Morphological instruction and literacy

2017 ◽  
pp. 437-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Kirby ◽  
Peter N. Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Instruction

scholarly journals Effectiveness of spelling treatment approaches for learners with dyslexia – A meta-analysis and systematic review

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Galuschka ◽  
Ruth Görgen ◽  
Julia Kalmar ◽  
Stefan Haberstroh ◽  
Xenia Schmalz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Treatment Approach ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Treatment Approaches ◽  
Spelling Performance ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Spelling Intervention ◽  
Adolescents And Adults ◽  
Sample Characteristics

This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the efficacy of spelling interventions for the remediation of dyslexia and spelling deficits. Theoretically important moderators, such as the treatment approach as well as orthographic and sample characteristics, were also considered. Thirty-four controlled trials that evaluated spelling interventions in children, adolescents and adults with dyslexia and spelling deficits were included. Results show that treatment approaches using phonics, orthographic (graphotactic or orthographic phonological spelling rules), as well as morphological instruction had a moderate to high impact on spelling performance. A significant influence of interventions that teach memorization strategies to improve spelling could not be confirmed. This work shows that understanding the principles of an orthography is beneficial for learners with dyslexia or spelling deficits and presents key components for effective spelling intervention.

scholarly journals Morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 readers: A scoping review of causal relationships

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-350
Author(s):  
Sihui (Echo) Ke ◽  
Dongbo Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Reading Development ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
The Relationship

This scoping review explores the causal relationship between morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 learners by synthesizing 12 primary studies published between 2004 and 2019 (N = 1,535). These studies focused on reading English as the target language and involved participants between kindergarten and Grade 12 from four countries (China, Egypt, Singapore, and the USA). Findings suggested that (a) morphological instruction led to consistent and positive gains in L2 children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge, and the effect sizes (Cohen’s ds) ranged from small to large; and (b) the relationship between morphological instruction and other outcomes such as phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, word reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension was inconclusive. Notably, transfer effects of L2 English morphological instruction on novel word learning in English or on reading development in an additional language were only examined and observed in four primary studies. Discussion was provided regarding future instructional and research design.

scholarly journals A promising new tool for literacy instruction: The morphological matrix

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvin Mai Rong Ng ◽  
Peter N Bowers ◽  
Jeffrey S Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
Literacy Acquisition ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Common Base ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Morphological Composition ◽  
Memory Experiment

There is growing interest in the role that morphological knowledge plays in literacy acquisition, but there is no research comparing the efficacy of different forms of morphological instruction. Here we compare two methods of teaching English morphology in the context of a memory experiment when words were organized by affix during study (e.g., a list of words was presented that all share an affix, such as "doing", "going", "talking", etc.), or by base during study (e.g., a list of words was presented that all share a base, such as "doing", "done", "redo"). We show that memory is better in both conditions compared to a control condition that does not highlight the morphological composition of words, and most importantly, show that studying words in a base-centric format improves memory further still. We argue that the morphological matrix that organizes words around a common base may provide an important new tool for literacy instruction.

scholarly journals Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) Teaches Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences More Explicitly Than Phonics Does: An open letter to Jennifer Buckingham and the reading research community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Research Community ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Strong Basis ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Phonological Learning ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
The Matrix

This “open letter” responds to a recent article by Buckingham (2020) which made the claim that the instructional approach known as “Structured Word Inquiry” (SWI) does not teach grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC). I counter this claim and provide evidence for SWI’s teaching of GPCs by citing not only the publications on SWI, including the original article introducing it in 2010, but also provide many links to publicly available illustrations of GPC instruction by teachers working with SWI. A description is provided of the qualitative differences between how GPCs are taught in SWI and phonics. Unlike phonics, SWI explicitly teaches the role of morphology and etymology for making sense of grapheme choice in our morphophonemic language and provides graphic representations of orthographic structure to support this instruction. Research evidence about the effects of morphological instruction, including its positive effects on phonological learning, provide a strong basis to motivate more explicit research attention to structured word inquiry in general and specifically as a proposal for a novel form of instruction about GPCs across a wide range of ages and abilities. The debate about whether SWI type instruction is appropriate in the earliest instruction is addressed. I highlight two tools used in SWI, the matrix and the word sum. I show why these are essential for teaching the interrelation of morphology and phonology, but have been largely ignored by the research community so far.

scholarly journals Morphological Intervention in Promoting Higher-Order Reading Abilities among College-Level Second Language Learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1465
Author(s):  
Haomin Zhang ◽  
Weicheng Zou
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Morphological Awareness ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
College Level ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Efl Students

Reading success in a second language (L2) is vital to sustainable language and academic development because reading serves as a tool to absorb and learn new knowledge. Particularly in the context of college English as a foreign language (EFL), students constantly face the challenge to read English material to develop content knowledge. The current study investigated the effect of explicit morphological instruction on L2 students’ higher-order inferencing and comprehension abilities. Sixty-two Chinese collegiate EFL students who were taking an intensive reading course (31 in the treatment class and 31 in the control class) participated in this study. The morphological intervention in the treatment class focused on identifying, decomposing, analyzing, associating, applying word parts in context. The control class received no explicit instruction in morphological awareness. After one semester of instruction, a series of morphology, inferencing and comprehension measures were administered to the participating students. The results showed that the didactic intervention of morphological awareness contributed to morphological knowledge and word-meaning inferencing ability, whereas there was no significant relationship between morphological intervention and text-based inference and comprehension abilities. The findings suggest that the intervention has a direct impact on word learning ability; however, higher-order processing skills may not directly benefit from it in a short period of time. Given that reading comprehension requires fine-tuned understandings of both local meanings and global contextual information, morphological awareness may not have an immediate effect on comprehension. Applied implications are also discussed in relation to effective morphological instruction and reading development in L2 contexts.

Developing EFL learners’ morphological awareness: Instructional effect, teachability of affixes, and learners’ perception

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-325
Author(s):  
Ming-Fang Lin
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Seventh Graders ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Instructional Effect ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Southern Taiwan

Abstract Morphological instruction has been proved to be facilitative of second language learners’ vocabulary learning. However, studies on the effect of teaching affixes on Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary learning were relatively less explored. Therefore, this study was aimed at investigating the effect of teaching six affixes on Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary learning, the teachability of affixes, and the learners’ perception toward the instruction. The participants were 40 seventh-graders from two intact classes in a junior high school in southern Taiwan. One class of 20 students served as the control group, and the other class of 20 students was assigned as the experimental group to receive the six-session training of affixes. Instruments were a morpheme identification task, a vocabulary translation test, students’ learning journals, and a questionnaire of perception toward the instruction. The results indicated the positive effect of instruction on the experimental group’s receptive learning of the affixes. In addition, the data also showed the students’ positive perception toward morphological instruction. This study concluded with theoretical implications for future studies and pedagogical implications for teaching affixes.

scholarly journals There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that systematic phonics should precede morphological instruction: Response to Rastle and colleagues

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S Bowers ◽  
Peter N Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Early Reading ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Early Reading Instruction

In a series of four articles Rastles and colleagues have argued that early reading instruction should focus on systematic phonics, with morphological instruction only introduced later. We call this the “phonology first” hypothesis. We show that their theoretical motivation for the phonology first hypothesis is flawed, and that their review of the empirical evidence is biased and incomplete. We show that theory and current data lend support to the alternative hypothesis that instruction should target both phonology and morphology from the start.

scholarly journals There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that systematic phonics should precede morphological instruction: Response to Rastle and colleagues

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S Bowers ◽  
Peter N Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Early Reading ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Morphological Instruction ◽  
Early Reading Instruction

In a series of four articles, Rastles and colleagues have argued that early reading instruction should focus on systematic phonics, with morphological instruction only introduced later. We call this the “phonology first” hypothesis. We show that their theoretical motivation for the phonology first hypothesis is flawed, and that their review of the empirical evidence is biased and incomplete. We show that theory and current data lend support to the alternative hypothesis that instruction should target both phonology and morphology from the start.

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