Morphological Awareness in L2 Chinese Reading Comprehension: Testing of Mediating Routes
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zhang H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8548468 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Recent research has included multiple measures of morphological awareness to address the dimensionality of morphological construct in the context of modeling skilled reading. However, a majority of studies have an Anglocentric focus. The current study aims to extend the previous studies to logographic learners by evaluating the dimensionality of morphological awareness in higher-order reading comprehension among Chinese adolescent readers. A total of 686 early adolescent students (339 fifth-grade students and 347 sixth-grade students) participated in the study. They completed a series of morphological awareness measurements (morpheme recognition, morpheme discrimination, and compound structure awareness), vocabulary knowledge, lexical inference and reading comprehension. By testing three alternative path models, the study showed that morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge were best represented as parallel covariates in predicting Chinese reading comprehension. More important, the study highlighted the mediator of lexical inference in associating morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension among Chinese readers. Empirical findings suggest that morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge seem to be under a unitary construct in logographic reading acquisition and that word-meaning inference ability connects the path between morphological awareness and reading comprehension. These findings contribute to the complexity in the conceptualization of Chinese morphological awareness and reading instruction by examining the ways in which the morphological construct supports higher-order reading development.
| S-EPMC9612480 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists' views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.
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Project description: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.
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Project description:This project focuses on structural and prosodic effects during reading, examining their influence on agreement processing and comprehension in native English (L1) and Spanish-English bilingual (L2) speakers. We consolidate research from several distinct areas of inquiry-cognitive processing, reading fluency, and L1/L2 processing-in order to support the integration of prosody with a cue-based retrieval mechanism for subject-verb agreement. To explore this proposal, the experimental design manipulated text presentation to influence implicit prosody, using sentences designed to induce subject-verb agreement attraction errors. Materials included simple and complex relative clauses with head nouns and verbs that were either matched or mismatched for number. Participants read items in one of three presentation formats (whole sentence, word-by-word, or phrase-by-phrase), rated each item for grammaticality, and responded to a comprehension probe. Results indicated that while overall, message comprehension was prioritized over subject-verb agreement computation, presentation format differentially affected both measures in the L1 and L2 groups. For the L1 participants, facilitating the projection of phrasal prosody onto text (phrase-by-phrase presentation) enhanced performance in agreement processing, while disrupting prosodic projection via word-by-word presentation decreased comprehension accuracy. For the L2 participants, however, phrase-by-phrase presentation was not significantly beneficial for agreement processing, and additionally resulted in lower comprehension accuracy. These differences point to a significant role of prosodic phrasing during agreement processing in both L1 and L2 speakers, additionally suggesting that it may contribute to a cue-based retrieval agreement model, either acting as a cue directly, or otherwise scaffolding the retrieval process. The discussion and results presented provide support both for a cue-based retrieval mechanism in agreement, and the function of prosody within such a mechanism, adding further insight into the interaction of retrieval processes, cognitive task load, and the role of implicit prosody.
| S-EPMC5156782 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study examined how vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and orthographic knowledge are related to comprehension monitoring and whether comprehension monitoring mediates the relations between these language skills and reading comprehension. Eighty-nine Chinese children were assessed on their vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, orthographic knowledge, and comprehension monitoring in Grade 1. Their reading comprehension skills were assessed in Grade 1 and Grade 3. Results showed that in Grade 1, comprehension monitoring mediated the relations between vocabulary and syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension. For Grade 3 reading comprehension, syntactic knowledge in Grade 1 was the only significant predictor. These findings indicate that multiple language skills make direct and indirect contributions via comprehension monitoring to Chinese reading comprehension, and the relations would change as children's reading skills develop.
| S-EPMC8017195 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study examined the contribution of metalinguistic awareness including morphological awareness, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness to reading comprehension, and the role of reading fluency as a mediator of the effects of metalinguistic awareness on reading comprehension from grades 2 to 4.Four hundred and fifteen elementary students in China mainland were administered a test battery that included measures of morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographical awareness, reading fluency, reading comprehension and IQ. Hierarchical regression and structural equation models (SEM) were used to analyze the data.Morphological awareness uniquely explained 9%, 10% and 13% variance of reading comprehension respectively from grade 2 to grade 4, however, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness did not contribute to reading comprehension; Reading fluency partially mediated the effect of morphological awareness on reading comprehension in grades 2-4.These findings indicated that reading fluency and morphological awareness should be facilitated in the Chinese instruction. Morphological awareness played an important role in Chinese reading and affected reading comprehension in grades 2 to 4; Reading fluency was a significant link between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in grades 2-4.
| S-EPMC4370388 | biostudies-other
Project description:Proctored remote testing of cognitive abilities in the private homes of test-takers is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to standard psychological assessments in test centers or classrooms. Because these tests are administered under less standardized conditions, differences in computer devices or situational contexts might contribute to measurement biases that impede fair comparisons between test-takers. Because it is unclear whether cognitive remote testing might be a feasible assessment approach for young children, the present study (N = 1,590) evaluated a test of reading comprehension administered to children at the age of 8 years. To disentangle mode from setting effects, the children finished the test either in the classroom on paper or computer or remotely on tablets or laptops. Analyses of differential response functioning found notable differences between assessment conditions for selected items. However, biases in test scores were largely negligible. Only for children with below-average reading comprehension small setting effects between on-site and remote testing were observed. Moreover, response effort was higher in the three computerized test versions, among which, reading on tablets most strongly resembled the paper condition. Overall, these results suggest that, on average, even for young children remote testing introduces little measurement bias.
| S-EPMC10822056 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionA subset of autistic children excel at word decoding but have difficulty with reading comprehension (i.e., the discrepant poor comprehender reading profile). Prior research suggests the Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V) for language comprehension and thinking intervention helps improve reading comprehension in autistic children with this reading profile. Previous studies have demonstrated the role of vocabulary, memory, and social functioning in reading comprehension; however, predictors and moderators of reading comprehension within this specific profile of autistic readers have not been thoroughly explored.MethodsIn this study, we examined the effectiveness of the V/V intervention by comparing reading comprehension scores between groups and across time. Participants included a sample of autistic children (AUT-EXP; n=22) and a waitlist control group of autistic children (AUT-WLC; n=17) with reading comprehension difficulties, as well as a sample of non-autistic children (Non-AUT; n=26) (all age 8-13 years). AUT-EXP and AUT-WLC groups completed a battery of cognitive assessments during pre and post tests. We also analyzed whether cognitive assessment scores predicted reading comprehension, and examined the moderating effects of group (AUT-EXP vs. AUT-WLC) on these relationships.ResultsThe AUT-EXP group significantly improved in their pre to post reading comprehension scores (t(21)=4.19, p<.001, d=.89), whereas the AUT-WLC group did not. Verbal memory significantly predicted reading comprehension, though group did not moderate relationships between cognitive test performance and reading comprehension.DiscussionResults suggest that the V/V intervention may help improve reading comprehension for autistic children with the discrepant poor comprehender reading profile. Additionally, strategies for improving verbal memory may indirectly enhance reading comprehension in autistic children with this reading profile.
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Project description:Studies have provided evidence that morphological awareness contributes to word reading in opaque languages such as English. However, this relationship is not yet established for Brazilian Portuguese, a much less opaque language. The present study performed a longitudinal investigation of the relationship between morphological awareness and word reading in 162 children from 2nd to 5th grades of elementary school. The children were evaluated in the final quarter of the respective school year (time 1) and 1 year later (time 2). Hierarchical regression analyses controlling for intelligence, phonological awareness, and phonological working memory were conducted. The hierarchical regression analyses were followed up by cross-lagged panel correlations, and both results converged to word reading measured in the 2nd and 3rd grades contributing to morphological awareness 1 year later. In addition, morphological awareness measured in the 4th grade contributed to word reading 1 year later. The greater transparency of Brazilian Portuguese may make morphological awareness less important for word reading in the early grades; however, in older children, morphological awareness is important for word reading performance.
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Project description:In the current age, digital technology is rapidly changing daily routines, and young people today spend most of their time using various digital tools. Therefore, traditional reading of the printed page is being transformed into digital reading of online texts among students. Thus, online reading strategies have become crucial for their development in online reading performance. This study aimed to investigate the effects of online reading strategies used by lower secondary students on reading comprehension achievement. It conducted an online survey of reading strategies, involving three types of reading strategies, global, problem-solving, and support. The study recruited 4527 students at the lower secondary school level in Hungary. The study examined the students' attitudes toward literature and grammar in their native language (L1), use of online reading strategies, reading comprehension skills, and language arts achievement as well as examining the relations between them with various methods of analysis (descriptive/inferential, Rasch and path analyses). The findings demonstrated that the students' problem-solving strategies (from among the three reading strategies) exerted significant and positive impacts on reading comprehension. Additionally, the students' attitudes toward L1 had a positively significant effect on their use of online reading strategies and language arts achievement and an indirect effect on reading comprehension skills. The study also found a significant relationship between language arts achievement and reading comprehension achievement. Therefore, this study is beneficial for language teachers in helping students improve reading comprehension skills.
| S-EPMC10827785 | biostudies-literature