An online instrument assessing the relationship between morphological structure awareness and reading comprehension in Hungarian 2-4 graders

Abstract

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.