Morphological Awareness and Learning to Read Chinese and English

Zhang, Jie; Lin, Tzu-Jung; Wei, Junli; Anderson, Richard C.

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-7380-6_1

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…Previous studies have confirmed that compounding awareness is important for reading comprehension in Chinese children, both concurrently and longitudinally (Tong et al., ; Zhang, McBride‐Chang, et al., ). The present study extends this line of research by demonstrating the importance of the growth of compounding awareness in later reading comprehension.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Compounding awareness is of particular importance to Chinese word reading and reading comprehension, even after controlling for other variables (Liu & McBride‐Chang, ; Tong et al., ; Zhang, Anderson, et al., ; Zhang, Lin, Wei, & Anderson, ; Zhang, McBride‐Chang, et al., ). However, there are several gaps in the literature about the relationship between children's compounding awareness and their reading comprehension.…”

Section: Unique Contributions Of Compounding Awareness To Reading Commentioning

confidence: 99%

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Growth of Compounding Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Young Chinese Students: A Longitudinal Study From Grade 1 to Grade 2

Cheng

Zhang

et al. 2016

Reading Research Quarterly

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Unique Contributions Of Compounding Awareness To Reading Commentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth of Compounding Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Young Chinese Students: A Longitudinal Study From Grade 1 to Grade 2

Cheng

Zhang

et al. 2016

Reading Research Quarterly

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“…would be able to free some working memory resources to participate in high-level processes of text comprehension. Strong morphological awareness may also inhibit insensible morphological combinations that may be incurred due to the lack of word boundaries in printed Chinese texts (Zhang et al, 2014). Finally, morphology, in addition to helping strengthen the representation of word meanings (Sandra, 1994), is often a reliable strategy that learners can use to unlock meanings of unknown words in textual reading (e.g., Authors, 2012Authors, , 2013Authors, , 2016Carlisle, 2007;Nagy et al, 2014).…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and Chinese Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multidimensionality of morphological awareness and text comprehension among young Chinese readers in a multilingual context

Zhang

2017

Learning and Individual Differences

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Considering the dual-level representation of meaning in print in Chinese, this study differentiated between morphemic (i.e., morphemic awareness) and sub-morphemic (i.e., graphomorphological awareness) dimensions of morphological awareness and examined their concurrent contributions to text comprehension in fourth grade Chinese readers in a multilingual context where Chinese literacy only has an ancillary function. Structural Equation Modeling analysis revealed that while both dimensions of morphological awareness were significant independent contributors to word reading and vocabulary knowledge, only morphemic awareness significantly predicted text comprehension over and above the two word-level skills. On the other hand, significant indirect effects of both graphomorphological and morphemic awareness were found on text comprehension; in addition, those indirect effects were found to be mediated by vocabulary knowledge or jointly by word reading and vocabulary knowledge. These findings were discussed in light of the centrality of meaning in text comprehension and possible contextual variation in the functioning of different dimensions of morphological awareness in Chinese reading development.

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“…Research has shown that among these reading subskills, learners’ sensitivity to the internal structure of words (morphological awareness) plays an important role in successful second language (L2) lexical inferencing (e.g., Ke & Koda, ; H. Zhang & Koda, ). Specifically, morphological awareness supports the identification, analysis, and manipulation of familiar morphological components when they appear in an unfamiliar word (Koda, ; Ku & Anderson, ), thus reducing the working memory demands posed by reading morphologically complex words (J. Zhang, Lin, Wei, & Anderson, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The contribution of morphological awareness to lexical inferencing in L2 Chinese: Comparing more‐skilled and less‐skilled learners

Chen

2018

Foreign Language Annals

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Learners’ ability to infer unknown words’ meanings (lexical inferencing) plays a key role in word knowledge development for second language (L2) learners. It has recently been acknowledged that learners’ sensitivity to word‐internal structures (morphological awareness) makes an important contribution to L2 lexical inferencing. However, it remains unclear whether the contribution of morphological awareness to lexical inferencing is affected by L2 learner‐related factors (e.g., language skills). Data obtained from five paper‐pencil tasks in Chinese for 73 L2 learners who studied Chinese for two semesters in China showed that (1) for more‐skilled learners, morphological awareness significantly contributed to lexical inferencing with and without contextual cues, whereas no significant relationships existed between morphological awareness and lexical inferencing for less‐skilled learners; and (2) L2 learners’ morphological awareness does not equally facilitate lexical inferencing due to a possible threshold of linguistic knowledge. The findings have implications for learners’ success in inferring the meanings of unknown words

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Morphological Awareness and Learning to Read Chinese and English

Cited by 20 publications

References 89 publications

Growth of Compounding Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Young Chinese Students: A Longitudinal Study From Grade 1 to Grade 2

Growth of Compounding Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Young Chinese Students: A Longitudinal Study From Grade 1 to Grade 2

Multidimensionality of morphological awareness and text comprehension among young Chinese readers in a multilingual context

The contribution of morphological awareness to lexical inferencing in L2 Chinese: Comparing more‐skilled and less‐skilled learners

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