Using a longitudinal sample of young Chinese students (fall and spring in grades 1 and 2: times 1–4, respectively) and growth curve analysis, this study examined whether the initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness from time 1 to time 4 uniquely contribute to reading comprehension at time 4 and whether word‐reading efficiency at time 4 mediates the association between initial status and growth in compounding awareness and reading comprehension at time 4. The results indicated that initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness made a significant direct contribution to reading comprehension at the end of second grade after controlling for IQ, phonological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge. The relationship between initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness and reading comprehension were fully mediated by word‐reading efficiency. The findings underscore the importance of growth in compounding awareness for reading comprehension and add to the literature about the nature of the morphological awareness and reading comprehension relationship in Chinese.

This study investigates the contributions of semantic, phonological, and orthographic factors to morphological awareness of 413 Chinese-speaking students in Grades 2, 4, and 6, and its relationship with reading comprehension. Participants were orally presented with pairs of bimorphemic compounds and asked to judge whether the first morphemes of the words shared a meaning. Morpheme identity (same or different), whole-word semantic relatedness (high or low), orthography (same or different), and phonology (same or different) were manipulated. By Grade 6, children were able to focus on meaning similarities across morphemes while ignoring the distraction of form, but they remained influenced by whole-word semantic relatedness. Children's ability to overcome the distraction of phonology consistently improved with age, but did not reach ceiling, whereas the parallel ability for orthography reached ceiling at Grade 6. Morphological judgment performance was a significant unique predictor of reading comprehension when character naming and vocabulary knowledge were accounted for.

The aim of this study is to examine the developmental relationship between compounding awareness and vocabulary knowledge from grades 1 to 2 in Chinese children. In this study, 149 Chinese children were tested on compounding awareness and vocabulary knowledge from Time 1 to Time 4, with non-verbal IQ, working memory, phonological awareness, orthographical awareness, and rapid automatized naming at Time 1 as control variables. Latent growth modeling was conducted to analyze the data. Univariate models separately calculated children's initial levels and growth rates in compounding awareness and vocabulary knowledge. Bivariate model was used to examine the direction of the developmental relationships between the two variables with other cognitive and linguistic variables and the autoregression controlled. The results demonstrated that the initial level of compounding awareness predicted the growth rate of vocabulary knowledge, and the reverse relation was also found, after controlling for other cognitive and linguistic variables and the autoregression. The results suggested a reciprocal developmental relationship between children's compounding awareness and vocabulary knowledge for Chinese children, a finding that informs current models of the relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge.

The present study examined the developmental relationship between morphological awareness (MA) and reading comprehension (RC) using a 2-year and four-wave cross-lagged design with a sample of 149 Chinese children (80 males and 69 females). We measured children’s MA, word reading (WR), and RC from T1 to T4, in addition to phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and general cognitive ability at T1 as control measures. Four plausible cross-lagged models were assessed and compared to examine the direction of the developmental relationships between MA and RC over time. Results found support for a reciprocal-causation model, that is, MA stably predicted subsequent RC, and the reverse relation was also found. Longitudinal mediation analyses revealed that WR partially mediated the relationship between MA and RC in Chinese children. These findings extend our understanding of the relationship between MA and RC. The practical implications for these two developing skills in Chinese children are discussed.