Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T06:18:03.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The role of morphological awareness in children's vocabulary acquisition in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2005

CATHERINE McBRIDE–CHANG
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
RICHARD K. WAGNER
Affiliation:
Florida State University
ANDREA MUSE
Affiliation:
Florida State University
BONNIE W.-Y. CHOW
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
HUA SHU
Affiliation:
Beijing Normal University

Abstract

Tasks of speeded naming, phonological awareness, word identification, nonsense word repetition, and vocabulary, along with two measures of morphological awareness (morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification), were administered to 115 kindergartners and 105 second graders. In the combined sample, 48% of the variance in vocabulary knowledge was predicted by the phonological processing and reading variables. Morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification together predicted an additional unique 10% of variance in vocabulary knowledge, for a total of 58% of the variance explained; both measures of morphological awareness were uniquely associated with vocabulary knowledge. Results underscore the potential importance of different facets of morphological awareness, as distinct from phonological processing skills, for understanding variability in early vocabulary acquisition.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson R. C., & Nagy W. E. 1991. Word meanings. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 2, pp. 690724). New York: Longman.
Avons S. E., Wragg C. A., Cupples L., & Lovegrove W. J. 1998. Measures of phonological short-term memory and their relationship to vocabulary development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 583601.Google Scholar
Baker S. K., Simmons D. C., & Kameenui E. J. 1998. Vocabulary acquisition: Research bases. In D. C. Simmons & E. J. Kameenui (Eds.), What reading research tells us about children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics (pp. 183217). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bentin S., & Feldman L. B. 1990. The contribution of morphological and semantic relatedness to repetition priming at short and long lags: Evidence from Hebrew. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 42A, 693711.Google Scholar
Berko J. 1958. The child's learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150177.Google Scholar
Biemiller A., & Slonim N. 2001. Estimating root word vocabulary growth in normative and advantaged populations: Evidence for a common sequence of vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 498520.Google Scholar
Bowey J. A. 2001. Nonword repetition and young children's receptive vocabulary: A longitudinal study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 441469.Google Scholar
Carlisle J. F. 1995. Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189209. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Carlisle J. F. 2000. Awareness of the structure and meaning of morphologically complex words: Impact on reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 169190.Google Scholar
Carlisle J. F., & Nomanbhoy D. 1993. Phonological and morphological development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 177195.Google Scholar
Casalis S., & Louis–Alexandre M.-F. 2000. Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read French: A longitudinal study. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 303335.Google Scholar
Deacon S. H., & Kirby J. R. 2004. Morphological awareness: Just “more phonological”? The roles of morphological and phonological awareness in reading development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 223238.Google Scholar
Egan J., & Pring L. 2004. The processing of inflectional morphology: A comparison of children with and without dyslexia. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 17, 567591.Google Scholar
Fowler A. E. 1991. How early phonological development might set the state for phonemic awareness. In S. A. Brady & D. Shankweiler (Eds.), Phonological processes in literacy: A tribute to Isabelle Y. Liberman (pp. 97117). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Fowler A. E., & Liberman I. Y. 1995. The role of phonology and orthography in morphological awareness. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 157188). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gardiner M. 2000. Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications.
Gathercole S. E., Service E., Hitch G. J., Adams A. M., & Martin A. J. 1999. Phonological short-term memory and vocabulary development: Further evidence on the nature of the relationship. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 6577.Google Scholar
Gathercole S. E., Willis C. S., Emslie H., & Baddeley A. D. 1992. Phonological memory and vocabulary development during the early school years: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 28, 887898.Google Scholar
Gonnerman L. M., Seidenberg M. S., & Andersen E. 2005. Graded semantic and phonological similarity effects in priming: Evidence for a distributed connectionist approach to morphology. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Kempley S. T., & Morton J. 1982. The effects of priming with regularly and irregularly related words in auditory word recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 73, 441454.Google Scholar
Lyytinen P., & Lyytinen H. 2004. Growth and predictive relations of vocabulary and inflectional morphology in children with and without familial risk for dyslexia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 397411.Google Scholar
Mann V. A. 2000. Introduction to special issue on morphology and the acquisition of alphabetic writing systems. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 143147.Google Scholar
McBride–Chang C., Shu H., Zhou A., Wat C. P., & Wagner R. K. 2003. Morphological awareness uniquely predicts young children's Chinese character recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 743751.Google Scholar
Metsala J. L. 1999. Young children's phonological awareness and nonword repetition as a function of vocabulary development. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 319.Google Scholar
Nagy W., & Anderson R. C. 1984. How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304330.Google Scholar
Nagy W., Berninger V., Abbott R., Vaughan K., & Vermeulen K. 2003. Relationship of morphology and other language skills to literacy skills in at-risk second-grade readers and at-risk fourth-grade writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 730742.Google Scholar
Napps S. E. 1989. Morphemic relationships in the lexicon: Are they distinct from semantic and formal relationships? Memory and Cognition, 17, 729739.Google Scholar
Nunes T., Bryant P., & Bindman M. 1997. Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33, 637649.Google Scholar
Packard J. L. 2000. The morphology of Chinese: A linguistic and cognitive approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perfetti C. A., Beck I., Bell L., & Hughes C. 1987. Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 33, 283319.Google Scholar
Plaut D. C., & Gonnerman L. M. 2000. Are non-semantic morphological effects incompatible with a distributed connectionist approach to lexical processing? Language and Cognitive Processes, 15, 445485.Google Scholar
Plunkett K., & Marchman V. 1991. U-shaped learning and frequency effects in a multi-layered perceptron: Implications for child language acquisition. Cognition, 38, 43102.Google Scholar
Plunkett K., & Marchman V. 1993. From rote learning to system building: Acquiring verb morphology in children and connectionist nets. Cognition, 48, 2169.Google Scholar
Stanovich K. E. 1986. Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360407.Google Scholar
Wagner R. K., Torgesen J. K., & Rashotte C. A. 1999. Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Walley A. C. 1993. The role of vocabulary development in children's spoken word recognition and segmentation ability. Developmental Review, 13, 286350.Google Scholar
White T. G., Power M. A., & White S. 1989. Morphological analysis: Implications for teaching and understanding vocabulary growth. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 283304.Google Scholar
Woodcock R., McGrew R., & Mather N. 2001. Woodcock–Johnson III Test of Achievement. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Wysocki K., & Jenkins J. R. 1987. Deriving word meanings through morphological generalization. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 6681.Google Scholar