Abstract
The present report with three inter-related studies examined the effects of morphological complexity on reading proficiency in 103 fourth graders, 88 fifth graders and 107 sixth graders trichotomized into below average, average and above average readers. The reaction time paradigm and the developmental framework with three age groups provided more sensitive and stable results for inferring mental processes in accessing the lexicon. Study 1 on lexical decision with visually presented words and non-words with different morphemic boundaries suggests that words can be accessed in a decomposed state as morphemes by children. Study 2 and the complementary Study 3 requiring the vocalization of derived or base forms of words primed by target items in sentence frames indicate that words might be accessed in full forms. Further, the depth of derivational morphology and of base morphology with correlated phonological changes affect reading proficiency.
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Leong, C.K. The effects of morphological structure on reading proficiency—A developmental study. Read Writ 1, 357–379 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00386267
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00386267