Preschool Phonological and Morphological Awareness As Longitudinal Predictors of Early Reading and Spelling Development in Greek

Abstract

Different language skills are considered fundamental for successful reading and spelling acquisition. Extensive evidence has highlighted the central role of phonological awareness in early literacy experiences. However, many orthographic systems also require the contribution of morphological awareness. The goal of this study was to examine the morphological and phonological awareness skills of preschool children as longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability by the end of first grade, controlling for the effects of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. At Time 1 preschool children from kindergartens in the Greek regions of Attika, Crete, Macedonia, and Thessaly were assessed on tasks tapping receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness (syllable and phoneme), and morphological awareness (inflectional and derivational). Tasks were administered through an Android application for mobile devices (tablets) featuring automatic application of ceiling rules. At Time 2 one year later the same children attending first grade were assessed on measures of word and pseudoword reading, text reading fluency, text reading comprehension, and spelling. Complete data from 104 children are available. Hierarchical linear regression and commonality analyses were conducted for each outcome variable. Reading accuracy for both words and pseudowords was predicted not only by phonological awareness, as expected, but also by morphological awareness, suggesting that understanding the functional role of word parts supports the developing phonology–orthography mappings. However, only phonological awareness predicted text reading fluency at this age. Longitudinal prediction of reading comprehension by both receptive vocabulary and morphological awareness was already evident at this age, as expected. Finally, spelling was predicted by preschool phonological awareness, as expected, as well as by morphological awareness, the contribution of which is expected to increase due to the spelling demands of Greek inflectional and derivational suffixes introduced at later grades.

Predictive Models of Word Reading Fluency in Hebrew

“…The absence of PA in first grade supplies further support for previous evidence in Hebrew ( Shatil and Share, 2003 ) and Greek ( Georgiou et al, 2008 ). However, MA was found to be a predictor in third grade, although we concluded that it has a stronger role in opaque orthographies than in transparent orthographies ( Kirby et al, 2012 ; Desrochers et al, 2017 ; Diamanti et al, 2017 ; Manolitsis et al, 2017 ).…”

“…In the study conducted by Desrochers et al (2017) , MA also predicted word reading fluency both in English and French, after controlling for PA and RAN. However, this result was not duplicated in Greek ( Desrochers et al, 2017 ; Diamanti et al, 2017 ; Manolitsis et al, 2017 ). Thus, it appears that the role of MA is stronger in opaque orthographies characterized by ambiguous spelling–sound correspondence then in transparent orthographies, in which the letter–sound correspondence is direct.…”

Compreensão de leitura e consciência morfológica em crianças do Ensino Fundamental

“…Estes resultados estão de acordo com o encontrado pela literatura (p. ex., Diamanti et al, 2017;Guimarães et al, 2014;Law et al, 2015;Santos & Fernandes, 2016). O desempenho dos participantes em função do sexo não se mostrou relevante para nenhuma das tarefas, apesar de alguns estudos apontarem que em tarefas que utilizam materiais linguísticos, em geral, as meninas apresentam melhor desempenho do que os meninos (Chiu & McBride-Chang, 2006).…”

“…Em geral, os estudos têm demonstrado que: a consciência morfológica contribui de forma única para o desempenho em compreensão; pode estar alterada em grupos de disléxicos ou de pessoas com problemas de aprendizagem; e o uso de programas de treinamento pode proporcionar resultados melhores em compreensão leitora (p. ex., Diamanti et al, 2017;Law, Wouters, & Ghesquière, 2015;Li, Dronjic et al, 2017;Lyster, Lervåg, & Hulme, 2016;Manolitsis, Grigorakis, & Georgiou, 2017;Tighe & Schatschneider, 2016b). Corroborando esses achados, uma meta análise recente (Tighe & Schatschneider, 2016a) Tendo em vista a importância da consciência morfológica para os processos de alfabetização e desempenho em leitura e escrita (Mota, 2009), assim como da importância da avaliação de diferentes habilidades metalinguísticas para se investigar possíveis dificuldades em habilidades de ordem superior (como a compreensão da leitura) e traçar planos diagnósticos e interventivos (Spinillo, Cloze e em tarefas de consciência morfológica, investigando os efeitos da idade e do ciclo escolar nesses construtos; (2) investigar a correlação entre estas habilidades e o poder preditivo da consciência morfológica no desempenho em compreensão leitora.…”

Assessing written language in Greek: Validity and reliability considerations

“…Recently, the development of reading abilities of Greek children has intensively attracted research attention (e.g. Anastasiou & Protopapas, 2015;Desrochers, Manolitsis, Gaudreau, & Georgiou, 2017;Diamanti, Mouzaki, Ralli, Antoniou, Papaioannou & Protopapas, 2017;Nikolopoulos, Goulandris, Hulme & Snowling, 2006;Porpodas, 2012;Protopapas, Simos, Sideridis, & Mouzaki, 2012). Researchers have focused on how Greek children acquire reading and investigated the language specific effects on reading acquisition in order to develop assessment tools.…”