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Morphological awareness and reading in second and fifth grade: evidence from Hebrew

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Abstract

Research suggests that morphological awareness facilitates word decoding, improves lexical knowledge, and helps reading comprehension (Carlisle, 2010; Nagy et al., 2014; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011). The present study examined the relationship among morphological awareness, word recognition and reading comprehension in 153 second- and fifth-grade Hebrew speakers at an elementary school in Israel. Students were given morphological awareness tests and tests for word recognition and reading comprehension. Three types of morphological awareness were analyzed: inflection, derivation and construct formation. Overall, students with low morphological awareness in derivation and construct formation showed relatively poor achievement in word recognition and comprehension. All three types were found to correlate with reading comprehension in readers with high morphological awareness. These readers also exhibited good reading skills. The results are discussed with regard to the special characteristics of Hebrew morphology and reading process, which aid morphological decomposition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Western Galilee College, P.O. Box 2125, 24121, Acco, Israel

    Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum, Miri Sarid & Joseph Shimron

  2. The Center for The study of Society, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum

  3. Education Department, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Joseph Shimron

Authors
  1. Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum
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  2. Miri Sarid
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  3. Joseph Shimron
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Correspondence to Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum.

Additional information

The young reader of Hebrew learns to read using a writing system with vowel diacritics containing full phonological information of the spoken word; but beginning in third or fourth grade, the student makes the transition to reading a system of writing without vowel diacritics, one that represents only the consonants of the word from spoken language.

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Vaknin-Nusbaum, V., Sarid, M. & Shimron, J. Morphological awareness and reading in second and fifth grade: evidence from Hebrew. Read Writ 29, 229–244 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9587-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9587-7

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