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Morphological analysis skill and academic vocabulary knowledge are malleable through intervention and may contribute to reading comprehension for multilingual adolescents
Author(s) -
Crosson Amy C.,
McKeown Margaret G.,
Lei Puiwa,
Zhao Hui,
Li Xinyue,
Patrick Kelly,
Brown Kathleen,
Shen Yaqi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9817.12323
Subject(s) - vocabulary , reading comprehension , psychology , reading (process) , comprehension , vocabulary development , intervention (counseling) , meaning (existential) , linguistics , cognitive psychology , mathematics education , teaching method , philosophy , psychiatry , psychotherapist
Background Morphological analysis skill is the ability to problem‐solve meanings of unfamiliar words by applying knowledge of morphological constituents. For vocabulary words from the academic layer of English, the major, meaning‐carrying morphological contituents are Latin roots ( nov meaning ‘new’ in innovative ). The degree to which morphological analysis skill using Latin roots is susceptible to intervention and whether improvements relate to reading comprehension remains unclear. Methods We investigated the effects of a morphology intervention designed to promote academic vocabulary learning, morphological analysis and reading comprehension with 140 adolescent, multilingual learners in US schools (intervention n = 70; comparison n = 70). We estimated direct effects of the intervention on morphological analysis and academic vocabulary knowledge and examined whether they mediate intervention effects on reading comprehension. Academic vocabulary was measured as both definitional and multidimensional knowledge. Results We found significant, direct effects of the intervention on morphological analysis skill and academic vocabulary knowledge. Additionally, we found a significant indirect effect on reading comprehension via academic vocabulary and a marginally significant indirect effect via morphological analysis skill. Notably, the indirect effect of academic vocabulary was evident only for multidimensional, not definitional knowledge. Conclusions Findings extend current understanding about how morphology intervention promotes vocabulary and reading comprehension improvement for multilingual learners. (word count = 207)