The effect of contextual versus morphological inference intervention on the acquisition of derivative in 2nd and 3rd graders

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the growth of acquisition of derivatives and the effectiveness of two intervention approaches; contextual versus morphological inference interventions.
 Methods In this study, forty-two 2nd to 3rd-grade elementary students were divided into two groups and each group respectively completed either a contextual interference intervention program or a morphological interference intervention program. As the program aimed to assess the efficacy of meaning acquisition in derivatives, they were implemented in two second-grade classroom and two third-grade classrooms, centering on the learning of four ‘prefix-root’ words and six ‘root-suffix’ words.
 Results Results showed that both programs were effective in the meaning acquisition, showing no meaningful difference between the contextual and morphological inference programs. There were no disparities according to grades and programs as well. Such results imply that in terms of vocabulary acquisition, morphological interference intervention programs are as fruitful as the previously validated contextual interference intervention programs.
 Conclusions This may be elucidated by the developmental features of second to third-grade children, whose morphological awareness as well as their semantic interference and monitoring ability are in the course of maturity. Meanwhile, the children in each program also showed rather different reactions. While the children of the contextual interference program were shown to conjugate their newly acquired vocabularies in different contexts regularly, children from the morphological interference program displayed frequent morphological analysis, concentrating on both partial and general meaning.