Exploring the Relations of Morphological Awareness with Phonological Awareness and Vocabulary: The Case of the Greek Language.

Although relations between morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary have been widely observed, questions remain about their precise associations. The purpose of the present study was to explore the relations of morphological awareness with two highly related linguistic skills (phonological awareness and vocabulary) in a transparent orthography with rich morphology. The study sample consisted of 121 (58 males, Mean age = 93.94 months, SD = 3.32) 2nd grade Greek-speaking children. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three-factor model provided the best fit to the data, indicating that although morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary are highly correlated, they represent distinct linguistic constructs. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the bidirectional effects between the three linguistic skills. Results revealed that both phonological awareness and vocabulary significantly contributed to morphological awareness, with phonological awareness having a stronger effect. Conversely, morphological awareness significantly affected both phonological awareness and vocabulary. The effect size from phonological awareness and vocabulary to morphological awareness was similar to the effect size reported from morphological awareness to phonological awareness and vocabulary. These results suggest that morphological awareness is highly associated with phonological awareness and vocabulary, being though a distinct skill. In addition, it seems that these linguistic skills have bidirectional effects with each other in first grades.

The Longitudinal Contribution of Early Morphological Awareness Skills to Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Greek.

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the role of three morphological awareness (MA) skills (inflection, derivation, and compounding) in word reading fluency and reading comprehension in a relatively transparent orthography (Greek). Two hundred and fifteen (104 girls; Mage = 67.40 months, at kindergarten) Greek children were followed from kindergarten (K) to grade 2 (G2). In K and grade 1 (G1), they were tested on measures of MA (two inflectional, two derivational, and three compounding), letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and general cognitive ability (vocabulary and non-verbal IQ). At the end of G1 and G2, they were also tested on word reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that the inflectional and derivational aspects of MA in K as well as all aspects of MA in G1 accounted for 2-5% of unique variance in reading comprehension. None of the MA skills predicted word reading fluency, after controlling for the effects of vocabulary and RAN. These findings suggest that the MA skills, even when assessed as early as in kindergarten, play a significant role in reading comprehension development.