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The role of morphological awareness in children's vocabulary acquisition in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2005

CATHERINE McBRIDE–CHANG ,
RICHARD K. WAGNER ,
ANDREA MUSE ,
BONNIE W.-Y. CHOW  and
HUA SHU
CATHERINE McBRIDE–CHANG
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
RICHARD K. WAGNER
Affiliation:
Florida State University
ANDREA MUSE
Affiliation:
Florida State University
BONNIE W.-Y. CHOW
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
HUA SHU
Affiliation:
Beijing Normal University
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Abstract

Tasks of speeded naming, phonological awareness, word identification, nonsense word repetition, and vocabulary, along with two measures of morphological awareness (morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification), were administered to 115 kindergartners and 105 second graders. In the combined sample, 48% of the variance in vocabulary knowledge was predicted by the phonological processing and reading variables. Morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification together predicted an additional unique 10% of variance in vocabulary knowledge, for a total of 58% of the variance explained; both measures of morphological awareness were uniquely associated with vocabulary knowledge. Results underscore the potential importance of different facets of morphological awareness, as distinct from phonological processing skills, for understanding variability in early vocabulary acquisition.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 415 - 435
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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