Word frequency modulates morpheme-based reading in poor and skilled Italian readers

Abstract

A previous study reported that, similar to young and adult skilled readers, Italian developmental dyslexics read pseudowords made up of a root and a derivational suffix faster and more accurately than simple pseudowords. Unlike skilled readers, only dyslexic and reading-matched younger children benefited from morphological structure in reading words aloud. In this study, we show that word frequency affects the probability of morpheme-based reading, interacting with reading ability. Young skilled readers named low-but not high-frequency morphologically complex words faster than simple words. By contrast, the advantage for morphologically complex words was present in poor readers irrespective of word frequency. Adult readers showed no facilitating effect of morphological structure. These results indicate that young readers use reading units (morphemes) that are larger than the singlegrapheme grain size. It is argued that morpheme-based reading is important for obtaining reading fluency (rather than accuracy) in transparent orthographies and is useful particularly in children with limited reading ability who do not fully master whole-word processing.

Is Morphological Awareness a Relevant Predictor of Reading Fluency and Comprehension? New Evidence From Italian Monolingual and Arabic-Italian Bilingual Children

“…The pattern of results in the L1 beginning readers approached previous studies suggesting that decomposition of complex words (or even multi-morphemic non-words) into morphemic units supports reading ability in younger readers (Burani et al, 2008;Marcolini et al, 2011;Traficante et al, 2011). According to the above-mentioned literature, morpheme-based reading might allow children to read units smaller than the whole word, but bigger than the grapheme or the syllable (see, for instance, Angelelli et al, 2014).…”

“…According to these studies, words with a morphological structure (e.g., cass-iere, "cashier") were read faster than simple words (e.g., cammello, "camel") matched for length and frequency. Interestingly, morphological parsing speeded up reading times only in second graders and in children with dyslexia, but not in older skilled children (Burani, 2010;Marcolini et al, 2011;Angelelli, 2010;Angelelli, 2017). The authors concluded that children acquiring a transparent orthography such as Italian exploit morpheme-based reading and spelling to face difficulties in reading long unfamiliar words.…”

Morpheme‐based Reading and Spelling in Italian Children with Developmental Dyslexia and Dysorthography

“…These students read aloud pseudowords made up of a root and a derivational suffix (e.g. Finally, the presence of morphemes positively affected reading accuracy for pseudowords (Burani et al, 2008;Traficante et al, 2011), but not in the case of words, irrespective of word frequency or reading skill (Burani et al, 2008;Marcolini et al, 2011). dennosto; Burani et al, 2008).…”

Morphological Decomposition in Second Language Word Processing

“…Nevertheless, merely either whole word frequency or stem word frequency was taken into account instead of the effect of both. The previous researches had confirmed that compared with the whole word or stem familiarity, the effect of the comparative value for both of them (comparative familiarity) proved to be more effective (Marcolini et al 2011). Of the researches within China, only Zhang's (2014) employed participants' evaluation to obtain the familiarity index for the experiment materials and simultaneously took the effect of whole word familiarity and stem familiarity into account.…”