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The role of morphological awareness in readingachievement among young Chinese-speakingEnglish language learners: a longitudinal study
Katie Lam • Xi Chen • Esther Geva •
Yang C. Luo • Hong Li
Published online: 24 June 2011
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract The present study examined the development of morphological aware-
ness and its contribution to vocabulary and reading comprehension among young
Chinese-speaking English language learners (ELLs). We focused on two aspects of
morphological awareness: derivational awareness and compound awareness. Par-
ticipants included 46 kindergarteners (younger cohort) and 34 first graders (older
cohort) of Chinese descent in Canada at the beginning of the study. Children were
administered a battery of English measures including derivational awareness,
compound awareness, phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, and reading
comprehension at two time points spaced 1 year apart. Results demonstrated a
steady growth in Chinese-speaking ELL children’s derivational and compound
awareness from kindergarten to Grade 2. Importantly, for the first graders, mor-
phological awareness accounted for unique variance in vocabulary concurrently,
and unique variance in both vocabulary and reading comprehension a year later.
Generally speaking, the variance explained by morphological awareness increased
with grade level, and derivational awareness accounted for more variance in
vocabulary and reading comprehension than did compound awareness. These results
underscore the emerging importance of morphological awareness, especially deri-
vational awareness, in young Chinese-speaking ELL children’s English reading
development.
Keywords Morphological awareness � Vocabulary � Reading comprehension �Chinese-speaking ELLs
K. Lam (&) � X. Chen � E. Geva � Y. C. Luo
Human Development and Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, 9th Floor, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada
e-mail: [email protected]
H. Li
School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xin Jie Kou Wai St.,
Haidian, 100875 Beijing, China
123
Read Writ (2012) 25:1847–1872
DOI 10.1007/s11145-011-9329-4
Introduction
Recent years have seen a growing interest in morphological awareness, which refers
to the awareness of the morphemic structure of words and the ability to reflect on
and manipulate that structure (Carlisle, 1995). The resultant body of research has
shed light on the development of morphological awareness in monolingual children
and its increasing influence on reading with age (see Kuo & Anderson, 2006, for a
review). Fewer studies, however, have been conducted with English language
learners (ELLs). The present one-year longitudinal study investigated the devel-
opment of morphological awareness and its contribution to vocabulary and reading
comprehension among young ELLs who speak Chinese as their first language.
Development of morphological awareness
Across most languages, there are three types of morphology: inflection, derivation,
and compounding. Inflectional morphemes are word endings denoting meanings
such as case, verb tense, gender, or syntax without altering the meaning or the part
of speech of the root word. Derivation involves forming new words that have a
different meaning or word class from the base words by applying prefixes and
suffixes (e.g., un-, sub-, -ness, -ly). Finally, compounding involves the combination
of two or more words in forming new words (Katamba, 1993; Kuo & Anderson,
2006; McBride-Chang, 2004).
Children experience substantial growth in their knowledge and awareness of all
three types of morphological structures beginning at a young age. A number of
studies have observed that monolingual English-speaking children demonstrate
incipient knowledge of inflectional morphemes by age 2, and have acquired most of
the regular inflectional principles by the early elementary grades (e.g., Akhtar &
Tomasello, 1997; Anisfeld & Tucker, 1968; Berko, 2004; Carlisle, 1995). In
contrast, the understanding of derivational morphemes among native English
speakers emerges later and continues to develop over a longer period of time, with
the more advanced derivational awareness possibly not fully developed until early
adulthood (Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Derwing &
Baker, 1979; 1986; Tyler & Nagy; 1989; Windsor, 1994). Relatively few studies
have examined English monolingual children’s development of compound aware-
ness. Clark and her colleagues (Clark, 1981; Clark, Gelman, & Lane, 1985) found
that children understand the modifier-head relation in compounds by 2 years of age.
Nonetheless, until they are in Grade 4, children may not be able to explicitly explain
that meanings of compound words are predicated upon the meanings of the
constituent morphemes (Silvestri & Silvestri, 1977). Ku and Anderson (2003)
observed a steady increase in compound awareness in English monolinguals from
Grade 2 to Grade 6.
While previous studies have yielded strong evidence that all three aspects of
morphological awareness increase with age in native speakers of English, much less
is known about ELLs. Several factors may influence the development of
morphological awareness in ELLs. First, it is possible that ELLs in general have
lower levels of morphological awareness than native speakers due to their reduced
1848 K. Lam et al.
123
exposure to English. Carlo et al. (2004) found that Spanish-speaking ELLs in Grade
5 performed worse on a derivational awareness task than their native English-
speaking peers. It is important to note, however, that the Spanish-speaking ELLs in
that study came from lower SES backgrounds, which may have contributed to their
lower performance. Second, there is emerging evidence that ELLs’ development of
morphological awareness in English is influenced by the morphological structure of
their first language. In a recent study, Ramırez, Chen, Geva, and Luo (2011) found
that after controlling for maternal education, Spanish-speaking ELLs in Grades 4
and 7 outperformed Chinese-speaking ELLs on English derivational awareness. By
contrast, Chinese-speaking ELLs performed similarly to native English speakers in
compound awareness, while Spanish-speaking ELLs performed lower than the latter
group. These findings reflect the influence of morphological structures of Spanish
and Chinese—Spanish has a much more complex derivational system than Chinese,
while compounding is much more prominent in Chinese than in Spanish.
To our knowledge, none of the previous studies has specifically focused on
Chinese-speaking ELL children’s development of morphological awareness over
time. Intending to fill this gap, the present study examined the development of
derivational awareness and compound awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs in the
early school years.
Morphological awareness, vocabulary, and reading comprehension
School-age children encounter up to 3,000 unfamiliar words each year when
reading, with an increasing percentage of the words being morphologically complex
as children advance in age (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Anglin (1993) has estimated
that while children’s knowledge of root words doubles from Grade 1 to Grade 5,
there is almost a tenfold increase in the number of multimorphemic words during
the same period. Therefore, it is not surprising that the ability to perform
morphological analysis facilitates vocabulary learning in monolingual English
speakers (e.g., Anglin, 1993; Carlisle, 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; McBride-
Chang, Wagner, Muse, Chow, & Shu, 2005). Carlisle and Fleming (2003) found that
children’s performance on derivational awareness tasks in Grade 3 predicted scores
on a vocabulary test 2 years later. McBride-Chang et al. (2005) showed that for
kindergarteners and second graders, awareness of morphological structures and of
homophonic morphemes became increasingly strong predictors of vocabulary
knowledge with grade, even after controlling for other reading-related skills. These
studies underscore the strengthening role of morphological awareness in English
monolingual children’s vocabulary development.
In addition to vocabulary, morphological awareness has been found to be
associated with reading comprehension in monolingual English-speaking children.
A series of studies conducted by Carlisle and her colleagues (Carlisle 1995, 2000;
Carlisle & Fleming, 2003) indicated that between kindergarten and Grade 5,
children’s morphological skills were significantly related to their concurrent and
subsequent reading comprehension and that these relations strengthened with time.
Likewise, Deacon and Kirby (2004) reported that the amount of variance in reading
comprehension explained by morphological awareness measured in Grade 2
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1849
123
increased in each of the three subsequent grades (i.e., Grades 3, 4, and 5). Nagy,
Berninger, and Abbott (2006) demonstrated that morphological awareness predicted
a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension over and above
vocabulary and other reading-related factors (e.g., phonological awareness) in
students between Grades 4 and 9. Taken together, this body of research offers
substantial support that among English monolinguals, morphological awareness
contributes to reading comprehension directly, as well as through the mediating
effects of vocabulary.
Only a small number of studies (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Siegel, 2008; Wang,
Cheng, & Chen, 2006) have examined the relation between English morphological
awareness and reading in ELL children. A cross-sectional study conducted by Wang
et al. (2006) involved Chinese-speaking ELL students in the US from Grade 1 to
Grade 5. The researchers observed that awareness of compounds predicted unique
variance in reading comprehension after taking into consideration age, vocabulary,
and phonological awareness. However, because children across all five grades were
pooled together, it was not possible to identify the changes in the relations between
morphological awareness and reading over time. Kieffer and Lesaux (2008)
conducted a 2-year longitudinal study involving Spanish-speaking ELLs. Results
showed that while in Grade 4 the unique contribution of derivational awareness to
concurrent reading comprehension only approached statistical significance, by
Grade 5, derivational awareness was a significant predictor of reading comprehen-
sion over and above several other reading-related skills. In this study, however,
performance on the morphological awareness tasks in Grade 4 did not significantly
predict reading comprehension in Grade 5.
Although the studies described above provide preliminary evidence that different
aspects of English morphological awareness predict reading in ELL children, there
are several limitations. First, most research has focused on middle and upper
elementary grades. As a result, little is known about the relation between
morphological awareness and reading in the early school years. Second, almost all
studies focused on reading comprehension. The extent to which morphological
awareness contributes to vocabulary learning remains unclear. Finally, research to
date is limited in its consideration of the various aspects of morphological
awareness. Two of the studies (i.e., Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Siegel, 2008) focused
exclusively on derivational morphology. Wang et al. (2006) was the only study that
explored compound and derivational awareness; however, the design was cross-
sectional and analyses were conducted with children spanning five grades.
Universal and language-specific processes in reading
A theoretical notion guiding the present study is the ‘‘universal’’ view on
understanding the relations between underlying cognitive processes and reading.
According to this hypothesis, the same cognitive and linguistic component skills
may account for children’s reading in a given language, irrespective of their
language background or oral proficiency (Geva, 2008; Muter & Diethelm, 2001).
For example, research comparing monolingual English-speaking children and ELLs
from various linguistic backgrounds has found that phonological awareness and
1850 K. Lam et al.
123
lexical access are important for reading in both groups (e.g., Chiappe, Glaeser, &
Ferko, 2007; Chiappe, Siegel, & Wade-Woolley, 2002; da Fontoura & Siegel, 1995;
Jongejan, Verhoeven, & Siegel, 2007; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Lipka & Siegel,
2007). In the same vein, morphological awareness may also be important for
reading in both English-speaking monolinguals and ELL children.
At the same time, children’s language and reading development are influenced by
the characteristics of the language and writing system that they are learning (Wang
& Koda, 2007). For example, monolingual children’s phonological awareness
develops as a function of the phonological structure of their native language
(Caravolas & Bruck, 1993; Cheung, Chen, Lai, Wong, & Hills, 2001; Cossu,
Shankweiler, Liberman, Katz, & Tola, 1988; Durgunoglu & Oney, 1999, 2002). For
bilinguals, language and reading development in the second language is influenced
by the characteristics of the first language. As described earlier, Ramırez et al.
(2011) observed that Spanish-speaking ELLs outperformed Chinese-speaking ELLs
on derivational awareness, while the Chinese-speaking ELLs showed more
advanced compound awareness. Taken together, there is evidence to show that
learning to read a second language involves both universal and language-specific
processes.
The present study
The primary goal of the present study was to examine the contribution of
morphological awareness to vocabulary and reading comprehension in Chinese-
speaking ELL children. We focused on two aspects of morphological awareness:
awareness of derivations and awareness of compounds. Since the correct use of
derived words draws on a greater understanding of phonological relations, syntactic
roles, and semantic relations than that of inflections, derivational awareness may be
a stronger longitudinal predictor of children’s vocabulary and reading comprehen-
sion than inflectional awareness (Carlisle, 1995). For this reason, and out of
practical constraints on testing time, we decided to examine derivational awareness
rather than inflectional awareness. Given the importance of compound awareness in
Chinese reading (e.g., Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li, Anderson, Nagy, & Zhang, 2002;
McBride-Chang, Shu, Ng, Meng, & Penney, 2007; Shu, McBride-Chang, Wu, &
Liu, 2006), we were also interested in determining whether compound awareness
was also important for English reading for the Chinese-speaking ELLs.
We conducted our study among kindergarten and Grade 1 children, an ELL
sample that was younger than those previously studied. This age range is of
particular interest because children start to shift from an implicit to a more explicit
understanding of language use and language structures during this time (Carlisle,
1995). Past research among native English speakers indicates an emerging
association between morphological awareness and reading in beginning readers
(e.g., Carlisle, 1995; McBride-Chang et al., 2005). It is important to examine
whether a similar association exists in ELLs. Considering the contributions of
derivational and compound awareness separately can elucidate the differential role
of each in English reading. The longitudinal design enabled us to observe the
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1851
123
change in the strength of the relations between morphological awareness and
vocabulary/reading comprehension over time.
We aimed to determine the unique contributions of morphological awareness to
vocabulary and reading comprehension after taking into account several reading-
related variables. Phonological awareness was controlled for in our analyses given its
important role in reading (e.g., Carlisle, Beeman, Davis, & Spharim, 1999; Low &
Siegel, 2005; McBride-Chang et al., 2005; McBride-Chang, Cheung, Chow, Chow,
& Choi, 2006). We also controlled for age and nonverbal reasoning in alternative
regression models1 to ensure that the relations observed between morphological
awareness and the outcome variables were not merely a function of general ability. In
predicting reading comprehension, we additionally controlled for word reading and
oral receptive vocabulary because according to the Simple View of Reading model
(SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Kirby & Savage, 2008), both variables are important
contributors to reading comprehension. Based on the universal view of reading
acquisition and the results of previous research among monolingual English-
speaking children (e.g., Carlisle, 1995; 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Deacon &
Kirby, 2004; Nagy et al., 2006), we hypothesized that the contributions of
morphological awareness to vocabulary and reading comprehension would increase
as children become more experienced readers.
A secondary goal of the study was to evaluate the developmental changes of
derivational awareness and compound awareness in Chinese-speaking ELL children
with a longitudinal design, which has not been done in previous research. Based on
previous findings reporting the influence of first language characteristics on second
language reading (e.g., Ramırez et al., 2011), and considering that compounding is
the most important word formation process in Chinese (Taylor & Taylor, 1995), we
expected that Chinese-speaking ELLs would demonstrate a relatively high level of
English compound awareness in comparison to their English monolingual peers
even in the early elementary grades. On the other hand, it may be challenging for
young Chinese-speaking ELL children to develop sufficient derivational awareness
at this age, given that they have little experience with derived words in their first
language.
Method
Participants
Participants of the study were Chinese-speaking ELLs recruited primarily from one
public Chinese heritage language school located in a working class neighbourhood
in a large metropolitan area in Canada as part of a larger research project. They
were tested in the fall semester immediately after recruitment and were tested
again a year later. At Time 1, 46 kindergarteners (52% males) and 34 first graders
(62% males) participated in the study. The average age was 5 years 5 months
1 Due to our small sample size, age and nonverbal reasoning were entered as control variables in separate
regression models.
1852 K. Lam et al.
123
(SD = 5.70 months) and 6 years 7 months (SD = 4.35 months), respectively. All
children attended public schools and received instruction in English. Because this
was a longitudinal study, we refer to the children recruited in kindergarten as the
‘‘younger cohort’’, and those recruited in the first grade as the ‘‘older cohort’’. At
Time 2, 12 children from the younger cohort and 10 children from the older cohort
dropped out due to family relocation. The relocation rate was high because
the majority of the participants came from first generation immigrant families, who
tend to move out of the neighbourhood once they become more established
economically.
Demographic information was collected through a family questionnaire designed
by the researchers. Sixty-one percent of the children in the younger cohort and 33%
of the children in the older cohort were born in Canada. For children born outside of
Canada, the average age of immigration was 1 year and 7 months
(SD = 19.68 months) for the younger cohort, and 10 months (SD = 17.82 months)
for the older cohort. All participants attended Chinese heritage language classes for
an average of 2.5 h a week, where they received instruction in both oral language and
literacy. Approximately 74% of the children read Chinese books at home. All but one
child spoke Chinese at home to varying extents. This child was included in the data
analysis due to regular exposure to oral and written Chinese through attending
Chinese heritage language classes.2 Maternal education was used as a proxy for
family socioeconomic status (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, Guerin, & Parramore,
2003). The average level of maternal education in our sample was university.
Measures
Children were tested at two measurement points spaced 1 year apart. At both
measurement points (Time 1 and Time 2, respectively), participants received a
battery of tests in English including phonological awareness, morphological
awareness, word reading, and receptive vocabulary. A nonverbal reasoning measure
was administered to all participants at Time 1 only. Reading comprehension was
only assessed in the older cohort at Time 1; at Time 2, the test was given to both
cohorts. Instructions for all tests were given in English. A questionnaire on family
background and home literacy activities was filled out by parents of the
participating children at Time 1.
Measures of morphological awareness
Derivational awareness. The Derivational Awareness task was adapted from
Carlisle (2000). Children were orally presented with a root word and a sentence with
a word missing, and were asked to produce a derived form of the root word to
complete the sentence. For example, Experimenter: ‘‘Farm [root word]. My uncle isa __________.’’ (correct response: farmer). The derivational suffixes targeted
include -th, -ity, -tion, -er, -ian, -ist, -y, -ly, -ance, -able, -ous, and -ious. Children
2 The child’s Chinese proficiency level was similar to that of peers when assessed as part of our larger
research project.
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1853
123
were given three practice trials with feedback to verify that they have understood
the task. After reviewing the performance at Time 1, the task was modified at Time
2 to better capture children’s variance in derivational awareness. This test contained
24 items at Time 1 and 27 items at Time 2. Eighteen items were common to both
testing times. Reliability coefficients for this task were .87 at Time 1 and .90 at
Time 2.
Compound awareness. The Compound Awareness task was adapted from the test
used by McBride-Chang et al. (2005). In each trial, children were orally presented
with the definition of a compound word, and were then asked to create a compound
of similar structure using newly presented concepts. For example, Experimenter:‘‘Early in the morning, we can see the sun rising. This is called a sunrise. At night,we might also see the moon rising. What could we call this?’’ (correct response:moonrise). There were two practice trials and 15 test items. The reliability
coefficient for this task was .83.
Literacy outcome measures
Vocabulary. A shortened version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Third
Edition, Form IIIA (PPVT-III A) (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) was administered to
measure children’s receptive vocabulary. To maintain the same progression of item
difficulty as the original test, every third item from the original test was selected to
create the shortened version, for a total of 60 items. The modifications were made to
allow for group administration and to reduce administration time. The experimenter
read each item twice and the children circled the picture that best described the
word presented in response booklets. The reliability coefficient for this shortened
test was .61.
Reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was assessed using the
Reading Comprehension subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test—
Revised (PIAT-R) (Markwardt, 1998). To facilitate group administration and to
reduce administration time, we created a shortened version of the original test by
including every other item. This selection method was used to maintain the same
progression of item difficulty of the original test. The shortened task had 36 items.
Each child received a booklet containing sentences and short paragraphs of
increasing difficulty, along with stimulus pictures. Children were asked to silently
read each sentence or short paragraph once and select out of four stimulus pictures
the one that best represented the text previously read. The reliability coefficient for
this shortened task was .90.
Control measures
Nonverbal reasoning. Nonverbal reasoning ability was measured using the Raven’s
Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998). To reduce
administration time, only the first three sets, sets A to C, were administered. There
were 12 items in each set, with a total of 36 items. For each item children were
asked to complete a visual-spatial matrix by choosing the missing piece from six or
eight patterned segments.
1854 K. Lam et al.
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Phonological awareness. Children’s phonological awareness was assessed using
the Elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing
(CTOPP) (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999). Children were asked to delete
individual sounds from words and to give the remaining part (e.g., ‘‘cat’’, say it
without ‘‘/k/’’). The 20 items in this test included initial, middle and last phoneme
deletion. The reliability coefficient for this task was .93.
Word reading. Children’s word reading ability in English was assessed using the
Letter-Word Identification subtest from the Woodcock Language Proficiency
Battery (WLPB) (Woodcock, 1984). This test required children to identify 14 letters
and to read 62 words of increasing difficulty. The test was discontinued if the child
read 6 consecutive words incorrectly. The score was the total number of letters and
words read correctly. The reliability coefficient for this task was .96.
Procedure
Participants were assessed in a quiet room at their schools within school hours.
Experimenters were trained undergraduate and graduate research assistants. Two
60-min testing sessions were administered on different days at each testing time,
with short breaks within each session. At Time 1, first graders completed vocabulary
and reading comprehension in small groups (2–10 students); other tests were
administered individually. At Time 2, vocabulary and reading comprehension were
administered in small groups to all children; the remaining tests were given
individually. The order of individual tests was counterbalanced across participants.
Results
We first screened the data for univariate and bivariate outliers. There were no
univariate outliers in the sample. One child in Grade 1 was identified to be a
bivariate outlier when the relation between derivational awareness and reading
comprehension at Time 2 was considered. This child was excluded from all
subsequent analyses.3 Because the attrition rate was high from Time 1 to Time 2, to
test for selective attrition, we compared Time 1 test scores on all important reading-
related skills between participants who participated at both time points and those
who only participated at Time 1. No significant main effects or interactions were
found. Thus, there was no evidence for selective attrition.
The mean percentage scores and standard deviations of each measure admin-
istered at Time 1 and Time 2 are presented in Table 1. For the Derivational
Awareness task, scores were reported on all the items used at Time 1 and Time 2, as
well as on the 18 common items administered at the two testing times. Across
groups, there was adequate variability on all measures. However, there was a
possible ceiling effect for the older cohort on the Compound Awareness task at
Time 2, where approximately 30% of the children achieved a perfect score.
3 The removal of this child did not change the pattern of results reported below.
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1855
123
Development in morphological awareness
We first examined children’s development in derivational and compound awareness
from kindergarten to Grade 2. Figure 1 depicts children’s performance on the two
morphological awareness tasks at the two time points. To represent more clearly the
developmental changes in children’s performance on the Derivational Awareness
task, the graph presents percentage scores calculated from the 18 common items
administered across the two time points. As shown in Fig. 1, on the Derivational
Awareness task, kindergarteners (younger cohort, Time 1) scored only 20% correct,
while first graders’ performance was between 35% (older cohort, Time 1) and 51%
correct (younger cohort, Time 2). The second graders (older cohort, Time 2)
achieved 61% correct on this task. On the Compound Awareness task, kindergar-
teners (younger cohort, Time 1) scored 37% correct. The first graders performed
between 59% (older cohort, Time 1) to 67% (younger cohort, Time 2) correct. By
the second grade, students reached 81% correct (older cohort, Time 2).
Table 1 Descriptive statistics of measures
Time 1 Time 2
M SD M SD
Younger cohort (n = 46) (n = 34)
Age (in months) 65.36 5.70 76.55 8.32
Non-verbal reasoning (Raven’s matrices) .44 .12 – –
Phonological awareness (Elision) .23 .21 .49 .24
Derivational awarenessa .23 .14 .50 .20
Derivational awareness (18 items)b .20 .13 .51 .21
Compound awareness .37 .27 .67 .24
Word reading .31 .13 .48 .14
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) .54 .07 .52 .07
Reading comprehension – – .38 .20
Older cohort (n = 34) (n = 23)
Age (in months) 79.15 4.28 90.97 4.22
Non-verbal reasoning (Raven’s matrices) .60 .16 – –
Phonological awareness (Elision) .48 .27 .61 .24
Derivational awarenessa .37 .20 .62 .19
Derivational awareness (18 items)b .35 .19 .61 .19
Compound awareness .59 .31 .81 .20
Word reading .49 .16 .58 .14
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) .56 .09 .57 .09
Reading comprehension .41 .19 .53 .17
a The mean percentage scores and standard deviations calculated using all items administered at each
time pointb The mean percentage scores and standard deviations for the 18 common items in the task administered
at Time 1 and Time 2
1856 K. Lam et al.
123
A 2 9 2 (Cohort [older, younger] 9 Time [time 1, time 2]) repeated measures
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for each morphological measure to
further examine children’s morphological awareness development over time. In
each model, testing time was entered as the within-subject factor, and cohort as the
between-subject factor. For the Derivational Awareness task, only total scores
calculated for the 18 common items were used in the ANOVA. On both measures,
significant main effects were found for cohort, F(1, 52) = 8.04, p = .007 for
Derivational Awareness; and F(1, 52) = 6.21, p = .016 for Compound Awareness.
Thus, averaging across time, children in the older cohort performed significantly
better on the morphological measures than their younger counterparts. Main effects
of time were also significant, F(1, 52) = 208.47, p \ .001, for Derivational
Awareness, and F(1, 52) = 81.60, p \ .001, for Compound Awareness. The
Cohort 9 Time interaction was not significant for either task (both ps [ .05),
indicating that the two cohorts improved similarly with time.
Since our study did not include a sample of monolingual English-speaking
children, we used the monolinguals in McBride-Chang et al.’s (2005) study as a
comparison group in determining whether Chinese-speaking ELL children’s level of
English compound awareness is different from that of their English monolingual
peers. In both studies, similar compound awareness items were administered to
kindergarteners and second graders. The English monolinguals in McBride-Chang
et al.’s study achieved 41% correct on the compound awareness task in
kindergarten, and 64% in Grade 2. When these percentage scores were compared
to those achieved by the ELL children in our study, one-way ANOVAs revealed that
the ELLs performed at a similar level as the native English speakers in kindergarten,
F(1, 159) = 1.35, p = .25. By Grade 2, the ELLs scored significantly higher than
the English monolinguals, F(1, 126) = 23.54, p \ .001.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Time 1 Time 2
Younger Cohort Compound Awareness
Older Cohort Compound AwarenessYounger Cohort DerivationalAwarenessOlder Cohort Derivational Awareness
Fig. 1 Children’s performance on the Derivational Awareness and the Compound Awareness tasks atTime 1 and Time 2. The mean percentage scores for the Derivational Awareness task were calculatedfrom the 18 common task items administered in Time 1 and Time 2
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1857
123
Correlations between morphological awareness, vocabulary,
and reading comprehension
Intercorrelations among all measures included in the present study are displayed in
Table 2 for the younger and older cohorts. Across groups and measurement points,
the two morphological awareness measures were strongly associated with one
another (rs ranged from .49 to .76, all ps \ .01). For the younger cohort, correlations
between the morphological awareness tasks and vocabulary were not significant at
Time 1, but were robust at Time 2 (for derivational awareness, r = .51, p = .002; for
compound awareness, r = .64, p \ .001). Longitudinal correlations between the
morphological awareness measures at Time 1 and vocabulary at Time 2 were
significant (for derivational awareness, r = .44, p = .013; for compound awareness,
r = .44, p = .014). For the older cohort, derivational awareness was significantly
correlated with vocabulary concurrently at both time points (Time 1, r = .55,
p = .001; Time 2, r = .43, p = .040) and longitudinally (r = .65, p = .001),
whereas the correlations between compound awareness and vocabulary were not
significant either concurrently or longitudinally.
For the younger cohort, correlations between measures of morphological aware-
ness and reading comprehension were robust and significant at Time 2 (for
derivational awareness, r = .58, p \ .001; for compound awareness, r = .38,
p = .027). Longitudinally, compound awareness measured at Time 1 was strongly
correlated with Time 2 reading comprehension (r = .38, p = .038), while the
correlation between Time 1 derivational awareness and Time 2 reading comprehen-
sion approached significance (r = .34, p = .061). For the older cohort, the
associations between the two morphological measures and reading comprehension
were significant at Time 1 (for derivational awareness, r = .64, p \ .001; for
compound awareness, r = .56, p = .001), and at Time 2 (for derivational awareness,
r = .84, p \ .001; for compound awareness, r = .75, p \ .001). Time 1 morpholog-
ical awareness measures were also significantly related to reading comprehension
tested at Time 2 (for derivational awareness, r = .74, p \ .001; for compound
awareness, r = .58, p = .004).
The role of morphological awareness in vocabulary
Hierarchical linear regression analyses were carried out separately for each cohort to
examine the concurrent and subsequent contributions of morphological awareness
to vocabulary. In each concurrent regression analysis, children’s age was entered in
step one,4 followed by phonological awareness. Derivational awareness and
compound awareness were entered separately in the final step to explore the
unique variance explained by each type of morphology.
Results from the concurrent models are summarized in Table 3. The models
evaluating the unique contribution of derivational awareness and compound
awareness to vocabulary are presented as Model A and Model B, respectively. As
4 The patterns of results were largely the same when nonverbal reasoning or maternal education was
entered in the first step.
1858 K. Lam et al.
123
Ta
ble
2C
orr
elat
ion
sam
on
gal
lm
easu
res
atT
ime
1an
dT
ime
2fo
rth
ey
ou
ng
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do
lder
coh
ort
12
34
56
78
91
01
11
21
3
1.
Ag
e–
.11
.38
*.3
5*
.25
.20
.36
*.0
0-
.06
-.0
3-
.11
.39*
-.0
1
2.
T1
Phonolo
gic
alaw
aren
ess
.21
–.5
7**
.54**
.69**
.37*
.66**
.67**
.53*
.66**
.53*
.33
.57**
3.
T1
Der
ivat
ional
awar
enes
s.2
5.5
9**
–.6
7**
.60**
.55**
.64**
.31
.70**
.49*
.71**
.65**
.74**
4.
T1
Com
pound
awar
enes
s.3
2*
.48**
.49**
–.5
3**
.28
.56**
.38*
.65
**
.72
**
.59
**
.37*
.58
**
5.
T1
Wo
rdre
adin
g.2
3.5
3**
.59
**
.48
**
–.3
9*
.89
**
.43
*.5
9**
.64
**
.75
**
.54
**
.72
**
6.
T1
Rec
epti
ve
vo
cab
ula
ry.2
3.1
6.3
0*
.14
.17
–.4
2*
-.0
2.4
4*
.14
.38*
.14
.28
7.
T1
Rea
din
gco
mp
reh
ensi
on
NA
aN
AN
AN
AN
AN
A–
.43
*.6
2**
.61
**
.69
**
.55
**
.68
**
8.
T2
Phonolo
gic
alaw
aren
ess
.16
.57**
.30
.47**
.66**
.23
NA
–.4
5*
.53**
.54**
.40*
.56
**
9.
T2
Der
ivat
ional
awar
enes
s.4
1*
.58**
.68**
.52**
.68**
.28
NA
.57**
–.7
6**
.89**
.43*
.84**
10.
T2
Com
pound
awar
enes
s.2
6.5
0**
.56**
.66**
.49**
.37*
NA
.64**
.68**
–.7
7**
.33
.75**
11
.T
2W
ord
read
ing
.21
.39
*.2
8.2
5.8
0*
*.3
1*
NA
.72
**
.61
**
.50
**
–.5
0*
.92
**
12
.T
2R
ecep
tiv
ev
oca
bu
lary
.11
.40
*.4
4*
.44
*.3
8*
.36
*N
A.4
5*
*.5
1**
.64
**
.44
**
–.6
1**
13
.T
2R
ead
ing
com
pre
hen
sio
n.4
0*
.41
*.3
4*
.38
*.7
1*
*.3
2*
NA
.47
**
.58
**
.38
*.7
6**
.48
**
–
T1
=T
ime
1;
T2
=T
ime
2;
NA
=d
ata
no
tav
aila
ble
.T
he
low
er-l
eft
toth
ed
iag
on
alis
for
the
yo
ung
erco
ho
rt;
the
hig
her
-rig
ht
toth
ed
iag
on
alis
for
the
old
erco
ho
rt*
p\
.10
;*
p\
.05
;*
*p\
.01
aR
ead
ing
com
pre
hen
sio
nw
asn
ot
mea
sure
din
the
yo
ung
erco
ho
rtat
Tim
e1
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1859
123
shown in the upper half of the table, neither derivational awareness nor compound
awareness explained unique variance in vocabulary for the younger cohort at Time
1, though the contribution of derivational awareness was nearly significant. At Time
2, both derivational and compound awareness were significant unique predictors of
vocabulary, explaining 14 and 17% of the variance, respectively. The lower half of
Table 3 presents the results for the older cohort. At Time 1, derivational awareness
was a unique predictor of vocabulary, accounting for 18% of the variance.
Compound awareness did not contribute to vocabulary significantly at this time. At
Time 2, neither derivational awareness nor compound awareness made a unique
contribution to vocabulary.
Table 4 presents the longitudinal regression models for the younger and older
cohorts. Children’s age (see footnote 4) and receptive vocabulary measured at Time 1
(i.e., the autoregressor) were entered in the first two steps, respectively, in both Model
A and Model B. Time 1 phonological awareness was entered in the subsequent step,
and Time 1 derivational awareness and Time 1 compound awareness were entered
separately in the last step. For the younger cohort, neither aspect of morphological
awareness was a significant longitudinal predictor of vocabulary. For the older cohort,
Time 1 derivational awareness significantly predicted over 27% of unique variance in
Time 2 vocabulary, and was the only unique predictor in the model.
The role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension
Similar hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to examine the concurrent
and longitudinal contributions of morphological awareness to reading comprehen-
sion. In each concurrent model, age (see footnote 4) was entered first, followed by
Table 3 Hierarchical linear regressions predicting concurrent English receptive vocabulary
Step and predictors Time 1 Time 2
General
model
summary
Model A Model B General
model
summary
Model A Model B
DR2 b b DR2 b b
Younger cohort (n = 46) (n = 34)
1. Age .049 .150 .182 .013 -.115 -.045
2. Phonological awareness .008 -.132 .061 .176* .174 .098
3. Derivational awareness .101* .400* .140* .492*
3. Compound awareness .005 .080 .170** .543**
Older cohort (n = 34) (n = 23)
1. Age .032 .004 .139 .155* .415* .398*
2. Phonological awareness .140* .100 .347 .155* .247 .306
3. Derivational awareness .178* .530* .098 .346
3. Compound awareness .002 .053 .021 .169
T1 = Time 1; Model A = Derivational Awareness task only; Model B = Compound Awareness task
only* p \ .10; * p \ .05; ** p \ .01
1860 K. Lam et al.
123
receptive vocabulary, word reading, and phonological awareness. Derivational
awareness and compound awareness were entered in the last step in Model A and
Model B, respectively.
Table 5 summarizes the concurrent regression analyses. Because reading
comprehension was not evaluated at Time 1 for the younger cohort, the contribution
of morphological awareness to reading comprehension was only assessed at Time 2
for this group (i.e., when they were in Grade 1). As shown in the upper half of
Table 5, vocabulary and word reading were significant predictors of reading
comprehension when entered in step two and step three, explaining approximately
19 and 32% of the variance, respectively. Final beta weights indicate that word
reading was a unique predictor in both Model A and Model B, while vocabulary
approached significance in Model B. Neither derivational awareness nor compound
awareness significantly explained additional variance in reading comprehension.
All together, variables entered in each model explained close to 70% of the total
variance.
Concurrent models for the older cohort are displayed in the lower half of
Table 5. Word reading explained significant variance in reading comprehension at
Time 1 (59%), and was the only unique predictor of reading comprehension in the
two models. Neither aspect of morphological awareness was significantly
predictive of reading comprehension. Together, the variables entered explained
close to 80% of the total variance in each model. Similarly, at Time 2, vocabulary
and word reading predicted significant portions of variance in reading compre-
hension (45 and 44%, respectively), whereas derivational awareness and compound
awareness were not significant predictors. Final beta weights revealed that word
reading was the only unique predictor of reading comprehension in both models at
Time 2, while vocabulary approached significance in Model B. In each of the
models, variables included accounted for approximately 90% of the variance in
reading comprehension.
Table 4 Longitudinal hierarchical linear regressions predicting Time 2 English receptive vocabulary
Step and predictors Younger cohort (n = 34) Older cohort (n = 23)
General
model
summary
Model A Model B General
model
summary
Model A Model B
DR2 b b DR2 b b
1. Age .019 .001 -.036 .057 .176 .233
2. T1 Receptive vocabulary .031 .161 .168 .029 -.176 .172
3. T1 Phonological awareness .127* .282 .257 .064 -.008 .031
4. T1 Derivational awareness .007 .124 .275* .681*
4. T1 Compound awareness .031 .217 .081 .364
Model A = Derivational Awareness task only; Model B = Compound Awareness task only* p \ .10; * p \ .05; ** p \ .01
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1861
123
Results from the longitudinal regression models are displayed in Table 6. In each
model, age (see footnote 4) was entered in step one. Time 1 vocabulary was then
entered in step two for the younger cohort. For the older cohort, the autoregressor
(i.e., Time 1 reading comprehension) was entered in step two; vocabulary was
entered in the subsequent step. For both cohorts, Time 1 word reading and Time 1
phonological awareness were entered following Time 1 vocabulary. Time 1
derivational awareness and Time 1 compound awareness were entered in the final
step of Model A and Model B, respectively. For the younger cohort, word reading
measured at Time 1 significantly predicted 35% of the variance in Time 2 reading
comprehension, and was a unique predictor in both models. Neither aspect of
morphological awareness was a significant predictor. In each of the two models, the
Time 1 variables in combination explained about 55% of the variance in Time 2
reading comprehension.
For the older cohort, reading comprehension measured at Time 1 explained a
significant portion of variance in reading comprehension measured at Time 2 (38%).
Importantly, derivational awareness emerged as the sole significant predictor of
reading comprehension over time, predicting 24% of the variance in Time 2 reading
comprehension after controlling for all other variables. By contrast, compound
awareness was not a significant longitudinal predictor of reading comprehension.
The Time 1 variables included explained over 75% of the variance in reading
comprehension in Model A, and over 65% of the variance in Model B.
Table 5 Hierarchical linear regressions predicting concurrent English reading comprehension
Step and predictors Time 1 Time 2
General
model
summary
Model A Model B General
model
summary
Model A Model B
DR2 b b DR2 b b
Younger cohort (n = 34)
1. Age .156* .236* .265*
2. Receptive vocabulary .187** .209 .271*
3. Word reading .317** .758** .760**
4. Phonological awareness .022 -.220 -.152
5. Derivational awareness .000 .031
5. Compound awareness .008 -.133
Older cohort (n = 34) (n = 23)
1. Age .081 .108 .105 .000 .001 -.018
2. Receptive vocabulary .116* -.004 .032 .450** .194 .228*
3. Word reading .590** .742** .762** .438** .659** .644**
4. Phonological awareness .003 .074 .060 .003 .070 .029
5. Derivational awareness .004 .100 .005 .150
5. Compound awareness .003 .074 .013 .192
Model A = Derivational Awareness task only; Model B = Compound Awareness task only* p \ .10; * p \ .05; ** p \ . 01
1862 K. Lam et al.
123
Power analysis for the regression models
To determine the power of our regression models in detecting small, medium, and
large effects of morphological awareness, we performed power analyses using the
G*Power 3.1 power analysis program (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007),
following the procedures outlined by Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner and Lang (2009) for
multiple linear regression models. Because there were differences in cohort size as
well as in the number of predictors entered for predicting vocabulary and reading
comprehension, power analyses were conducted separately for each regression
model reported above. For multiple regression and correlation analyses, Cohen
(1988) has proposed the values for small, medium and large effects to be f2 = .02,
.15, and .35, respectively. With the significance criterion being a = .05, the power
to detect large effects of morphological awareness for all the regression models
reported in our study is above the desired value of .80 suggested by Cohen (1988).
However, for all models, the power to detect small and medium effects is below .80.
That is, our models were sensitive to large effects, but not to medium or small
effects.
Discussion
The results of the present research fill in some gaps in our understanding of the role
of morphological awareness in literacy outcomes among ELL children. Previous
research has provided preliminary evidence for a relation between morphological
awareness and reading development in ELL children (i.e., Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008;
Siegel, 2008; Wang et al., 2006). However, most of these studies have examined
students in the middle and upper elementary years, for whom morphological
Table 6 Longitudinal hierarchical linear regression predicting Time 2 English reading comprehension
Step and predictors Younger cohort (n = 34) Older cohort (n = 23)
General
model
summary
Model A Model B General
model
summary
Model A Model B
DR2 b b DR2 b b
1. Age .181* .270* .247 .056 -.220 -.210
2. T1 Reading comprehension – – – .376** -.217 .013
3. T1 Receptive vocabulary .016 .120 .078 .019 -.149 .204
4. T1 Word reading .352** .653** .617** .045 .417 .375
5. T1 Phonological awareness .000 .143 .025 .033 .142 .010
6. T1 Derivational awareness .028 -.246 .240** .698**
6. T1 Compound awareness .001 -.037 .116* .451*
T1 = Time 1; Model A = Derivational Awareness task only; Model B = Compound Awareness task
only* p \ .10; * p \ .05; ** p \ .01
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1863
123
awareness may be particularly important because of the increasing number of
multimorphemic words they read (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). The current findings
add to this body of research by showing that even in Grade 1, when basic reading
skills are still being acquired, morphological awareness contributes to concurrent
and subsequent reading achievement in Chinese-speaking ELL children after taking
into account the effects of other reading-related variables. This finding underscores
the importance of morphological awareness in children’s reading development.
Development of morphological awareness
By examining the results across two cohorts in a longitudinal design, our study was
the first to track the developmental changes of derivational awareness and
compound awareness from kindergarten to Grade 2 in Chinese-speaking ELL
children. Previous research has found that derivational awareness emerges around
age 3 among native English speakers, and continues to develop through elementary
and high school years (see Kuo & Anderson, 2006, for a review). Consistent with
our expectation, the Chinese-speaking ELL children in our study improved from
kindergarten to Grade 2 on the derivational awareness task. However, because there
were some cohort effects, it remains to be seen whether these findings can be
replicated by future studies. Nonetheless, our study clearly shows that Chinese-
speaking ELL children start at a low level of derivational awareness in kindergarten
and experience a steady increase in Grade 1 and Grade 2.
Children in our study demonstrated substantial growth in their compound
awareness between kindergarten and Grade 2. Given the fact that there are relatively
few compound words in English, this steep increase in compound awareness likely
reflects the influence of Chinese, the children’s first language. Indeed, when
compared to their native English-speaking peers reported in McBride-Chang et al.’s
(2005) study, we found that the Chinese-speaking ELL children outperformed the
English monolinguals by Grade 2. Compounding is the most prominent word
formation process in Chinese—over 75% of the words in Modern Chinese are
compounds (Sun, Sun, Huang, Li, & Xing, 1996; Taylor & Taylor, 1995). Further,
most Chinese compounds are semantically transparent such that the meaning of
each morpheme contributes directly to the meaning of the word. It has been shown
that the salient compounding features in Chinese lead to a high level of compound
awareness in monolingual Chinese speakers in the early grades (Chen, Hao, Geva,
Zhu, & Shu, 2009). It seems that for bilingual Chinese children, English compound
awareness development is facilitated by their exposure to the compounding
structure of Chinese, reflecting the influence of first language characteristics.
Relations between morphological awareness and vocabulary
Our study shows that morphological awareness, especially derivational awareness,
plays an increasingly important role in vocabulary over time. This is most clearly
demonstrated in our longitudinal regression models, which, compared to concurrent
1864 K. Lam et al.
123
analyses, offer more stringent tests of the relation between two variables by the
inclusion of the autoregressor (Deacon & Kirby, 2004), and provide stronger
evidence in delineating the directionality of the relation. We found that while
derivational awareness assessed in kindergarten explained minimal variance in
Grade 1 vocabulary, derivational awareness assessed in Grade 1 significantly
explained close to 28% of the unique variance in Grade 2 vocabulary, even after
taking into account earlier vocabulary knowledge. Considering the relatively small
sample size in our study, especially in Grade 2, the finding that derivational
awareness emerged as the only significant longitudinal predictor of vocabulary
underscores its significance in ELL children’s early vocabulary development.
Morphological awareness also accounts for proportions of variance in concurrent
vocabulary among the ELL children in the early elementary grades. Derivational
awareness was a marginally significant concurrent predictor of vocabulary in
kindergarteners, explaining slightly over 10% of the variance after controlling for
age and phonological awareness. In Grade 1, derivational awareness became a
significant predictor across the two cohorts, explaining approximately 14–18% of
the variance in vocabulary. It was somewhat unexpected, however, that whilst
derivational awareness accounted for close to 10% of the second graders’ variance
in vocabulary, the contribution was not statistically significant. One possible reason
was that the sample size was quite small at this time; hence, there was insufficient
power to detect significant results. Compound awareness was only significantly
related to concurrent vocabulary in Grade 1 (the younger cohort at Time 2),
explaining about 17% of the variance. Taken together, our results suggest that
morphological awareness is closely associated with vocabulary development in
Chinese-speaking ELLs in the early school years.
Several reasons may account for the emerging influence of morphological
awareness on vocabulary observed in our study. First, a certain threshold of
morphological awareness may be required before children can use morphological
skills for word learning (e.g., Carlisle, 1995; 2000; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008). While
children’s morphological awareness was too low to have any facilitating effects in
kindergarten, this required threshold was achieved and surpassed by the first grade,
as increasing exposure to multimorphemic words through academic learning
(Anglin, 1993; Nagy & Anderson, 1984) offers more opportunities to develop the
ability to conduct morphological analysis. In turn, increased morphological
awareness leads to vocabulary growth by enabling children to synthesize the
meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar morphemes.
To summarize, previous studies have shown that morphological awareness is
related to vocabulary growth in monolingual English-speaking children (e.g.,
Carlisle, 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; McBride-Chang et al., 2005). The present
study adds to the extant body of research by delineating a similar developmental
pattern among Chinese-speaking ELL children. Our findings using a relatively small
sample size represent a notable first step in substantiating the importance of
morphological awareness in vocabulary among young ELL children. At the same
time, they point to the need for future studies to further understand the contribution
of morphological awareness to vocabulary among young ELL readers.
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1865
123
Relations between morphological awareness and reading comprehension
This study also examined the contribution of morphological awareness to reading
comprehension in Chinese-speaking ELLs. It seems that the effects of morpholog-
ical awareness on reading comprehension emerged with time. Derivational
awareness measured in Grade 1 uniquely predicted about 24% of the variance in
Grade 2 reading comprehension after controlling for several reading-related
variables and children’s reading comprehension measured in Grade 1. By contrast,
the longitudinal prediction from kindergarten to Grade 1 was not significant, nor
was any of the concurrent predictions in the two senior grade levels. Such change in
the contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension over time is
rather remarkable, especially considering that our sample size has become quite
small by Grade 2.
The limited effects of morphological awareness on reading comprehension
observed in our study resemble the finding of Carlisle (1995) involving native
English speakers in the early elementary grades. Thus, for both native English
speakers and Chinese-speaking ELL children, morphological awareness makes a
relatively small contribution to reading comprehension at the beginning stage. Over
time, however, the ability to conduct morphological analysis provides an adaptable
tool to acquire complex new words across different contexts. This ability becomes
more important when children encounter more multimorphemic words. In addition,
morphological awareness, particularly awareness of the syntactic and distributional
properties of derivational affixes, plays a more important role in sentence parsing as
children encounter increasingly more complex texts.
The SVR model conceptualizes reading comprehension as the product of
listening comprehension (i.e., oral language proficiency) and word reading (Gough
& Tunmer, 1986; Kirby & Savage, 2008). In the early grades, word recognition
takes precedence over oral language proficiency in contributing to reading
comprehension, given that reading instruction focuses mostly on decoding (Catts,
Hogan, & Adlof, 2005; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997). As children become
more experienced readers, the variance in reading comprehension explained by
word reading is expected to decrease (e.g., Tilstra, McMaster, van den Broek,
Kendeou, & Rapp, 2009). Consistent with the predictions made by the SVR model,
in our study, word reading was the most powerful predictor of reading compre-
hension among children from kindergarten to Grade 2.
Interestingly, we found that morphological awareness emerged as a significant
longitudinal predictor of reading comprehension for the first graders. Morphological
awareness is a metalinguistic skill. While closely related to vocabulary, it taps the
general understanding of word structure rather than knowledge of specific words
(Kieffer & Lesaux, 2010). Thus, our finding seems to suggest that this metalinguistc
ability becomes a critical aspect of oral language proficiency once children reach a
certain stage of reading development. This possibility needs to be further
investigated.
Overall, our results concerning the contribution of morphological awareness to
vocabulary and reading comprehension among Chinese-speaking ELL beginner
readers parallel those previously found among English monolinguals (e.g., Carlisle,
1866 K. Lam et al.
123
1995; 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy et al., 2006),
thus lending support to the universal view of reading (Geva, 2008; Muter &
Diethelm, 2001). Furthermore, given that Chinese uses a logographic writing system
that is fundamentally different from the alphabetic writing system used in English,
our findings suggest that the universal perspective is relevant even for second
language learners whose first and second languages are typologically distant.
Derivational and compound awareness
Including both derivational awareness and compound awareness in the same study
enabled us to examine the relations between these two aspects of morphological
awareness, as well as their differential contributions to reading outcomes in
Chinese-speaking ELL children. The significant correlations observed between
derivational awareness and compound awareness in both cohorts across different
testing times suggest that they are likely to represent different facets of a single
underlying construct. This is consistent with the view that distinct aspects of
morphological structures are all mental representations resulting from an interaction
of phonological, semantic, and orthographic information in a given language
(Gonnerman, Seidenberg, & Andersen, 2007; McBride-Chang et al., 2005).
Among the two aspects of morphological awareness, derivational awareness was
a stronger predictor of vocabulary and reading comprehension in most models.
These results suggest that the sensitivity to the prefixes and suffixes in derivational
words plays a greater role in English reading than the sensitivity to compound
structures. This is consistent with the fact that in English, derivations constitute a
much larger share of multimorphemic words than compounds (Anglin, 1993; Nagy
& Anderson, 1984; Tyler & Nagy, 1989). Derivational awareness may also
contribute to reading comprehension through its role in syntactic parsing. As
derivational suffixes often explicitly mark parts of speech (e.g., -ness often denotes
a noun while -ful usually signifies an adjective), knowledge of derivational
morphemes provides clues to readers in determining the syntactic structure of a
written sentence (Kuo & Anderson, 2006; Mahony, Singson, & Mann, 2000; Tyler
& Nagy, 1990). Thus, the differences in the contributions of the two aspects of
morphological awareness to reading reflect the morphological structure of English.
Limitations and directions for future research
While the results of the present study increase our understanding of the importance
of morphological processing in Chinese-speaking ELL children, they must be
interpreted in the light of several caveats. First, there was attrition in both cohorts,
leading to smaller sample sizes at testing time 2. This problem was particularly
serious for the older cohort. Relatedly, we only had power to detect large, but not
medium or small, effects of morphological awareness on the young ELLs’ reading
achievement. It remains possible that with a larger sample, some of our
nonsignificant results could become significant. Another limitation is the relatively
restricted range of SES in our sample. Most children in our study came from middle
or high SES families; over 60% of the mothers have completed at least a university
Morphological awareness in Chinese-speaking ELLs 1867
123
degree. To the extent that this sample is representative of the demographics of the
more recent Chinese immigrants in Canada,5 it may prevent us from generalizing
our findings to children raised in low SES families. Children from low SES families
are less likely to be exposed to highly stimulating home literacy environments, and
may therefore be at a disadvantage in their vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension (Hart & Risley, 1995; van Steensel, 2006). Future studies should
consider ELL children from a broader range of SES backgrounds.
The derivational awareness measure used in our study seemed to be slightly
above the ability level of the Chinese-speaking ELL kindergartners. For this group,
the correct percentage on the Derivational Awareness task was low. While there was
sufficient variance among children’s performance and tests for skewness of
distribution did not reveal any floor effect, it will be important for future studies to
develop measures that can better capture children’s derivational awareness at the
kindergarten level. Also, we have chosen to focus on derivational awareness and
compound awareness among ELL children in the present study because of their
prominent roles in English and Chinese, respectively. Nonetheless, inflectional
awareness may play an important role in reading development in English, especially
in young ELL readers who are only beginning to learn the morphological structures
of their second language. This will need to be explored in future studies.
Finally, the association between morphological awareness and reading is likely to
be reciprocal rather than unidirectional. Results from our study and others (e.g.,
Carlisle, 1995; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003) have shown that morphological
awareness can predict vocabulary growth and reading comprehension over time.
Yet, it is also likely that the exposure to oral and printed words facilitates the
development of morphological awareness (Katz, 2004; McBride-Chang et al.,
2008). Although our study was longitudinal in nature, the small sample size did not
allow us to use more powerful statistical techniques to examine reciprocal relations.
Future research should explore the bidirectionality of the associations between
different aspects of morphological awareness and reading outcomes.
Morphological instruction has been incorporated into reading intervention
programs in the recent years, and there is a small but growing body of research
among monolingual English speakers supporting the effectiveness of such approach
at enhancing children’s growth in reading, spelling, and vocabulary across various
reading levels (see Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010; Reed, 2008, for reviews).
Notably, Lesaux, Kieffer, Faller and Kelley (2010) reported that an academic
vocabulary instruction program that explicitly taught morphology similarly
benefitted ELL students and their native English-speaking classmates at the
middle-school level. Our study points to the possibility that morphological
instruction may even benefit ELL children who are beginning readers. Specifically,
providing more opportunities for children to learn and practice morphological
strategies from a young age may facilitate growth in vocabulary and reading
5 According to analyses conducted using data from the Landed Immigrant Data System in Canada, 60.5%
of the adult Chinese immigrants arriving in Canada between 1996 and 2001 have a post-secondary degree
(Guo & DeVoretz, 2007).
1868 K. Lam et al.
123
comprehension over time. More research evaluating the effectiveness of morpho-
logical instruction among young ELL children is clearly needed.
In conclusion, our study suggest that Chinese-speaking ELL children continuously
develop English derivational and compound awareness over the early school years;
they also become increasingly more adept in using these insights to facilitate their
English vocabulary and reading comprehension. While children’s level of morpho-
logical awareness may not be sufficient to influence literacy skills in kindergarten, by
Grade 1, morphological awareness is significantly related to vocabulary. Around the
same time or soon after, the effects of morphological awareness extend to reading
comprehension. These findings are consistent with those observed among monolin-
gual English speakers (e.g., Carlisle, 1995; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003), and ELL
students from other linguistic backgrounds (e.g., Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Siegel,
2008), thus substantiating the universal processes in second language reading for
children from different language backgrounds. At the same time, our findings suggest
that Chinese-speaking ELL children develop a relatively high level of compound
awareness, which reflects the characteristics of their first language.
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