGly) microstacks by treating ZnO with glycerol at 100°C under reflux. We observed that the morphology of the ZnO source has a pronounced effect on the appearance of the ZnGly product. In the absence of structure-directing effects the product ZnGly is obtained as a random heap of hexagonal prisms with an average diameter and thickness of ca. 2.5 µm and ca. 350 nm, respectively. However, bundles of nanorod-shaped ZnO obtained by the thermal decomposition of zinc oxalate nanorods could readily be transformed into 2-4 µm long zinc glyc-

The aims of the study are to construct an online instrument to assess different aspects of morphological awareness and to examine its development and its relation to reading comprehension in grades 2–4 in Hungarian children. Altogether, 4134 students were tested. The online test evaluated inflectional, derivational, and compound morphological skills with five subtests. The instrument proved to be reliable. CFA examinations revealed that the five subtests were empirically distinguishable dimensions. Inflectional, derivational, and compound morphology as the three main dimensions of morphological awareness were also empirically supported by our data. Morphological awareness skills improved significantly and developed in parallel with reading skills throughout grades 2–4. The increase in the development of morphological awareness from grade 2 to grade 3 tends to be faster than the growth between grade 3 and 4. Positive moderate correlations were found between morphological skills and reading comprehension and the relationships seem to be stable throughout the three grades. The most significant predictor of reading comprehension is the Affix Identification for Nonwords subtest. Our study showed that morphological awareness could be assessed efficiently through online media and drew attention to the importance of morphological awareness in the development of reading comprehension and linguistic intelligence.

The significant contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension has been shown in studies with deep orthographies. The aim of the study was to develop an online instrument in Hungarian, an agglutinative language with a transparent orthography and a rich morphology, for assessing different aspects of morphological awareness and reading comprehension and to examine the development and relationship of the two constructs in grades 2-4. Participants were second (N=124), third (N=137), and fourth-grade students (N=97), age means were 8.7, 9.6 and 10.4 respectively. We found growth in the development of morphological awareness and reading comprehension in grades 2-4; however, the mean score in grade 4 did not significantly differ from the results in grade 3. Significant moderate correlations were found between morphological structure awareness and reading comprehension skills in all grades.

The objective of this study is to review approaches, hypotheses modeling reading comprehension in the first and second/ foreign languages. Mastering reading comprehension in foreign languages requires complex skills. Learners' experiences in reading in their first language can either support the development of their reading skills in the second or foreign language or they can become a source of interference. The contribution of the first language reading abilities to the second language reading skills highly depends on the similarities or the differences between the two languages and the learners' language competence in the second language. Fostering metalinguistic awareness is proposed to improve reading skills regardless of the differences between languages. Metalinguistic awareness is children's skill to objectify the language and pay attention to how the language works. Tasks related to the meaning and structure of the words, sentence parsing develop children's thinking skills and by this they can develop into better readers in both languages.