Morphological Contributions to Adolescent Word Reading: An Item Response Approach

Abstract

The current study uses a crossed random‐effects item response model to simultaneously examine both reader and word characteristics and interactions between them that predict the reading of 39 morphologically complex words for 221 middle school students. Results suggest that a reader's ability to read a root word (e.g., isolate) predicts that reader's ability to read a related derived word (e.g., isolation). After controlling for root‐word reading, results also suggest that the remaining variability in derived‐word reading can be explained by word and reader characteristics. The significant word characteristics include derived‐word frequency and root‐word frequency but not morpheme neighborhood size, average family frequency, number of morphemes, or semantic opaqueness. The significant reader characteristics include morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge but not reading comprehension. Only phonological and orthographic‐phonological opaqueness interacted with the effect of root‐word reading, suggesting that students were less able to apply root‐word knowledge when the root word changed phonologically (with or without an orthographic change) in the larger derived word. Discussion is included regarding how findings from this study inform the development of models of word reading for adolescents.

Exploring the Effect of Morphological Instruction on Vocabulary Learning among Iranian EFL Learners

“…The data illustrated that and there is a no significant difference between the achievement of experimental group and control group regarding morphological structure test. This is in line with the premise posed by Rasinski et al (2008) who claim that exposing students to Greek and Latinate word elements could be an effective vocabulary learning strategy This study also is consistent with Bowers & Kirby (2009), Tabatabaei &Yakhabi (2011), Gilbert, Goodwin, Compton, andKearns (2013), Saeidi & Mirzapour (2013), Goodwin, Gilbert and Cho (2013), and Paiman, Thai & Yuit (2015) studies which reported that learners who have morphological awareness were able to discriminate morphologically structured word from simple words.…”

“…The obtained result indicated relationship between morphological awareness and listening comprehension ability. Goodwin, Gilbert and Cho (2013) conducted a study on the effects of morphological awareness on word reading among adolescents, looking into learner characteristics and their word reading ability. The study was carried out on 221 young middle school students enrolled in two suburban middle schools in the United States.…”

Effectiveness of Morphemic Analysis of Graeco-Latin Word Parts as a Vocabulary Learning Strategy among ESL Learners

“…Morphological awareness was found to have an important association with reading comprehension particularly for weaker readers. Goodwin, Gilbert and Cho (2013) conducted a study on the effects of morphological awareness on word reading among adolescents, looking into learner characteristics and their word reading ability. The study was carried out on 221 young middle school students enrolled in two suburban middle schools in the United States.…”

Probing lexical representations: Simultaneous modeling of word and reader contributions to multidimensional lexical representations.

“…Word characteristics related to the word pairs can be found in Table 1. Further information is provided in Goodwin et al (2013). Below, measures related to derived words assess dimensions of knowledge related to lexical representations, and therefore are outcomes in the study.…”