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THE EFFECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON READING IN CHINESE AND ENGLISH
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THE EFFECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON READING IN CHINESE AND ENGLISH AMONG YOUNG CHINESE CHILDREN: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY by Katie Yan Yan Lam A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Graduate Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Katie Yan Yan Lam 2009
Transcript of THE EFFECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON READING IN CHINESE AND ENGLISH
THE EFFECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON READING IN
CHINESE AND ENGLISH AMONG YOUNG CHINESE CHILDREN:
A LONGITUDINAL STUDY
by
Katie Yan Yan Lam
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts
Graduate Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Katie Yan Yan Lam 2009
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THE EFFECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON READING IN
CHINESE AND ENGLISH AMONG YOUNG CHINESE CHILDREN:
A LONGITUDINAL STUDY
Master of Arts 2009
Katie Yan Yan Lam
Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology
University of Toronto
Abstract
This thesis comprised two longitudinal studies examining the role of morphological
awareness in Chinese and English reading among Chinese children. In Study 1,
participants were 84 kindergarten and first grade Chinese-speaking English Language
Learners (ELLs) from Canada. Children’s morphological awareness, vocabulary and
reading comprehension in English were assessed at two measurement points spaced one
year apart. Study 2 involved the Chinese-Canadian children from Study 1, and 98
kindergarteners and first graders from China. Their morphological awareness,
vocabulary and reading comprehension in Chinese were measured at the beginning of
two successive academic years.
Study 1 showed that for the ELLs, morphological awareness explained increasingly large
proportions of variance in English vocabulary and reading comprehension with age. In
Study 2, compound awareness significantly predicted Chinese vocabulary for children
from both countries. Taken together, the two studies substantiated that morphological
awareness contributes to reading in Chinese and English across different language-
learning contexts.
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Acknowledgements
There are many people towards whom I would like to express my gratitude for
their contribution towards the completion of this thesis. First of all, I would like to
express my sincere appreciation to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Xi Chen, for her guidance
and encouragement in every step of the way, and for her thoughtful comments and
constructive suggestions. I would also like to thank my committee member, Dr. Esther
Geva, for sharing her expertise in the field and giving many invaluable insights. The
completion of this thesis would not be possible without the work of all the project
members, who had spent many hours collecting data in China and in Canada. Thanks
also go to my fellow graduate students in the lab: Cathy, Gloria, and Heidi, for their
constant support as researchers and as friends.
Special gratitude is given to my mom, for her continuous and unconditional love,
patience, and support, and for always believing in me. My appreciation also goes to my
family at Redeemer, who have been my most enthusiastic cheerleaders from the very
beginning. To Ka Ho, thank you for all your prayers for me and your affirmation of who
I am as our Lord has made me.
Finally, I give thanks to my gracious Father above, who has blessed me with
everyone that I have mentioned and many more, who has been my Strength and my
Courage, my Wisdom and my Guide, my Shield and my Fortress. Unto You all praise
and glory shall be given.
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Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………….……………..
Acknowledgements………....……………………………………….………………
Table of Contents…………………………………………………….……………...
List of Tables………………………………………………………………………..
List of Figures……………………………………………….…………………........
List of Appendices………………………………………………….……………….
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Chapter 1 Introduction
Overview……………………………………………………………………...
Rationale of the Research……………………………………………………..
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
Development of Morphological Awareness
Development of Morphological Awareness in English ….…………….
Development of Morphological Awareness in Chinese ...……………..
Morphological Awareness and Reading in English
Morphological Awareness and Learning to Read English as a First
Language…………………………………………………………….
Morphological Awareness and Literacy Skills in English Language
Learners....………………………………..……………………….....
Morphological Awareness and Reading in Chinese………………………….
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Chapter 3 Learning to Read Chinese in Mainland China and in Canada
Amount of Exposure to the Chinese Language……………………………….
Formal Chinese Learning Systems……………………………………………
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Chapter 4 The Present Research
Statement of the Problem.…………………………………………………….
The Present Research..………………………………………………………..
Research Questions….………………………………………………………...
Hypotheses of the Studies.…………………………………………………….
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Chapter 5 Study 1
Method………………………………………………………………………..
Results ………………………………………………………………………..
Discussion...…………………………………………………………………..
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Chapter 6 Study 2
Method………………………………………………………………………..
Results ………………………………………………………………………..
Discussion...………………………………………………...…………….…..
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Chapter 7 Conclusion
General Discussion………………………………………………………...….
Limitations and Future Directions…………………………………………….
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References…………………………………………………………………………... 112
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List of Tables
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Measures for Children in Canada ……………….. 32
Table 2 Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Younger
Cohort ……………………………………………………………………
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Table 3 Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Older
Cohort ……………………………………………………………………
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Table 4 Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent English Receptive
Vocabulary ………………………………………………………………
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Table 5 Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Time 2 English
Receptive Vocabulary …………………………………………………...
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Table 6 Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent English Reading
Comprehension ………………………………………………………......
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Table 7 Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Time 2 English
Reading Comprehension .………………………………………………..
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Table 8 Descriptive Statistics of Measures for Children in China and Canada …..... 69
Table 9 Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Children in
Canada …………………………………………………………………...
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Table 10 Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Children in
China …………………..………………………………………………...
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Table 11 Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent Chinese
Vocabulary ………………………………..……………………………..
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Table 12 Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent Chinese Receptive
Vocabulary for the Younger Cohort at Time 1 ………………………….
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Table 13 Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Time 2 Chinese
Expressive Vocabulary…………………………………………………...
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Table 14 Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Concurrent Chinese Reading
Comprehension for Children in China at Time 2 ……………………......
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Table 15 Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Time 2 Chinese
Reading Comprehension for Children in China …………………………
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List of Figures
Figure 1 Children’s performance on the morphological production task at Time 1
and Time 2 .……………….……………………………………………...
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Figure 2 Children’s performance on the morphological analogy task at Time 1 and
Time 2 .…………………….……………………………………………..
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Figure 3 Children’s performance on the compound structure task at Time 1 and
Time 2 …………………………………………………………………....
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Figure 4 Children’s performance on the compound analogy task at Time 1 and
Time 2 …………..………………………………………………………..
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List of Appendices
Appendix A Morphological Production Task (English).………………………… 99
Appendix B Morphological Analogy Task (English)..………………………….… 100
Appendix C Compound Structure Task (Chinese).………………………………. 102
Appendix D Compound Analogy Task (Chinese) ………………………………. 103
Appendix E Chinese Receptive Vocabulary (Sample Items) …………………… 105
Appendix F Chinese Picture Naming (Sample Items) …………………………... 107
Appendix G Chinese Reading Comprehension (Sample Items) ………………… 108
Appendix H Syllable and Phoneme Deletion Task (Chinese)…………………… 110
Appendix I Chinese Character Reading ………………………………………… 111
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Chapter 1 Introduction
Overview
Studies on the relations between different facets of metalinguistic awareness and
learning to read have mostly focused on phonological awareness. An aspect of
metalinguistic awareness that has received less attention in research is morphological
awareness, especially pertaining to its contribution to reading among children who are
learning two languages simultaneously. The intent of the present study was to examine
the effects of morphological awareness on vocabulary and reading comprehension among
young Chinese-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) who received concurrent
instructions in Chinese and English within a bilingual context, in comparison to those
who were monolingual speakers of these languages.
This thesis consists seven chapters. In chapter 1, the rationale of the current work
is laid out. Existing research relevant to the present research is reviewed in chapter 2.
Chapter 3 discusses the differences between Canada and China with respect to the
educational context for learning Chinese. Chapter 4 provides an overview of the two
studies comprising this thesis and outlines the specific research questions asked. The two
studies are then reported in chapters 5 and 6, respectively. Finally, chapter 7 presents a
general discussion of the two studies and directions for future research.
Rationale of the Research
Practical and theoretical reasons underpin the undertaking of the present research.
In the recent decades, international immigration has led to a surge in the number of
children of Chinese descent being educated in English-dominant countries. In Canada,
China has been the leading country of birth among the incoming immigrants since 1998.
On average, 33,500 people have emigrated from China to Canada each year between
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1998 and 2007, constituting approximately 10-15% of all immigrants to Canada
(Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2007). Most children from these immigrant
families are faced with a challenging task upon entering school in Canada: to achieve
academically in a language that they have yet acquired from home (i.e., English). In
particular, given that learning to read is critical to academic success, these children are
demanded to attain reading proficiency in their second language (L2) rapidly. At the
same time, a majority of the parents from these families support their children in
maintaining literacy skills in Chinese to enable effective communication with the
Chinese community and to develop cultural identity (Lao, 2004). Given these academic
and social benefits, identifying powerful underlying component skills that can influence
Chinese-Canadian children’s L1 and L2 literacy development is both timely and
important.
From a theoretical standpoint, research examining children who are learning to
read in a second language or in bilingual contexts are valuable in furthering our
understanding on reading skills development and its relation to cognitive processes that
underlie reading. Linguistic contexts change when learning a language as a second
language, or when learning a language within a bilingual environment; for example,
children learning two languages simultaneously may have relatively less exposure to
each language, in comparison to monolingual speakers of these languages. As a result,
children in different linguistic contexts may follow different developmental trajectories
(Bialystok, 1996). Therefore, to the extent that research conducted with monolingual
speakers has identified specific underlying processes that are associated with reading
development, it remains unclear whether these results are generalizable to children who
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speak more than one language. Research involving children from L2 and bilingual
contexts can thus shed light on the relations between underlying processes and reading in
specific languages across different linguistic contexts.
The particular aspect of metalinguistic awareness that we were interested in
examining was morphological awareness. In research exploring the various cognitive
skills that have been proposed to underlie reading, considerable attention has been
devoted towards understanding children’s development of phonological awareness (i.e.,
the awareness of units of sound) and its effects on children’s literacy outcomes. Such
emphasis in research is reasonable given reading involves mapping one’s spoken
language onto a writing system (Carlisle, 2003). Indeed, it has been shown that
phonological awareness not only plays a key role in the learning of alphabetic languages
such as English (e.g., Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987), but also in
the learning of non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese (e.g., Ho & Bryant, 1997; Li,
Anderson, Nagy, & Zhang, 2002). However, comprehension of printed text also requires
the child to map phonological forms onto semantic information. Not surprisingly then,
over the recent decade, there has been a growing interest to examine children’s
development of morphological awareness (Kuo & Anderson, 2006).
Some characteristics of the English orthography are believed to make
morphological awareness a crucial skill for children’s reading development. English
orthography is morphophonemic, i.e., the spelling system represents both phonemes and
morphemes (Carlisle, 2003). More critically however, is that there exists a difference in
the extent to which phonemes and morphemes can facilitate reading in English.
Specifically, English orthography is considered to be a “deep” orthography, wherein
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grapheme-phoneme correspondences are often equivocal because spelling rules are not
directly governed by the phonological syllable structure on a consistent basis. As a result,
English readers cannot rely solely on phonology in word recognition (Durgunoǧlu &
Öney, 1999; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2003). In contrast, English orthography generally
preserves the identity of morphemes even in the face of semantic and phonetic variation
(Mattingly, 1984). Therefore, morphological awareness can influence significantly a
child’s English reading acquisition beyond that of phonological awareness by allowing
the child to appreciate the semantic relations between words despite their phonological
distinction, e.g., electric/electricity, sign/signature, or heal/health (Carlisle, 1995; Elbro
& Arnbak, 1996; Fowler & Liberman, 1995; Kuo & Anderson, 2006; Verhoeven &
Perfetti, 2003).
Researchers have also proposed that morphological awareness may be
particularly important for learning to read Chinese because of its unique morphological
features (Packard, 2000). First, Chinese is often regarded as a “morphographic
language”, where the graphemes represent syllables that are morphemes rather than
phonemes. Learning to read Chinese then, entails the acquisition of grapheme-
morpheme correspondences (Wang, Cheng, & Chen, 2006). This clear grapheme-
morpheme association may encourage children to focus on the meanings (as opposed to
the sounds) of the language (McBride-Chang, 2004). Another important feature of
Chinese is that it has a large number of homophones. For example, in Mandarin, there
are approximately 7,000 regularly used words but only about 1,200 spoken syllables.
This leads to an average of more than five words per syllable (Li et al., 2002).
Consequently, the ability to distinguish words with identical pronunciation but different
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meaning is vital for children’s acquisition of the language. Finally, Chinese is an
analytic and relatively semantically transparent language, in that most of the more
complicated vocabulary concepts are built by combining single morphemes to form
compounds, where the meaning of each constituent morpheme contributes directly to the
meaning of the compound. For instance, whereas in English different countries are
referred to in different ways (e.g., France, Thailand, Germany), in Chinese, a large
number of these labels would contain the morpheme 国 /guo2/ (country), thus forming
compounds such as 法国 /fa3 guo2/ (France), 泰国 /tai4 guo2/ (Thailand), and 德国
/de2 guo2/ (Germany). The appreciation of morphology can therefore aid children in
deciphering and acquiring the meanings of the polymorphemic vocabularies.
Psycholinguistic studies involving high school students and adult skilled readers
also support a relation between morphological awareness and reading development in
both English and Chinese. Studies in native English speakers have consistently shown
that mature mental lexicons are morphologically organized (e.g., Nagy, Anderson,
Schommer, Scott, & Stallman, 1989; Napps, 1989; Niswander, Pollatsek, & Rayner,
2000; Sandra, 1994; Tyler & Nagy, 1990). That is, unlike novice readers who represent
morphologically complex words as unanalyzed full forms, experienced readers
decompose these words into their constituent morphemes prior to processing and storage
(Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler & Older, 1994). In research involving speakers of
Chinese, similar results in support of a morpheme-based mental lexicon have also been
obtained (e.g., Zhang & Peng, 1992; Zhou & Marslen-Wilson, 1994; 1995). Thus, for
both languages, children’s emerging morphological awareness may function as a
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mechanism to facilitate efficient word storage, retrieval and processing, all of which
support advancements in reading abilities.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
In this chapter, the development of morphological awareness in the two languages
is first discussed. Research examining the influence of morphological awareness on
reading among monolingual English speakers as well as ELLs is then reviewed. Finally,
literature on morphological awareness and reading in Chinese is considered.
Development of Morphological Awareness
Development of Morphological Awareness in English
Studies on children’s acquisition of morphology and morphological awareness in
English have focused on the acquisition of three types of linguistically complex words:
inflections, derivatives, and compounds (Kuo & Anderson, 2006). Children experience
substantial growth in their awareness of these three types of morphology beginning at a
very young age. A number of studies have reported that children demonstrate incipient
understanding of inflectional morphemes by age 2, and acquire most of the regular
inflectional principles by the early elementary grades (e.g., Akhtar & Tomasello, 1997;
Anisfeld & Tucker, 1968; Berko, 1958; Carlisle, 1995; Derwing & Baker, 1977). In
comparison to inflectional morphemes, the developmental trajectory of derivational
morphemes begins later in childhood and extends over a longer period of time, possibly
into adulthood (Derwing & Baker, 1979, 1986; Windsor, 1994). There is some evidence
suggesting that 3- to 5-year-old children are proficient in generating words with highly
productive derivational suffixes (the agentive –er and the instrumental –er) (Clark &
Hecht, 1982). Carlisle and her colleagues (Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Carlisle &
Nomanbhoy, 1993) showed that first graders’ awareness of the morphological structure
of derivations is largely limited to phonetically transparent and common forms (e.g.,
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quiet quietly, still stillness). However, by grade 3, monolingual children are adept
in decomposing derived words that are less transparent or that contain less familiar
suffixes (e.g., long length, tree treelet). Tyler and Nagy (1989) found that grade 4,
6, and 8 students are aware of the morphological relations between two words (i.e.,
relational knowledge). However, knowledge that derivational suffixes usually mark
words for parts of speech (i.e., syntactic knowledge) and the realization that derivational
affixes are generally constrained to specific stems to which they attach (i.e.,
distributional knowledge) are not fully mastered even by grade 8.
Relatively few studies have examined children’s acquisition of compounds. By
asking children to produce labels for novel objects (e.g., balloon-tree), Clark and her
colleagues (Clark, 1981; Clark, Gelman & Lane, 1985) found that children understand
the modifier-head relation in compounds by 2 years of age. Nonetheless, until they are in
grade 4, children may not be able to explicitly explain that meanings of compound words
predicate upon the meanings of the more basic words that had formed the compounds
(Silvestri & Silvestri, 1977). In a recent study, using recognition, interpretation and
discrimination tasks, Ku and Anderson (2003) observed a steady increase in the
compound knowledge of second, fourth, and sixth graders as a function of age. Taken
together, the existing evidence suggests that English-speaking monolingual children’s
implicit knowledge of the compound structure emerges during preschool and gradually
becomes more explicit over the elementary years.
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Development of Morphological Awareness in Chinese
The three types of morphologically complex words in English (i.e., inflections,
compounds, and derivatives) are similarly found in Chinese (Packard, 2000). However,
the two languages diverge in terms of the prominence of each type of morphological
structure. In Chinese, lexical compounding is the primary method of word formation; it
is estimated that over 75% of the words used in Modern Chinese are two- or three-
morpheme compounds (Sun, Sun, Huang, Li & Xing, 1996). In contrast, there are far
fewer inflectional and derivational affixes. Research on the acquisition of the three types
of morphology in Chinese corresponds to the differences in their prevalence. To date,
very little research has been conducted examining the acquisition of inflectional
morphology in Chinese. Chang (1992) has reported that the acquisition of the aspect
marker 了/-le/ develops over a long period, partly because of its multiple semantic
functions. Other than Chang’s study, little is currently known about the mastery of other
common Chinese inflectional morphemes such as 着 /-zhe/ (the progressive marker) and
过 /-guo4/ (the marker of past experience), and the extent to which children can
manipulate these morphemes (Kuo & Anderson, 2006).
The majority of morphological awareness research in Chinese children has
focused on tracking the development in their understanding of the meanings and
structures of compounds as a combination of constituent morphemes (e.g., Chen, Hao,
Geva, Zhu, & Shu, 2009; Chow & Chow, 2005; Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li et al., 2002;
McBride-Chang, Shu, Zhou, Wat, & Wagner, 2003; McBride-Chang et al., 2008; Wang,
2000). Across several studies, it has been consistently shown that by age 5, Chinese
children are able to use the compounding rules in Chinese to form new compound words,
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which indicates that they already have some insights into both the compound structure
and the meanings of the constituent morphemes at this time. Notably, performance on
this compound-construction task improves between kindergarten and grade 2 (Chen et al.,
2009; Chow & Chow, 2005; McBride-Chang et al., 2003; 2008). Between grades 1 and
2, studies have also found significant increases in children’s abilities to select and use
appropriate morphemes for specific word contexts (Chen et al., 2009; Wang, 2000). In a
study involving children in grade 2, 4, and 6, Ku and Anderson (2003) reported that
middle and upper elementary school children become progressively more proficient at
interpreting low-frequency compounds composed of high-frequency base words, and at
distinguishing between well- and ill-formed compounds. Taken together, these studies
have shown that compound awareness is acquired by Chinese children quite early on, and
develops continuously in the elementary school years.
Only one study has been completed so far to examine Chinese children’s
development of derivational awareness as an independent construct. Ku and Anderson
(2003) tested second, fourth, and sixth graders in their abilities to select the best
interpretation of low-frequency derivatives composed of high-frequency base words, and
to distinguish between well- and ill-formed derivatives. They found that children’s
performance on both of these tasks improved with age. While these results suggest that
Chinese children’s derivational awareness increases during the elementary school years,
it is clear that much more research is necessary to delineate the developmental trajectory
of derivational awareness in Chinese children.
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Morphological Awareness and Reading in English
Morphological Awareness and Learning to Read English as a First Language
School-age children may encounter up to 3,000 unfamiliar words each year when
reading in English, with an increasing proportion of the words being comprised of more
than one morpheme as children advance in age (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). More
remarkably, Anglin (1993) estimated that while knowledge of root words doubled, there
was almost a ten-fold increase in the number of multimorphemic words that children
know from grade 1 to grade 5. Given the proliferation of morphologically complex
vocabulary that children are exposed to and are learning over the elementary school years,
some researchers have postulated and provided evidence to suggest that morphological
analysis – the ability to decompose morphologically complex words into their constituent
morphemes and to derive meanings of the whole words from these morphemes – is a
critical underlying mechanism that facilitates vocabulary learning. For instance, by
analyzing children’s definitions of multimorphemic words, Anglin (1993) reported the
percentage of words known by school-age children for which there was evidence of
morphological analysis significantly increased from 40% in grade 1 to 51% in grade 5.
Freyd and Baron (1982) compared grade 5 high academic ability students (who were
assumed to be faster vocabulary learners) and grade 8 average students. They concluded
that the younger, grade 5 students who were able to analyze derived words into
morphemes and utilized derivational rules when learning words acquired new vocabulary
more quickly than the grade 8 students. In all, children with more developed
morphological awareness appear to have an advantage in acquiring and retaining
morphologically complex words.
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Recent correlational research confirmed that awareness of the structures and
meanings of morphologically complex words accounts for an increasing proportion of
variance in predicting children’s vocabulary knowledge from kindergarten till grade 5
(e.g., Carlisle, 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; McBride-Chang, Wagner, Muse, Chow,
& Shu, 2005a). In a longitudinal study, Carlisle and Fleming (2003) measured grade 3
children’s morphological awareness by asking them to distinguish two-morpheme from
one-morpheme words (e.g., hilly vs. silly), and to define multimorphemic words
(inflections, derivations and compounds). Children’s performance on the morphological
awareness tasks in grade 3 predicted scores on a vocabulary test two years later.
McBride-Chang and her colleagues (2005a) assessed children’s abilities to distinguish
the different meanings of homophones and to produce multimorphemic words for novel
objects or concepts. They found that performance on these morphological awareness
measures explained a unique proportion of variance in kindergarten and grade 2 students’
expressive vocabulary, above and beyond other reading related skills. Overall, results
from these studies underscore the distinct role of morphological awareness in facilitating
children’s vocabulary gains over the elementary years. On the other hand, the unique
contribution of inflectional, derivational and compound awareness on reading acquisition
has never been addressed directly. Given that different types of morphological
awareness skills have differential effects on literacy development (Kuo & Anderson,
2006; McBride-Chang et al., 2005a), discriminating between the effects of these three
types of morphological awareness on vocabulary acquisition is the next important step in
morphology research.
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Another prominent aspect of literacy development that has been associated with
morphological awareness is reading comprehension. A series of studies conducted by
Carlisle and her colleague (Carlisle 1995; Carlisle, 2000; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003)
involving young native English speakers between kindergarten and grade 5 indicated that
children’s emerging morphological analysis skills play a significant role in their
development of reading comprehension skills. These relations are evident in children as
young as 6 years of age, and become more robust with time. In two of their studies
(Carlisle, 1995; Carlisle & Fleming, 2003), it was demonstrated that children’s
performance on morphological awareness tasks in the early elementary years
significantly predicted reading comprehension in the two years ensuing, with the
relationships being notably stronger in the older age groups. Likewise, Deacon and
Kirby (2004) reported that children’s morphological awareness in grade 2 predicted
increasingly greater proportions of variance in reading comprehension in each of the
subsequent three grades (i.e., grades 3, 4, and 5). Most importantly, this study is one of
the first to demonstrate that the relations between morphological awareness and reading
comprehension remain robust after accounting for the contributions of verbal and
nonverbal reasoning abilities, as well as phonological awareness.
Some research has shown that there is a direct relationship between
morphological awareness and reading comprehension, beyond the mediating effect of
vocabulary. Ku and Anderson (2003) found that, after removing variances attributable to
children’s vocabulary, morphological awareness still made a significant contribution to
reading comprehension in grade 2, 4, and 6 children. However, the effects of
phonological awareness were not taken into consideration in that study. Nagy and his
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colleagues (2006) explored various pathways by which morphological awareness,
phonological memory and phonological decoding contribute to reading vocabulary and
reading comprehension in students between grades 4 and 9. In that study, morphological
awareness predicted a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension over and
above vocabulary and other reading-related factors at all grade levels. Together, the two
studies provide substantial support that morphological awareness is associated with
comprehension not only through its contribution to vocabulary growth.
Morphological Awareness and Literacy Skills in English Language Learners
To date, few studies (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Siegel, 2008; Wang, Cheng, &
Chen, 2006) have examined the relation between morphological awareness and reading
comprehension in ELL children from diverse linguistic backgrounds. In their two-year
longitudinal study of grade 4 Spanish-speaking ELL students, Kieffer and Lesaux (2008)
found that the magnitude of the relation between derivational morphological awareness
and reading comprehension increased over the two years. Performance on the
morphological awareness tasks in grade 4 also predicted reading comprehension scores
in grade 5; however, this relationship was no longer significant after taking into account
other reading skills measured in grade 4. Wang and her colleagues (2006) focused on
grade 1 to grade 5 ELL students of Chinese descent. After taking age, oral vocabulary,
and phonological awareness into consideration, these children’s awareness of compounds
(but not derivations) concurrently predicted unique variances in reading comprehension.
Siegel (2008) examined the relation between sensitivity to derivational morphemes and
reading amongst grade 6 ELL children of diverse linguistic backgrounds and their
English monolingual counterparts. Morphological awareness predicted significantly
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variances in reading comprehension over and above the contribution of phonological
awareness and, in a separate analysis, of syntactic awareness. However, analyses were
not conducted separately for the two language groups (ELLs vs. English monolinguals)
to compare the relative strength of the effects of morphological awareness on reading
comprehension between the two groups.
Taken together, there is some preliminary evidence that, similar to native
English-speaking children, different aspects of English morphological awareness can
predict concurrent reading comprehension in ELL children in the elementary school
years, independent of their associations with vocabulary and with phonological
awareness. Nonetheless, research to date is limited in its consideration of the various
aspects of morphological awareness. Two of the studies (i.e., Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008;
Siegel, 2008) focused exclusively on derivational morphology. In the study in which
both compound and derivational morphology were explored (i.e., Wang et al., 2006),
analyses were conducted with children spanning five grades, who would have
considerable variances in their morphological awareness. Another issue is that the
linkage between morphological awareness and vocabulary has only been assessed
indirectly as a covariate in studies that focused on reading comprehension development.
The extent to which morphological awareness contributes to vocabulary acquisition in
comparison to other reading-related skills such as phonological awareness has not been
systematically explored in ELL children. Clearly, more research involving ELLs is
required that examines various components of morphological awareness and literacy
skills.
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Morphological Awareness and Reading in Chinese
Although many scholars have suggested that morphological awareness and
morphological analysis plays an important role in Chinese reading (e.g., Hoosain, 1992;
Nagy & Anderson, 1998; Shu, Anderson, & Zhang, 1995), systematic investigations of
the impact of Chinese children’s emerging morphological awareness on their reading
have only begun recently. In particular, given lexical compounding is the most common
word formation process in Chinese, research examining the relations between
morphological awareness and reading outcomes in Chinese children has mainly focused
on their awareness of the morphology of compounds.
Because Chinese morphemes are combined in predictable ways to form
compounds words, children’s abilities to reflect on and to manipulate compound
structures as well as the constituent morphemes of words are believed to serve as a
guiding principle for comprehending and producing vocabularies in Chinese (Chen et al.,
2009; McBride-Chang et al., 2007, 2008). Several correlational studies conducted
among kindergarten and elementary school children have demonstrated that children’s
compound awareness is significantly associated with their vocabulary knowledge in
Chinese (Chen et al., 2009; Chung & Hu, 2007; Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li et al., 2002;
McBride-Chang et al., 2005b, 2006, 2008; Wang, 2000). McBride-Chang, Cheung,
Chow, Chow, & Choi (2006) reported that measures of receptive and expressive
compound awareness jointly accounted for unique variance in Cantonese-speaking
kindergartner’s receptive vocabulary knowledge, after controlling for phonological
awareness, reading skill, and general reasoning abilities. Similarly, among grade 1 and 2
Mandarin-speaking children, Chen et al. (2009) found that the students’ ability to
17
understand the structure and meaning of a compound word as a combination of two or
more constituent morphemes significantly explained unique variance in their expressive
vocabulary, above and beyond the effects of several reading related skills. A possible
causal link between morphological awareness and vocabulary development is
substantiated in a recent longitudinal study involving kindergarten children from Hong
Kong and Beijing (McBride-Chang et al., 2008). In that study, McBride-Chang et al.
(2008) found that kindergarten children’s ability to produce novel compound words
using familiar morphemes predicted unique variance (2% in the Hong Kong sample and
4% in the Beijing sample) in their vocabulary knowledge one year later. Importantly,
these predictions remained significant after controlling for children’s individual
differences in nonverbal reasoning, phonological processing skills, morphological
awareness, and vocabulary (the autoregressor) measured at the first testing phase.
McBride-Chang et al.’s study is the first to show that morphological awareness impacts
vocabulary development across time in Chinese children. More longitudinal studies with
converging results will be critical in providing further support for a causal link between
morphological awareness and vocabulary acquisition.
In addition to its influence on vocabulary development, morphological awareness
has been conjectured to facilitate reading comprehension in Chinese children. When
children encounter novel characters in reading, their knowledge of the surrounding
morphemes and their understanding of the morphemic structures may aid them in
deriving approximate meanings for the unfamiliar characters and the overall text (Shu,
McBride-Chang, Wu, & Liu, 2006). A handful of studies have preliminarily
demonstrated that morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension among
18
Chinese children (Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li et al., 2002; McBride-Chang et al., 2007;
Shu et al., 2006; Wang, 2000). For instance, Wang (2000) found that morphological
awareness predicted unique variance in reading comprehension among first and second
graders, after controlling for the effects of phonological awareness. Likewise, when
several reading related skills have been taken into consideration, McBride-Chang et al.
(2007) found that morphological awareness was able to explain unique variance in grade
3 children’s reading comprehension. However, the effects of morphological awareness
were no longer significant once character recognition was included as a control variable.
The strongest evidence underscoring the importance of morphological awareness in
Chinese reading comprehension comes from Shu et al.’s (2006) study. Using path
analyses, Shu et al. compared the contribution of several reading related skills to literacy
outcomes among fifth and sixth grade students. They reported that performance on a
morphological production task was the strongest cognitive correlate of reading
comprehension, even after taking into account the effects of vocabulary. In sum, these
studies have provided some evidence supporting the facilitative role of morphological
awareness in school-age children’s reading comprehension. However, most of these
studies were conducted with children who would have had at least two years of literacy
experience; the influence of morphological awareness on comprehension in beginners
has scarcely been explored. In the lone study involving first and second graders (i.e.,
Wang, 2000), the only control variable considered was phonological awareness. While
phonological awareness is considered to be one of the most foundational skills for early
readers (McBride-Chang et al., 2008), other reading related skills such as rapid
automatized naming, should also be taken into account when determining the unique
19
effects of morphological awareness on reading. Finally, as none of the previous studies
were conducted longitudinally, the extent to which morphological awareness impacts
children’s development in reading comprehension over time remains unclear.
20
Chapter 3 Learning to Read Chinese in Mainland China and in Canada
Given the environment for learning Chinese in China and in Canada may be less
familiar to many readers, this chapter explores the differences with respect to the cultural
and linguistic contexts of learning to read Chinese in China and Canada in order to
provide contextual information for Study 2. There are two major differences between the
cultural and linguistic contexts of learning to read Chinese in Mainland China and in
Canada: the amount of exposure to the Chinese language and formal Chinese learning
systems.
Amount of Exposure to the Chinese Language
Although there are many different dialects throughout Mainland China, Mandarin
Chinese (Putonghua) is the only official oral language in Mainland China. The official
orthography consists of simplified Chinese characters. Mandarin Chinese and simplified
Chinese characters are used in the majority of official publications, school materials, and
the media. Meanwhile, foreign language learning is usually very limited inside and
outside of schools. Therefore, China can be considered a predominantly monolingual
learning environment in which children receive a large amount of exposure and
instruction in both oral Chinese and Chinese orthography on a daily basis.
By contrast, Chinese people immigrated to Canada usually live in a bilingual
environment where Chinese is spoken at home, and English or French is used in most
other occasions (e.g., daycare, school). Not surprisingly then, children from these
immigrant families generally spend less time reading and writing Chinese compared to
their counterparts in Mainland China. For instance, data collected from the home literacy
practices questionnaire in the current study indicated that, whereas Chinese children in
21
Canada on average read in Chinese for less than 2 hours per week, a majority of their
counterparts in China spend at least 2 to 5 hours per week reading in Chinese. On
average, children in Canada spend less than 2 hours per week watching Chinese TV
programs; in contrast, most children in China watch Chinese TV for 1 to 2 hours every
day. At the same time, children in Canada on average spend 2 to 5 hours per week
reading in English and almost 1 to 2 hours a day watching TV in English. Very few
children in China reported to engage in these activities on a regular basis. Clearly,
children of Chinese origin in Canada are immersed in an environment that is much more
bilingual than the one experienced by their counterparts in China.
Formal Chinese Learning Systems
In terms of formal Chinese instruction, children in China learn to read Chinese in
a vastly different setting compared to those in Canada, mainly due to the differential
status that Chinese language learning receives in each educational system. In Mainland
China, Mandarin Chinese is systematically taught to children in all elementary grades.
All schools follow the National Curriculum Guide and more than 70% of the schools use
national textbooks series. Preschool literacy curricula focuses on preparing children for
formal Chinese instruction in elementary schools through promoting children’s interest in
Chinese orthography and equipping children with basic reading and writing skills
(Government of the People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Education, 2001).
Beginning in grade 1, children receive explicit instruction in Chinese characters and
Pinyin, a phonological system representing the pronunciations of Chinese orthography.
The meanings and the order of strokes of Chinese characters are introduced and learned
through mass practice. The objective of Pinyin learning for first and second graders is to
22
enable them to sound out a syllable according to its onset, rime, and tone. It is also
expected that by the end of the second grade, children will be able to recognize and write
about 1,250 familiar characters in Chinese (People’s Education Press, 2008).
In Canada, many Chinese children gradually lose their Chinese when they start
attending daycares or public schools because they use progressively more the primary
language of instruction (i.e., English or French) in their academic learning and in
interacting with their peers, while spending less time speaking and writing Chinese
(Feuerverger, 1997). In order to maintain their heritage language, in addition to speaking
Chinese at home, some Chinese parents send their children to Chinese heritage language
classes or English-Chinese bilingual programs. In Ontario, programs for preschool
children are typically incorporated into private daycare programs sponsored by
individuals or organizations in the Chinese community. School-age children generally
receive Chinese instruction for 2.5 hours each week in the International Language
Program, implemented and financially supported by the government of Ontario since
1977. Alternatively, they can attend private Chinese heritage language classes organized
by agencies within the Chinese community. However, to the extent that these language
classes are available, it is important to note that participation in the programs is entirely
voluntary. Moreover, there is currently no standard curriculum to guide Chinese
language teaching and learning in Canada. As a result, pedagogical approaches in
instructing Chinese may vary from teacher to teacher depending on the instructional
goals. These contextual differences may lead to divergences in the Chinese learning
processes in China and in Canada. Children from the two countries may develop diverse
learning strategies; they may also be at different stages of the learning processes.
23
Chapter 4 The Present Research
This chapter commences with a brief summary of the current state in
morphological awareness research, followed by a description of the two studies included
in the present research. The specific research questions of this thesis are then introduced.
Lastly, the hypotheses of the two studies are stated.
Statement of the Problem
As reviewed in chapter 2, recent research has supported the central role that
morphological awareness plays in reading among monolingual speakers of English and
of Chinese. To date however, limited research has been conducted to examine the
influence of morphological awareness on reading in children who are learning to read
Chinese and English simultaneously, especially those who are at the initial stages of
reading acquisition. It therefore remains unclear whether the associations between
morphological awareness and reading in Chinese and English established previously
among monolingual speakers can be generalized to beginner readers from bilingual
contexts. By examining young Chinese-speaking ELL children in Canada, the present
research seeks to extend the current understanding of the associations between
morphological awareness and reading among monolingual speakers of Chinese and
English to children who are learning the two languages simultaneously. Findings from
this research will help determine whether the relations between morphological awareness
and reading are fundamentally related within Chinese and English, independent of
children’s linguistic contexts. This can enhance our theoretical conceptualization
regarding the contribution of morphological awareness on children’s reading skills
development across different language-learning environments.
24
The Present Research
The present research builds upon the theoretical frameworks established from
previous research conducted among monolingual Chinese- and English-speaking children,
and explored the effects of morphological awareness on young Chinese-speaking ELL
children’s reading development in Chinese and English over time.
In Study 1, we were primarily interested in determining whether and to what
extent morphological awareness for compound and derivations in English contribute to
Chinese-speaking ELL children’s development of English vocabulary knowledge as well
as reading comprehension, as demonstrated previously in monolingual English speakers.
In particular, we aimed to establish the unique contribution of morphological awareness
to these two reading skills beyond the effects of other cognitive processes that have been
demonstrated previously to underlie reading, e.g., phonological awareness and general
nonverbal reasoning abilities. To better delineate the developmental trajectory of the
linguistic skills and to elucidate the directionality of the relations within each age group,
we followed the children’s language development by measuring their morphological
awareness and reading abilities in English over one year.
The main objective of Study 2 was to compare the contributions of morphological
awareness to reading among children who were learning Chinese within a monolingual
(i.e., China) and a bilingual (i.e., Canada) context. These relations were considered while
taking into account the effects of several other underlying processing skills important for
reading. We included a group of monolingual Chinese children from China as our
comparison group because, to our knowledge, few studies have examined the
associations between morphological awareness and reading among monolingual Chinese
25
children who were as young as those considered in the current study, while controlling
for other reading related factors. Similar to Study 1, to follow the developmental growth
of the linguistic skills and to establish the directionality of the associations between
morphological awareness and the two reading skills, we tracked children’s language
development in Chinese over one year.
In both studies, we assessed the relations between morphological awareness and
reading among kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2 children, a sample that is younger than
many of the previous studies. This age group was selected for two reasons. Carlisle
(1995) suggested that kindergarten and first grade is of particular interest to language
development researchers because it is during this period of time when children start to
shift from an implicit to a more explicit awareness of language use and language
structures. Past research involving Chinese and English L1 speakers also indicate that
there is an emerging association between morphological awareness and reading by this
age. We therefore considered it important to substantiate these relations in children who
are learning these languages within a bilingual context.
Research Questions
The specific research questions addressed in the two studies constituting this
thesis were:
1. In comparison to monolingual English and Chinese speakers, do Chinese-
speaking ELL children demonstrate similar levels of morphological awareness in
English and Chinese in the early school years?
a. Are there developmental changes in morphological awareness over the
early school years for these children?
26
2. Can morphological awareness predict English vocabulary and reading
comprehension among young Chinese-speaking ELL children?
a. (How) do the effects of morphological awareness on these reading skills
change with age?
b. Do distinct aspects of morphological awareness contribute differently to
Chinese-speaking ELL children’s English reading skills?
3. Does morphological awareness specifically for compounds play a role in Chinese
vocabulary and reading comprehension similarly among monolingual Chinese
speakers from China and Chinese-speaking ELL children from Canada?
a. (How) does the role of morphological awareness in reading change with
age for the two groups of children?
Hypotheses of the Studies
Based on previous findings in young native English speakers, it was hypothesized
that in Study 1, compound and derivational awareness in English would concurrently and
prospectively predict English vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skills
among kindergarten and grade 1 Chinese-speaking ELL children. Relatedly, it was
expected that these links would remain robust after mother’s education, nonverbal
reasoning ability and phonological awareness have been taken into consideration.
In Study 2, building on previous findings among monolingual Chinese children,
compound awareness was expected to predict Chinese vocabulary knowledge and
reading comprehension skills similarly for children from China and those from Canada.
These relations were also expected to remain significant after considering the effects of
mother’s education, nonverbal reasoning ability and phonological awareness.
27
Chapter 5 Study 1
The objective of Study 1 was to examine the contribution of morphological
awareness on concurrent and prospective vocabulary and reading comprehension in
English among Chinese-speaking ELL children. The methodologies used for the study is
first described. The results are then presented, followed by a discussion of the results.
Method
Participants
Participants were 84 Chinese immigrant children recruited from six public
schools, three government-funded Chinese heritage language schools, and one private
Chinese heritage language school located in a large Canadian metropolitan area. At the
time of recruitment, 48 of the participants were in kindergarten (51% males and 49%
females) and 36 were in grade 1 (60% males and 40% females). The kindergarten
participants’ average age was 5 years 5 months (SD = 5.70 months); the average age of
the first graders was 6 years 7 months (SD = 4.35 months). All children received
instruction in English in public schools. Demographic information was collected through
a family questionnaire designed by the researchers. Sixty-one percent of the children in
kindergarten and 33% of the children in grade 1 were born in Canada; the remaining
children were born in China, Taiwan, Japan, or the United States. For children born
outside of Canada, the average age of immigration was 1 year and 7 months (SD = 19.68
months) for children in kindergarten, and 10 months (SD = 17.82 months) for the first
graders. All but one child had exposure to Chinese at home to varying extents. Seventy-
three percent of the participants attended Chinese heritage language classes for an
average of 2.5 hours each week, where they received instruction in both oral language
28
and literacy skills. Approximately 74% of the children read Chinese books at home
during the week. The average level of maternal education was a university degree.
Mother’s education was used as a proxy for family socioeconomic status (SES)1.
Measures
Children were tested at two measurement points spaced one year apart. At both
measurement points (Time 1 and Time 2, respectively), participants received a battery of
tests in English including phonological awareness, morphological awareness, word
reading, and receptive vocabulary. A non-verbal reasoning measure was administered to
all participants at Time 1. Task assessing reading comprehension was administered only
to children in the older cohort at Time 1; at Time 2, the task was given to all children.
Instructions for all tasks were given in English. To identify home literacy practices, a
questionnaire on family background and literacy activities at home was sent to each
participant’s family at Time 1 to be completed by the parents in English or Chinese.
Measures of Morphological Awareness
Test of Morphological Production. This task was adapted from Carlisle (2000) to
examine children’s derivational morphological awareness. For this task, children were
required to produce a derived word to complete a sentence. For example, “(Farm) My
uncle is a _______ (farmer)”. Children were first given three practice trials with
feedback to ensure that they had understood the task. This task contained 24 test items at
Time 1 and 27 items at Time 2. Reliability coefficients for this task were .87 at Time 1
and .90 at Time 2. Appendix A presents the measure administered at Time 1.
1 Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, Wright, Guerin, and Parramore (2003) have discussed the adequacy in
using mother’s education level as an alternative to composite measures of socioeconomic status.
29
Morphological Analogy Test. Based on the task developed by McBride-Chang et
al. (2005a), this test was designed to evaluate children’s compound morphological
awareness. In each trial, children were presented with the definition of a compound
word, and were then asked to create a compound of similar structure using newly
presented concepts. For example, “Early in the morning, we can see the sun rising. This
is called a sunrise. At night, we might also see the moon rising. What could we call
this? (moonrise)”. There were two practice trials and 15 test items on this test. The
reliability of this test was reasonable (Cronbach’s α = .83). See Appendix B for the items
included in this task.
Literacy Outcome Measures
Vocabulary. A shortened version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Third
Edition, Form III A (PPVT-III A) (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) was administered to measure
children’s receptive vocabulary. To maintain the same progression of item difficulty as
the original task, every third item from the original task was selected to create the
shortened version, with a total of 60 items. The modifications were made to allow for
group administration and to shorten administration time. The experimenter read each
item twice and the children circled in response booklets the picture that best described
the word heard. The reliability coefficient for this task was .61.
Reading Comprehension. Reading comprehension was assessed using the
Reading Comprehension subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test – Revised
(PIAT-R) (Markwardt & Frederick, 1998). To facilitate group administration and to
shorten administration time, we created a shortened version of the original test by
including only every other item. The final number of items selected was 36. Each child
30
received booklets containing sentences and short paragraphs of increasing difficulty,
along with stimulus pictures. Children were asked to silently read each sentence or short
paragraph once. They were then to turn the page and select out of four stimulus pictures
the one that best represented the sentence or short paragraph previously read, and to mark
their answers on a response sheet provided by the examiner. The Cronbach’s α for this
task was .90.
Control Measures
Non-verbal Reasoning. Non-verbal reasoning ability was measured using the
Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998). For each item
children were asked to complete a visual-spatial matrix by choosing the missing piece
from six or eight patterned segments.
Phonological Awareness. Children’s phonological awareness was assessed using
the Elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP)
(Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999). Children were asked to delete individual sounds
from words and to give the remaining part (e.g., “cat”, say it without “/k/”). The 20
items in this test included initial, middle and last phoneme deletion.
Word reading. Children’s word reading ability in English was assessed using the
Letter-Word Identification Subtest from the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery
(WLPB) (Woodcock, 1984). This test required children to identify 14 letters and to read
62 words of increasing difficulty. The test was discontinued if the child read 6
consecutive words incorrectly. The score was the total number of words read correctly.
31
Procedure
Participants were assessed in a quiet room at their schools within school hours.
Experimenters were trained undergraduate and graduate research assistants who majored
in psychology, linguistics, or human biology. For each data collection phase, testing was
divided into two sessions of about 60 minutes each. At Time 1, all tasks were
administered to the children individually except that for the grade 1 students, vocabulary
and reading comprehension tasks were completed in small groups. At Time 2, all
children completed the vocabulary and reading comprehension tasks in small groups; the
remaining tasks were given individually. For tests that were administered individually,
the order by which the tests were given was counterbalanced across participants.
Results
We first examined the data for univariate and bivariate outliers. There were no
univariate outliers in the sample. One child in grade 1 was identified to be a bivariate
outlier when the relation between the morphological production task and reading
comprehension at Time 2 was considered; the child was excluded from subsequent
analyses.
The means and standard deviations of each measure administered at Time 1 and
Time 2 are presented in Table 1. The mean scores show that, for every measure,
performance by the older cohort was better than that of their younger counterparts.
Further, with the exception of the receptive vocabulary task for the younger cohort,
children improved on all linguistic tasks over the course of one year. Across groups,
there was adequate variability on all measures. However, there was a possible ceiling
32
effect for the older cohort on the morphological analogy task at Time 2, where
approximately 30% of the children achieved a perfect score.
Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics of Measures for Children in Canada.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Time 1 Time 2
____________________________________
M SD M SD
_______________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort
Non-verbal ability (Raven’s Matrices) 0.44 0.12 --- ---
Phonological awareness (Elision) 0.23 0.21 0.49 0.24
Morphological productiona 0.23 0.14 0.50 0.20
Morphological production (18 items)b 0.20 0.13 0.51 0.21
Morphological analogy 0.37 0.27 0.67 0.24
Word reading 0.31 0.13 0.48 0.14
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) 0.54 0.07 0.52 0.07
Reading comprehension --- --- 0.38 0.20
Older Cohort
Non-verbal ability (Raven’s Matrices) 0.60 0.16 --- ---
Phonological awareness (Elision) 0.48 0.27 0.61 0.24
Morphological productiona 0.37 0.20 0.62 0.19
Morphological production (18 items)b 0.35 0.19 0.61 0.19
Morphological analogy 0.59 0.31 0.81 0.20
Word reading 0.49 0.16 0.58 0.14
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) 0.56 0.09 0.57 0.09
Reading comprehension 0.41 0.19 0.53 0.17
_______________________________________________________________________ a The
mean percentage scores and standard deviations calculated using all items administered at each time
point. b The mean percentage scores and standard deviations for the 18 common items in the task
administered at Time 1 and Time 2.
We checked the data for normality for each predictor and outcome variable by
inspecting skewness and kurtosis. Scores on the morphological analogy and
morphological production tasks for the older group at Time 2 were significantly
negatively skewed. Following the recommendations of Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), a
33
sequence of reflection, square root transformation, and re-reflection was performed on
each variable to remove the skews. After the transformations were performed, the skews
came within reasonable limits. We then compared correlational and linear regression
analyses conducted with raw scores and with transformed scores but found no significant
differences in results as a function of the set of scores used. Since analyses conducted
with raw scores are more readily interpretable because the scores represent children’s
actual performance levels, only results from analyzing raw data are included in the
current report.
In order to gain a better perspective of the children’s English language abilities in
our study, their levels of performance on the predictor variables were further considered
within the context of their native English-speaking peers. Specifically, children’s mean
scores on the standardized measure of phonological awareness used in our study (i.e.,
CTOPP Elision) were compared to the age norms outlined in the test administration
manual (Wagner et al., 1999). Children’s performance on this task fell in the range of
63rd
to 80th
percentile, suggesting that the Chinese-speaking ELLs in our sample were
similar to or above their native-speaking peers in their phonological awareness. For the
morphological analogy task where standardized norms are not available, children’s
percentage scores from our study were compared with those achieved by their same-age
native English-speaking counterparts in an earlier study (i.e., McBride-Chang et al.,
2005a)2. This comparison indicated that the Chinese-speaking ELLs’ performance on the
analogy task was similar to their English-speaking counterparts in kindergarten (33% vs.
40%), but was substantially better than the native English speakers at grade 2 (80% vs.
2 Mean score comparisons could not be conducted because the task used for our study differed from that
administered by McBride-Chang et al. (2005a) with respect to the stimulus words and the number of items
included.
34
65%). The morphological production task was administered to kindergarten children in
two previous studies (Carlisle 1995; Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993). However, given the
descriptive data for the task were not reported for either study, we were not able to
determine whether performance of our current sample is comparable to that of native
English-speaking children.
Development in Morphological Awareness
A 2 (cohort; older versus younger) × 2 (time; time 1 versus time 2) repeated
measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted for each morphological
measure to examine children’s morphological awareness development over time. In each
model, children’s scores on the specific morphological task of interest at Time 1 and
Time 2 were entered as within-subject factors; their cohort level was entered as the
between-subject factor. Given that at Time 2 some test items were added to or changed
from the morphological production task administered at Time 1, only total scores
calculated for the 18 test items common in both versions of the task were used in the
current analysis.
Figure 1 and 2 depict the changes in children’s performance across time on the
morphological production and morphological analogy tasks, respectively. On both
measures, significant main effects were found for cohort (for morphological production,
F(1,52) = 8.04, p < .01, for morphological analogy, F(1,53) = 6.34, p < .05). Thus,
across time, children in the older cohort performed significantly better on the
morphological measures than those in the younger group. Main effects for time were
also significant, F(1, 52) = 208.47, p < .01, for morphological production, and F(1,53) =
82.91, p < .01, for morphological analogy. This indicates that over time, all children
35
improved in their performance on the morphological tasks. The Cohort × Time
interaction was not significant for either task (both p > .05).
Figure 1. Children’s performance on the morphological production task at Time 1 and
Time 2.
Figure 2. Children’s performance on the morphological analogy task at Time 1 and
Time 2.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Time 1 Time 2
Sco
res
(18
)
Morphological Production
Younger CohortOlder Cohort
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Time 1 Time 2
Sco
res
(15
)
Morphological Analogy
Younger Cohort
Older Cohort
36
The Relations between Morphological Awareness, Vocabulary and Reading
Comprehension
Intercorrelations among all measures included in the present study are displayed
in Tables 2 and 3 for the younger and older cohorts, respectively. Across groups and
measurement points, the two morphological awareness measures were strongly
associated with one another (r’s range from .49 to .76, all p’s < .01). For the younger
cohort, as indicated in Table 2, the association between phonological awareness and
vocabulary was significant only at Time 2. Similarly, correlations between
morphological tasks and vocabulary were moderate at Time 1 but robust at Time 2.
Phonological awareness and morphological awareness assessed at Time 1 were both
significantly correlated with vocabulary measured at Time 2. Table 3 suggests that for
the older cohort, the association between phonological awareness and vocabulary was
significant only at Time 1. The morphological production task was significantly
correlated with vocabulary concurrently at both time points and longitudinally, whereas
the relations between the morphological analogy task and vocabulary were moderate.
For the younger cohort, correlations between measures of phonological awareness,
morphological awareness and reading comprehension were robust and significant at
Time 2. Phonological awareness assessed at Time 1 was significantly associated with
Time 2 reading comprehension. Likewise, Time 1 morphological analogy task and Time
2 reading comprehension were strongly correlated. For the older cohort, the associations
between phonological awareness, the two morphological measures and reading
comprehension were significant at both time points. Time 1 phonological awareness and
37
morphological awareness were also significantly related to reading comprehension tested
at Time 2.
38
Table 2.
Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Younger Cohort. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age --
2. Non-verbal ability .42** --
3. Mother’s education -.08 .07 --
4. T1 Phonological awareness .21 .36* .27 --
5. T1 Morphological production .26 .15 .00 .59** --
6. T1 Morphological analogy .32* .47** .14 .48** .49** --
7. T1 Word reading .23 .20 .25 .53** .59** .48** --
8. T1 Receptive vocabulary .23 .31* .26 .16 .30 .14 .17 --
9. T2 Phonological awareness .16 .29 .37* .57** .30 .47** .66** .23 --
10. T2 Morphological production .41* .32 .39* .58** .68** .52** .68** .28 .57** --
11. T2 Morphological analogy .26 .34 .50** .50** .56** .66** .49** .37* .64** .68** --
12. T2 Word reading .21 .28 .38* .39* .28 .25 .80** .31 .72** .61** .50** --
13. T2 Receptive vocabulary .11 .21 .53** .40* .44* .44* .38* .36* .45** .51** .64** .44** --
14. T2 Reading comprehension .40* .43* .25 .41* .34 .38* .71** .32 .47** .58** .38* .76** .48**
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*p < .05, **p < .01
39
Table 3.
Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Older Cohort. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age --
2. Non-verbal ability .28 --
3. Mother’s education -.05 .39* --
4. T1 Phonological awareness .11 .26 .45* --
5. T1 Morphological production .38* .23 .32 .57** --
6. T1 Morphological analogy .35 .47** .45* .54** .67** --
7. T1 Word reading .25 .22 .44* .69** .60** .53** --
8. T1 Receptive vocabulary .20 -.01 .13 .37* .55** .28 .39* --
9. T1 Reading comprehension .36* .32 .36* .66** .64** .56** .89** .42* --
10. T2 Phonological awareness .00 .49* .38 .67** .31 .38 .43* -.02 .43* --
11. T2 Morphological production -.06 .29 .61* .53** .70** .65** .59** .44* .62** .45* --
12. T2 Morphological analogy -.03 .36 .72** .66** .49* .72** .64** .14 .61** .53** .76** --
13. T2 Word reading -.11 .25 .49* .53* .71** .59** .75** .38 .69** .54** .89** .77** --
14. T2 Receptive vocabulary .39 .10 .09 .33 .65** .37 .54** .14 .55** .40 .43* .33 .50* --
15. T2 Reading comprehension -.01 .25 .58** .57** .74** .58** .72** .28 .68** .56** .84** .75** .92** .61**
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*p < .05, **p < .01
40
The Role of Morphological Awareness in Vocabulary
Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine predictors of
vocabulary. Prior to running the analyses, we computed a morphological awareness
factor score from principal component analyses for each cohort at each measurement
point. This procedure was undertaken for two reasons. First, strong correlations were
found between the two morphological measures, suggesting that they share a significant
degree of commonality. Including redundant variables in the same analysis can inflate
the size of error terms, thus weakening the analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). A
second and related reason was the finding of negative suppressions in our initial
regression analyses. Thompson and Levine (1997) had previously noted that suppression
effects can occur spuriously when predictors in the regression models are highly
correlated. In the present study, the sign of the regression weight of the morphological
tasks was negative in several of the regression models, which was the opposite of what
we expected on the basis of its positive correlation with the outcome measures, and
considerably reduced the interpretability of our results. Conducting regression analyses
with factor scores thus enabled us to more appropriately determine the overall effects of
morphological awareness on the outcome variables.
Two sets of hierarchical linear regression analyses were carried out separately for
each cohort to examine the concurrent, independent contributions of morphological
awareness on vocabulary at the two measurement points. In each set of the analyses, a
baseline control model was created to control for the effects of child’s incoming
characteristics (age, non-verbal reasoning ability, mother’s education), and phonological
awareness. Given the inter-relationships among morphological awareness, the three
incoming characteristics, phonological awareness, and vocabulary, it is essential to
41
examine the predictive power of morphological awareness over and beyond that provided
by these known predictors of reading performance. Control variables were kept in the
subsequent models regardless of their significance level in order to account for the
collinearity they may share with morphological awareness in predicting vocabulary. This
is a particularly important concern given that morphological awareness tasks tap into
phonological knowledge. Thus, for each model, the three incoming characteristics were
entered in step one, phonological awareness was entered in step two, and the
morphological awareness factor score was entered in step three. In addition, to explore
the unique variance explained by each of the morphological tasks separately, we
conducted two alternative hierarchical regressions within each set of analysis; in these
regressions, only one of the morphological tasks was entered in step three.
Results from the regression analyses conducted for the two cohorts are
summarized in Table 4. The evaluations of the unique contributions of the
morphological awareness factor score, the morphological production task, and the
morphological analogy task to vocabulary are presented as Model A, Model B, and
Model C, respectively. As shown in the upper half of the table, the morphological
awareness factor score explained about 5% (p > .05) of the unique variance in vocabulary
for the younger cohort at Time 1. Jointly, all variables entered in Model A explained
about 18.5% of the variance in vocabulary; however, none of them emerged as a unique
predictor of vocabulary. Similar results were obtained when the morphological analogy
task was entered alone (Model C). By contrast, the morphological production task
contributed to 16% of the variance (p < .05) when entered independently, and was a
unique predictor of vocabulary. Together, variables in Model B explained about 31% of
42
the variance in vocabulary. At Time 2, the incoming characteristics accounted for a
significant portion (32.4%) of the unique variance in vocabulary. When entered in the
final step of Model A, the morphological awareness factor score explained significantly
an additional 10.5% of variance in vocabulary beyond the control variables. Final beta
weights suggested that the morphological awareness factor score was the only unique
predictor of vocabulary. Altogether, predictor variables in Model A explained
approximately 47% of the variance in vocabulary at Time 2. The contributions of the
morphological tasks approached significance when they were considered separately; each
task was able to explain approximately 7% of unique variance in vocabulary.
The lower half of Table 4 presents the results for the older cohort. The
morphological awareness factor score was the only unique predictor of vocabulary at
Time 1, significantly accounting for 13% of variance in vocabulary (p < .05). Altogether,
the variables considered in Model A explained about 33% of the variance in vocabulary.
As shown in Model B, the morphological production task accounted for a significant 22%
of the unique variance in vocabulary and was the only unique predictor of vocabulary. In
combination, variables in Model B explained about 41.5% of the variance in vocabulary.
Model C indicated that the morphological analogy task did not contribute to vocabulary
significantly at Time 1. At Time 2, neither phonological awareness nor any of the
morphological awareness scores made a unique, significant contribution to vocabulary.
While all variables considered in each regression model explained some portion of
variance (19% to 30%) in vocabulary, final beta weights indicated that there was no
unique predictor of vocabulary at this measurement point in any of the models.
43
Table 4.
Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent English Receptive Vocabulary.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Time 1 Time 2
General General
model Model Model Model model Model Model Model
summary A B C summary A B C
Step and predictors ∆R2
β β β
∆R2 β β β
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort
1. Age .068 .031 .128 -.021 -.011 .049
Non-verbal ability .262 .384* .296 .009 .034 .005
Mother’s education .135 .163 .232 .156 .324* .309~ .371* .332
~
2. Phonological awareness .001 -.193 -.382~ -.022 .038 -.018 .062 .041
3. Morphological awareness .049 .292 .105* .499*
3. Morphological production .164** .528** .075~ .376
~
3. Morphological analogy .001 -.032 .074~ .395
~
Older Cohort
1. Age .029 .013 .126 .261 .283 .247
Non-verbal ability -.233 -.175 -.238 .041 .049 .032
Mother’s education .076 -.005 .007 .047 .086 -.310 -.287 -.169
2. Phonological awareness .121~ .160 .117 .300 .082 .246 .277 .277
3. Morphological awareness .130* .510* .092 .457
3. Morphological production .218** .597** .133 .474
3. Morphological analogy .029 .240 .025 .246
__________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note. Model A = MA factor score; Model B = Morphological Production task only; Model C = Morphological Analogy task only. ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
44
Two sets of hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to assess the relations
between morphological awareness and vocabulary across the two time points. Incoming
characteristics were entered in step one. In step two, the autoregressor (i.e., Time 1
vocabulary) was added to the longitudinal regression models to control for all effects
upon reading ability prior to Time 2. Phonological awareness measured at Time 1 was
entered in step three, and finally, Time 1 morphological awareness factor score was
entered in step four. In separate regressions, we entered the morphological production
task and the morphological analogy task administered at Time 1 in step four.
Results from the regression analyses conducted for each cohort are presented in
Table 5. These results indicated that across all models, for the younger children, the
Time 1 measures jointly explained about 30% of the total variance in Time 2 vocabulary;
however, none of them emerged as a significant unique predictor of vocabulary. For the
older cohort, the Time 1 morphological awareness factor score explained approximately
31% of the variance in Time 2 vocabulary (p < .05) when entered in the last step, and
was the only unique predictor of vocabulary over time in Model A. Similarly, Time 1
morphological production task significantly predicted over 43% of unique variance in
Time 2 vocabulary (Model B). Jointly, variables entered in Model B explained more
than 58% of the variance in vocabulary at Time 2. Time 1 morphological analogy task
alone did not predict prospectively a significant portion of unique variance in Time 2
vocabulary (Model C).
45
Table 5.
Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Time 2 English Receptive Vocabulary.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort Older Cohort
General General
model Model Model Model model Model Model Model
summary A B C summary A B C
Step and predictors ∆R2
β β β ∆R2
β β β
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age .085 .118 .099 .016 .011 .124
Non-verbal ability -.125 -.076 -.192 .136 .217 .116
Mother’s education .201 .285 .317 .251 .086 -.250 -.215 -.172
2. T1 Receptive vocabulary .002 .100 .087 .153 .024 -.146 -.397 .073
3. T1 Phonological awareness .064 .153 .198 .242 .038 -.142 -.072 -.015
4. T1 Morphological awareness .026 .247 .312* .812*
4. T1 Morphological production .008 .136 .433** .940**
4. T1 Morphological analogy .026 .217 .127 .504
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Note. Model A = MA factor score; Model B = Morphological Production task only; Model C = Morphological Analogy task only.
*p<.05, **p<.01
46
The Role of Morphological Awareness in Reading Comprehension
Four sets of hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to examine the
concurrent contributions of morphological awareness on reading comprehension. In each
model, the order of entry of the control variables was incoming characteristics (age, non-
verbal reasoning ability, mother’s education), receptive vocabulary, word reading, and
phonological awareness. The morphological awareness factor score was entered in the
last step following the control variables. Within each set of analysis, two alternative
regressions were also carried out in which the morphological production task and the
morphological analogy task were singly entered in the last step of the regression models.
Table 6 summarizes the results from the regression analyses. Because reading
comprehension skills was not evaluated at Time 1 for the younger cohort, the concurrent
contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension was only assessed at
Time 2 for this group (i.e., when they were in grade 1). As shown in the upper half of
Table 6, incoming characteristics and word reading contributed significantly to reading
comprehension. Across the three models, neither phonological awareness nor any of the
morphological awareness estimates made a unique contribution to reading
comprehension beyond children’s incoming characteristics and word reading skills.
Altogether, variables considered in the models explained about 71% of the variance in
reading comprehension.
For the older cohort, the three incoming characteristics together explained a large
and significant portion of variance (27%) in reading comprehension at Time 1; word
reading additionally accounted for a significant 47% of the variance. By contrast, neither
phonological awareness nor morphological awareness explained a significant portion of
unique variance in reading comprehension across the three models. In each of the three
47
models, the variables entered jointly explained over 80% of the variance in reading
comprehension. Final beta weights indicated that word reading was the only unique
predictor of reading comprehension in the models. Likewise, at Time 2, incoming
characteristics and word reading predicted a substantial amount of variance in reading
comprehension (43% and 27%, respectively), while phonological awareness and
morphological awareness did not make a significant contribution to reading
comprehension in any of the three models. Final beta weights also revealed that word
reading was the only unique predictor of reading comprehension at Time 2. In each of
the three models, variables considered accounted for over 90% of the variance in reading
comprehension.
48
Table 6.
Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent English Reading comprehension.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Time 1 Time 2
General General
model Model Model Model model Model Model Model
summary A B C summary A B C
______________________________________________________________________
Step and predictors ∆R2
β β β ∆R2
β β β
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort
1. Age .162 .137 .165
Non-verbal ability .173 .168 .183
Mother’s education .288* -.085 -.098 -.065
2. Receptive vocabulary .095~ .281
~ .247 .301*
3. Word reading .300** .785** .769** .760**
4. Phonological awareness .023 -.194 -.228 -.152
5. Morphological awareness .003 -.088
5. Morphological production .000 .021
5. Morphological analogy .011 -.160
Older Cohort
1. Age .057 .067 .064 -.001 .000 -.003
Non-verbal ability .084 .095 .087 -.039 -.038 -.040
Mother’s education .274* -.012 .000 -.012 .430* .262 .265 .256~
2. Receptive vocabulary .063 -.030 -.047 -.002 .214* .150 .150 .152
3. Word reading .467** .757** .749** .780** .266** .719* .731** .709**
4. Phonological awareness .001 .028 .041 .028 .001 .036 .033 .035
5. Morphological awareness .008 .143 .000 -.002
5. Morphological production .007 .138 .000 -.017
5. Morphological analogy .005 .101 .000 .013 Note. Model A = MA factor score; Model B = Morphological Production task only; Model C = Morphological Analogy task only. ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
49
Two sets of hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to assess the relations
between morphological awareness and reading comprehension longitudinally; the results
are displayed in Table 7. For each model, incoming characteristics were entered in step
one. Time 1 vocabulary was then entered in step two for the younger cohort. For the
older cohort, the autoregressor (i.e., Time 1 reading comprehension) was entered in step
two; vocabulary was entered in the subsequent step. For both cohorts, Time 1 word
reading and Time 1 phonological awareness were entered in the two steps following
vocabulary. The Time 1 morphological awareness factor score was entered last. In the
two alternative regression models, the Time 1 morphological production task and the
Time 1 morphological analogy task were independently entered in the final step.
Results of the regressions indicated that for the younger children, the incoming
characteristics and word reading measured at Time 1 predicted significantly unique
portions of variance (33% and 25%, respectively) in Time 2 reading comprehension.
Phonological awareness and morphological awareness did not predict additional variance
in reading comprehension beyond that accounted for by incoming characteristics and
word reading. Final beta weights revealed that word reading was unique predictor of
reading comprehension for this cohort. For the older cohort, the Time 1 morphological
awareness factor score was a unique predictor of reading comprehension, predicting
approximately 12% of the variance in Time 2 reading comprehension (p < .05) beyond
the control variables (Model A). Together, predictor variables in Model A accounted for
over 80% of the variance in Time 2 reading comprehension. When the morphological
tasks were considered separately, only the morphological production task emerged to be
a unique predictor of reading comprehension over time (Model B), predicting
50
significantly close to 20% of the unique variance in Time 2 reading comprehension (p
< .01). Altogether, the Time 1 variables entered in Model B close to 90% of the total
variance in Time 2 reading comprehension.
51
Table 7.
Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Time 2 English Reading Comprehension.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort Older Cohort
General General
model Model Model Model model Model Model Model
summary A B C summary A B C
_______________________________________________________________________
Step and predictors ∆R2
β β β ∆R2
β β β
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age .233 .220 .216 -.183 -.180
-.119
Non-verbal ability .241 .181 .280 .111 .182 .104
Mother’s education .329* .082 .048 .103 .430* .269 .278 .318
2. T1 Reading comprehension --- --- --- --- .177* -.122 -.352 .021
3. T1 Receptive vocabulary .002 .007 .038 -.031 .064 .122 -.091 .269
4. T1 Word reading .246** .646** .641** .625** .023 .361 .472 .341
5. T1 Phonological awareness .004 .016 .029 -.062 .002 -.082 .013 -.050
6. T1 Morphological awareness .017 -.207 .118* .539*
6. T1 Morphological production .012 -.176 .198** .721**
6. T1 Morphological analogy .010 -.133 .038 .284
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note. Model A = MA factor score; Model B = Morphological Production task only; Model C = Morphological Analogy task only. ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
52
Discussion
The results of the present research fill in some gaps in our understanding of the
role of morphological awareness in literacy outcomes among children who speak English
as their second language. Previous research has provided preliminary evidence for a
relation between morphological awareness and reading development in ELL children (i.e.,
Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Siegel, 2008; Wang et al., 2006). However, most of these
studies have examined students in the middle and upper elementary years, for whom
morphological awareness may be particularly important because of the increasing
number of multimorphemic words they read (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). The current
findings add to this body of research by showing that Chinese-speaking ELL children’s
sensitivity to the structure and meanings of morphemes in words contributes to their
concurrent and subsequent reading achievement, even when these children are only
beginning to acquire basic reading skills. Notably, we found that the contribution of
morphological awareness remains robust even after taking into account the effects of
general factors known to be related to vocabulary and reading comprehension, e.g.,
mother’s education, non-verbal reasoning ability, and phonological awareness. This
further underscores the important role that morphological awareness plays in children’s
reading development.
Development in Morphological Awareness
We examined the development of Chinese-speaking ELLs’ morphological
awareness with two measures. The morphological analogy task required children to
analyze compound words into sub-lexical components and to create words by combining
morphemes in novel ways. This task thus primarily measured children’s access to the
53
word structures within compounds (McBride-Chang et al., 2005; McBride-Chang, Shu,
Ng, Meng & Penny, 2007). In the morphological production task, children were asked to
produce derived words given a base word and a sentence context. Because the derived
forms were to be produced within specific contexts, this task evaluated children’s
derivational awareness with respect to their knowledge of the meanings as well as the
grammatical roles of the morphemic constituents (Carlisle, 2000).
The results demonstrated that Chinese-speaking ELL children improve markedly
in their compound and derivational awareness in the early school years. Previous
research involving native English speakers has found that children’s development of
morphological awareness is well underway by the age of 4 and continues through their
elementary and high school years (for a review, see Kuo & Anderson, 2006). Our study
is the first to delineate the developmental trajectory of morphological awareness among
Chinese-speaking ELL children between kindergarten and grade 2, and to show that they,
like their native English-speaking counterparts (e.g., Carlisle, 1995), are progressing
steadily in developing awareness for compound structures and derivational morphemes
over the early school years.
It is worth noting that children in our study experienced a particularly great
amount of growth in compound awareness between kindergarten and grade 2; indeed,
their performance on the morphological analogy task approached ceiling by the second
grade. However, the majority of the compound words included in the task was noun +
noun compounds. Previous studies have reported that children’s compound structural
awareness in English is the greatest for noun + noun compounds as compared to other
types of compounds (Bauer, 1987; Zhang, Anderson, Li, Wu, Dong, & Zhang, in press;
54
Zhang, Anderson, Packard, Wu, & Tang, 2007). This may be the reason that our
participants had performed exceptionally well. Overall, the results provided robust
evidence that by the time Chinese-speaking ELL children begin their formal schooling,
they are well into the process of acquiring a keen sense and knowledge of the structures
and meanings of morphemes in words.
Relations between Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary
A key finding established by this study is that morphological awareness plays an
increasingly large role in Chinese-speaking ELL children’s vocabulary development.
Morphological awareness measured in kindergarten did not contribute significantly to
concurrent or subsequent vocabulary. Nevertheless, performance on the morphological
tasks in kindergarten was significantly correlated with vocabulary assessed one year later,
signifying that there is an emerging relation between the two skills at this age. By grade
1, children’s awareness of morphological structures and meanings had much stronger
influences on their vocabulary development. The morphological awareness factor score
explained a significant amount of variance in vocabulary both concurrently and
longitudinally after controlling for children’s age, non-verbal reasoning ability, mother’s
education, and phonological awareness. These findings are remarkable, especially
considering that estimates provided in longitudinal regression models with autoregressors
are extremely conservative (Deacon & Kirby, 2004).
We found that the proportion of unique variance in receptive vocabulary
explained by concurrent morphological awareness did not attain statistical significance in
the grade 2 students (i.e., the older cohort at Time 2). This is probably in part due to the
ceiling effect in the morphological analogy task at this time. Indeed, when the
55
morphological production task was entered into the regression model as the lone measure
of morphological awareness, although statistically non-significant, morphological
awareness emerged as the strongest predictor of vocabulary, accounting for over 13% of
the unique variance in vocabulary. This is consistent with our hypothesis that
morphological awareness is a critical skill for vocabulary development in grade 2. Given
the relatively small sample included in the present study, it remains unclear whether the
current non-significant finding is unique to our sample. Future studies with larger
sample sizes that include morphological measures with more challenging items will be
necessary to further investigate the role of morphological awareness in ELL children’s
vocabulary development at this age.
The steady increase in school-age children’s exposure to and acquisition of
morphologically complex words through their academic learning (Anglin, 1993; Nagy &
Anderson, 1984) may explain why morphological awareness would play a progressively
more substantial role in vocabulary development. When a child encounters unfamiliar
multimorphemic words in reading, the ability to conduct morphological analysis enables
the child to decompose the words into their constituent components and synthesize their
meanings; this ability further interacts with contextual cues to help the child infer
meaning more accurately (Carlisle, 2007; Nagy & Scott, 2000). This process of
deciphering word meanings also exemplifies the type of deep-level processing that has
been shown to promote memory consolidation, which enables the child to remember the
meanings of the newly learned words (Anglin, 1993). Over time, children’s ability to
conduct morphological analysis can contribute to the development of mental
representations for morphemes; the quality of these representations affects the ease with
56
which children process and retain new words subsequently (Reichle & Perfetti, 2003;
Schreuder & Baayen, 1995). Anglin (1993) reported that native English-speaking
children’s use of morphological analysis increases significantly over the elementary
school years, and contributes substantially to their growth in vocabulary knowledge. The
present study added to this body of research by delineating a similar developmental
pattern among Chinese-speaking ELL children.
In the present study we further compared the relative contribution of derivational
morphological awareness and compound awareness to reading outcomes. In general, the
morphological production task was a stronger predictor of vocabulary than the
morphological analogy task. This suggests that sensitivity to the prefixes and suffixes in
derivational words plays a greater role in English word learning than the sensitivity to
compound structures for beginner readers. We conjecture that this is related to the fact
that in English, derivations constitute a larger share of multimorphemic words than
compounds, and comprise an increasingly large percentage of the new words that
children learn over the school years (Anglin, 1993; Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Tyler &
Nagy, 1989).
Relations between Morphological Awareness and Reading Comprehension
Consistent with the general trend observed in the relation between morphological
awareness and vocabulary, we found that the effects of morphological awareness on
reading comprehension increased with age. By the second grade, morphological
awareness significantly accounted for a unique proportion of variance in reading
comprehension.
57
First graders’ reading comprehension was not predicted by morphological
awareness measured either one year earlier (i.e., in kindergarten) or concurrently, once
we have controlled for other reading related variables. This concurred with Carlisle’s
(1995) longitudinal study involving native English speakers in the early elementary
grades, and substantiated that morphological awareness is not yet sufficiently developed
to make a significant independent contribution towards reading comprehension during
the initial years of formal schooling. More precisely, we found that first graders’ word
reading skills have accounted for the largest proportion of variance in reading
comprehension. Given that morphological awareness shared a substantial amount of
variance with word reading, we suspect that the impact of morphological awareness on
reading comprehension may have been mediated by word reading among these children.
Studies involving school-age English-speaking monolingual children and ELLs have
demonstrated the effects of morphological awareness on word reading (e.g., Carlisle,
2000; Carlisle & Stone, 2003; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008; Wang, Ko, & Choi, 2009),
as well as the importance of word reading in reading comprehension (e.g., Catts, Hogan
& Adlof, 2005; Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Kahn-Horwitz, Shimron, & Sparks, 2005).
To the best of our knowledge, whether the association between morphological awareness
and reading comprehension is mediated by word reading has scarcely been investigated.
In view of the current findings, research should be conducted in the future to elucidate
the ways in which these three constructs are connected.
Findings from the current study indicated that receptive vocabulary did not make
a significant contribution to reading comprehension in grade 1. There are reasons to
believe that word reading should make a greater contribution to reading comprehension
58
in the early elementary grades instead of oral vocabulary. Most children enter school
with vocabulary and grammar knowledge that exceeds what is needed to understand
early reading materials, which are linguistically simple. Moreover, reading instructions
in the primary grades mostly focuses on teaching children to decode words (Catts et al.,
2005; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997). Some studies conducted among English-
speaking monolingual children have documented a decrease in the importance of word
reading while an increase in the importance of oral vocabulary in reading comprehension
over time (e.g., Carver, 1998; Catts et al., 2005; Hoover & Gough, 1990). The current
results substantiated that at grade 1, like their native English-speaking counterparts, the
ability to decode words is a stronger predictor of ELLs’ reading comprehension than
their oral vocabulary knowledge.
The predictive power of morphological awareness in reading comprehension
strengthened between the first and second grade, suggesting that awareness of the
structures and meanings of morphemes emerges to play an increasingly more
independent and prominent role in children’s text comprehension over time. While
children’s receptive vocabulary and word reading remained to be the most significant
predictor of concurrent reading comprehension scores in grade 2, morphological
awareness assessed one year prior (i.e., in grade 1) emerged as a significant predictor of
grade 2 reading comprehension performance. Notably, the contributions of the
morphological tasks were found to be significant after taking into consideration the
effects of the autoregressor, children’s incoming characteristics, previous vocabulary
knowledge, word reading skills and phonological awareness, which accounted for close
to 70% of the variance in reading comprehension. These results underscored the
59
predictive power of morphological awareness in ELLs’ reading comprehension
longitudinally. It is not surprising that receptive vocabulary and word reading would
explain the largest amount of variance in concurrent reading comprehension, given that
these three reading skills involve largely similar metalinguistic processes (e.g.,
morphological awareness, phonological awareness, lexical knowledge). On the other
hand, the current results suggest that across time, in comparison to vocabulary
knowledge and word reading skills, morphological awareness may play a more
influential role in children’s reading comprehension. This is perhaps because while
knowing the definitions and pronunciations of specific words can facilitate
comprehension of those words, it is less likely to help children decipher the meanings of
other words, or even to generalize the understanding of the original words to different
contexts (Kirby, Desrochers, Roth, & Lai, 2008). By contrast, the development of
underlying component skills that tap into the meanings of words – such as morphological
awareness – provides children with adaptable tools to acquire new words across contexts.
Similar to the patterns observed in predicting vocabulary knowledge, derivational
skills were found to be a more powerful predictor of reading comprehension than the
ability to form novel compounds. That is, awareness of derivational morphemes plays a
central role in learning the principles underlying multimorphemic words in English. As
shown elsewhere, in conjunction with its indirect effects on expanding vocabulary,
derivational morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension through its
role in syntactic parsing. As derivational suffixes often explicitly mark parts of speech
(e.g., -ness often denotes a noun while -ful usually signifies an adjective), morphological
knowledge (especially of derivational morphemes) provides clues to readers in
60
determining the syntactic structure of a written sentence (Kuo & Anderson, 2003;
Mahony, Singson, & Mann, 2000; Tyler & Nagy, 1990). It is the combination of the
semantic and syntactic aspects of morphology that contribute to reading comprehension.
The present findings suggest that this is also the case for ELL children.
61
Chapter 6 Study 2
The purpose of Study 2 was to determine whether morphological awareness
contributes to Chinese vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension similarly in
monolingual Chinese speakers and in Chinese-speaking ELLs who were learning
Chinese and English simultaneously. In this chapter, the methodologies used in carrying
out Study 2 are first explained, followed by a report of the results. Finally, a discussion
of the results is presented.
Method
Participants
This study involved a total of 182 students from Canada and China. Participants
from Canada were the 84 children who participated in Study 1. Their demographics
were described in that Study.
Participants from China included 98 native Chinese children from Beijing, China.
They were recruited from a middle-class kindergarten and a middle-class elementary
school. At the time of recruitment, 49 of the children were kindergartners (48% males
and 52% females); the remaining 49 children were first graders (48% males and 52%
females). The average ages of the children were 5 years and 7 months (SD = 5.52
months) for the kindergarten students, and 6 years and 9 months (SD = 4.6 months) for
the grade 1 participants. These children were instructed exclusively in Chinese at school.
Similar to the participants in Canada, demographic information of the participants in
China was collected through a family questionnaire. All children were born in China and
spoke Mandarin at home to varying extents (some children also spoke another Chinese
dialect at home in addition to Mandarin). Over 83% of the families indicated that their
62
children read Chinese books at home, with 70% of them reading at least 2 to 5 hours per
week. On average, the mothers of the children had a high school education.
Measures
Children were assessed at two measurement points spaced one year apart. At
both measurement points (Time 1 and Time 2, respectively), participants received a
battery of tests that included measures of rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological
awareness, morphological awareness, character reading and vocabulary. Task assessing
reading comprehension was administered only to children in grade 1 at Time 1; at Time 2,
the task was given to all children. A non-verbal reasoning measure was administered to
all participants at Time 1. Instructions for all tasks were given in Chinese except for the
non-verbal reasoning task administered to the children in Canada, which was given in
English. To identify home literacy practices, a questionnaire on family background and
literacy activities at home was sent to each participant’s family at Time 1 to be
completed by the parents. Parents in China completed the questionnaire in Chinese. For
the parents in Canada, they could complete the form in English or in Chinese.
Measures of Morphological Awareness
Compound Structure Task. Adapted from Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughn, and
Vermeulen (2003), this task required children to identify the head of a compound noun.
The child heard a description of an animal or object that did not exist in real life, and was
asked to select a better name for it between two options. For example, “给穿着衣服的
鱼起个名字, 鱼衣和衣鱼, 你看哪个更好? [“Which is a better name for a fish that
wears a dress? A fish dress or a dress fish?”] (衣鱼 dress fish).” A picture of the
unfamiliar animal/object was presented along each item to reduce children’s memory
63
load. The task contained four practice trials and 12 test items. Following a reliability
test of the measure, one item that was administered at Time 1 and two items administered
at Time 2 were excluded in the analyses described below. After these items were
removed, the Cronbach’s alphas were .52 for the task at both measurement points. Items
of this measure are listed in Appendix C.
Compound Analogy Task. This task was adapted from McBride-Chang et al.
(2005b). In this task, the experimenter provided the definition of an animal or an object
that was already familiar to the child, then asked the child to create a name for an
imaginary animal or object that bore some resemblance to it. This is to evaluate the
child’s ability to extract morphemes from the name of the given animal or object, and to
combine them with other morphemes to create novel compounds. For example, “斑马是
身上有斑纹的一种马, 那么身上有斑纹的牛我们叫什么? [Striped horse (Zebra) is a
kind of horse with stripes on the body. What should we call a cow with stripes on the
body?] (斑牛 striped cow).” To reduce the effect of oral vocabulary on the performance,
the items were modified in the current study so that all the definitions were familiar to
children and all the answers were pseudowords. This test included 12 items. Two
practice items were administered prior to the test items to ensure children’s
comprehension of the task requirements. The reliability of this test was good
(Cronbach’s α = .84). The task is presented in Appendix D.
Literacy Outcome Measures
Receptive Vocabulary. Sixty items were selected from the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test, Third Edition, Form III A (PPVT-III A) (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and
were translated into Chinese to measure children’s receptive vocabulary at Time 1. The
64
modifications were made to allow for group administration and to reduce administration
time. To maintain the same progression of item difficulty as the original task, every third
item from the original task was selected to create this shortened form. These items were
distinct from those selected for the vocabulary task administered in Study 1 so that the
children in Canada would not be evaluated on identical items in English and in Chinese
as a result of participating in both studies. The experimenter read each item twice and
the children circled the picture from response booklets that described the word heard.
The reliability coefficient for this task was .83. Sample items from this task are
presented in Appendix E.
Expressive Vocabulary. Children’s oral expressive vocabulary was assessed at
Time 2 using a picture naming task that required children to name pictures shown by the
experimenter. A total of 120 pictures from an expressive vocabulary test developed by
Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) were presented. These pictures were selected by Chen
et al. (2009) based on Liu’s (2006) investigation among Chinese children on their age of
acquisition of the words used in Snodgrass and Vanderwart’s original test. For the items
included in the current task, the mean age of acquisition was 6.5 years and the range of
acquisition was from 2.5 to 12 years. Children could receive a maximum of 3 points on
each item. To obtain full score (i.e., 3 points) on an item, the child’s response to the
stimulus must be the targeted response or another response that is semantically
synonymous. A 2-point response is one that is the categorical term of the targeted
response. For example, the response 球 (ball) for the targeted response 篮球 (basketball)
would merit 2 points. In the case where the child’s response belonged to the same
category as the targeted response (e.g., responding 排球 (volleyball) for the targeted
65
response 篮球 (basketball)), the child would be given 1 point. The reliability for this
task was high (Cronbach’s α = .98). Appendix F presents sample items from this task.
Reading Comprehension. Because no standardized reading comprehension test
was available in Chinese, we developed a reading comprehension task based on the
sentences presented in the Neilson’s reading fluency test for elementary school children
(Shu, Meng, Chen, Luan & Cao, 2005). For this task, each child received booklets
containing sentences and short paragraphs of increasing difficulty, along with stimulus
pictures. Children were asked to silently read each sentence or short paragraph once.
They were then to turn the page and to select out of five stimulus pictures the one that
best represented the sentence or short paragraph previously read, and to mark their
answers on a response sheet provided by the examiner. There were three practice items
and 35 test items on this test. The reliability coefficient for this task was .97. Sample
items from this test are shown in Appendix G.
Control Measures
Non-verbal Reasoning. Non-verbal reasoning ability was measured using the
Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven et al., 1998). For each item children were
asked to complete a visual-spatial matrix by choosing the missing piece from six or eight
patterned segments.
Phonological Awareness. To assess children’s phonological awareness in
Chinese, a syllable and phoneme deletion task was developed. The task contained 24
testing items and four practice items, and included both real and pseudo-syllables.
Children were required to delete a syllable or phoneme at the first, middle, or last
position (e.g., deleting a syllable /kong3/ from the two-syllable pseudo word /xun1kong3/;
66
deleting /s/ in a real syllable, /se4/). The task reliability was .90. See Appendix H for the
items included in this test.
Rapid Digit Naming. The Rapid Digit Naming subtest of the CTOPP (1999) was
adapted to measure children’s RAN ability. Thirty-six digits, composed of 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8,
were listed randomly on a letter size paper. The child was asked to name these digits one
by one as fast as they could. The testing and scoring procedure of the standardized task
was followed except that the children were required to name the digits in Chinese.
Character Reading. Given that there was no standardized reading test available
in Chinese, we designed a character reading task by selecting characters according to
their first appearances. A total of 125 characters were included in the task administered
in Time 1; at Time 2, the task comprised of 135 items. The characters were selected
from the 12 volumes of the Elementary School Textbooks (Elementary Education
Teaching and Research Center, 1996) employed in the Chinese language curricula in
Mainland China. The task started with the most frequent characters (e.g. 三, 口) and
moved to the less frequent ones (e.g. 擒, 蹑). The test was discontinued when the child
misread 10 characters consecutively. The total number of correctly read characters was
recorded as the character reading score. Reliability for the task was .98 at both time
points. This task is presented in Appendix I.
Procedure
Participants were assessed in a quiet room at their schools within school hours.
Experimenters in Canada were those involved in Study 1. Experimenters in China were
trained undergraduate and graduate research assistants who majored in psychology. For
each data collection phase, testing for each child was divided into two sessions of about
67
60 minutes each. At Time 1, all control measures as well as the compound analogy task
were administered to the children individually; children completed the compound
structure task in small groups. The grade 1 students also completed the receptive
vocabulary and reading comprehension tasks in small groups, whereas the assessment of
kindergarten children’s vocabulary was conducted individually. At Time 2, all children
completed the compound structure task and the reading comprehension test in small
groups; the remaining tasks were given individually. For tests that were administered
individually, the order by which the tests were given was counterbalanced across
participants.
Results
We first examined the data for univariate and bivariate outliers. There was no
univariate outlier in the sample. One child from the older cohort in China was identified
to be a bivariate outlier when the relation between Time 1 compound analogy task and
Time 2 expressive vocabulary was considered. This child was subsequently excluded
from our analyses.
The means and standard deviations of each measure administered at Time 1 and
Time 2 are presented in Table 8. Across groups, there was adequate variability on all
tasks. An examination of the mean scores suggested that the two older cohorts attained
higher performance than their younger counterparts across all tasks except for the
compound structure task at Time 1, on which the younger cohort in China scored higher
than their older counterparts. Notably, children in Canada were on average performing
close to or below chance level (25%) on the reading comprehension task, suggesting that
the task was too difficult for them. This was not surprising considering that these
68
children only attended Chinese classes once a week while the participants from China
were instructed in Chinese every day. Given the limited amount of information our
current task could provide with respect to the reading comprehension skills of the sample
from Canada, subsequent analyses for determining the predictors of reading
comprehension were carried out only with the children from China.
We checked the data for normality for each predictor and outcome variable by
inspecting skewness and kurtosis. Scores on the compound analogy task at Time 2 were
found to be significantly negatively skewed for the younger cohort in China. Following
the recommendations of Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), a sequence of reflection, square
root transformation, and re-reflection was performed on the compound analogy scores of
all children in the younger cohort (Canada and China) to remove the skew. After the
transformations were performed, the skew came within reasonable limits. We then
compared correlational and linear regression analyses conducted with raw scores and
with transformed scores but found no significant differences in our results as a function
of the set of scores used. Since analyses conducted with raw scores are more readily
interpretable, only results from analyzing raw data are presented in the current report.
69
Table 8.
Descriptive Statistics of Measures for Children in China and Canada.
Younger Cohort Older Cohort
Time 1 Time 2 Time 1 Time 2
Ma SD M SD M SD M SD
Canada
Non-verbal ability (Raven’s Matrices) 0.44 0.12 --- --- 0.61 0.16 --- ---
RAN (Rapid Digit Naming)b 92.80 77.97 60.67 30.26 63.59 53.06 45.41 11.10
Phonological awareness (Deletion) 0.50 0.31 0.71 0.19 0.74 0.24 0.86 0.18
Compound structure 0.48 0.23 0.55 0.21 0.58 0.16 0.68 0.16
Compound analogy 0.33 0.25 0.47 0.23 0.54 0.22 0.64 0.23
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) 0.46 0.12 --- --- 0.57 0.12 --- ---
Expressive vocabulary (Picture Naming) --- --- 0.38 0.15 --- --- 0.46 0.15
Character reading 0.15 0.14 0.18 0.14 0.24 0.15 0.23 0.12
Reading comprehension --- --- 0.15 0.19 0.30 0.15 0.24 0.23
China
Non-verbal ability (Raven’s Matrices) 0.41 0.11 --- --- 0.53 0.16 --- ---
RAN (Rapid Digit Naming) 69.52 17.64 58.59 14.33 47.40 11.18 40.27 8.87
Phonological awareness (Deletion) 0.38 0.15 0.40 0.11 0.77 0.16 0.81 0.12
Compound structure 0.68 0.17 0.63 0.18 0.63 0.12 0.65 0.21
Compound analogy 0.54 0.25 0.65 0.23 0.65 0.21 0.76 0.18
Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) 0.59 0.09 --- --- 0.67 0.09 --- ---
Expressive vocabulary (Picture Naming) --- --- 0.68 0.07 --- --- 0.70 0.10
Character reading 0.25 0.16 0.30 0.14 0.44 0.14 0.58 0.08
Reading comprehension --- --- 0.35 0.19 0.52 0.24 0.83 0.14
a
With the exception of RAN, all mean scores are reported as percentages correct; b Reported in seconds.
70
Development in Compound Awareness
To examine children’s development of compound awareness over time, a 2
(country; China versus Canada) × 2 (cohort; younger versus older) × 2 (time; time 1
versus time 2) three-way repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried
out with each compound morphology measure. In each model, children’s percentage
scores on the specific compound task of interest at Time 1 and Time 2 were entered as
within-subject factors; their country and cohort level were entered as the between-subject
factors.
Analyses conducted with the compound structure task revealed a significant main
effect of country, F(1, 129) = 7.92, p < .01, such that children in China scored
significantly higher than children in Canada. The main effect of time and the main
effect of cohort were not significant (both p’s > .05). However, there was a significant
Time × Country interaction, F(1,129) = 5.33, p < .05, as well as a significant interaction
between country and cohort, F(1, 129) = 4.91, p < .05. The Time × Country × Cohort
effect was not significant (p > .05). Further investigations showed that the significant
interactions were caused by an unexpectedly strong performance on the task by the
younger cohort in China at Time 1. Specifically, the younger cohort in China performed
significantly better at Time 1 than at Time 2, t(36) = 2.15, p < .05, whereas for the older
cohort in China and the two cohorts in Canada, the differences in scores between Time 1
and Time 2 did not reach statistical significance (all p’s > .05).
For the compound analogy task, a significant main effect of Time emerged, F(1,
125) = 47.15, p < .001. An examination of the mean percentage scores indicated that for
all children, their performance on the analogy task was better at Time 2 than at Time 1.
71
The main effect of Cohort was also significant F(1,125) = 15.57, p < .001, showing that
across the two time points, children in the older cohorts outperformed the younger
cohorts. Finally, a main effect of Country (F (1,125) = 14.58, p < .001) indicated that
children in China scored significantly higher than their Canadian counterparts on the task.
Notably, performance by the older cohort of Canada was comparable to the younger
cohort of China at both time points, suggesting that children in Canada may be one year
behind their China counterparts in their ability to complete this task. None of the
interactions was statistically significant. Figure 3 and 4 depict the changes in children’s
performance across time on the compound structure and compound analogy tasks,
respectively.
Figure 3. Children’s performance on the compound structure task at Time 1 and Time 2.
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Time 1 Time 2
Pe
rce
nta
ge S
core
Compound Structure
Canada Younger Cohort
Canada Older Cohort
China Younger Cohort
China Older Cohort
72
Figure 4. Children’s performance on the compound analogy task at Time 1 and Time 2.
The Relations between Compound Awareness, Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension
Bivariate correlations among all measures included in the analyses are reported in
Tables 9 and 10 for children in Canada and in China, respectively, collapsed across the
two cohorts within each country. In both countries, significant correlations were found
between compound structure and compound analogy at both Time 1 and Time 2 (r’s
ranged from .26 to .48, all p’s < .05), indicating that these two compound tasks tap a
single linguistic skill, namely, compound awareness. For children in Canada,
performance on the compound structure task as well as on the compound analogy task
were strongly associated with concurrent receptive vocabulary at Time 1, and with
expressive vocabulary at Time 2 (all p’s <.05). For children in China, a strong
association was found between receptive vocabulary and the compound analogy task (r
= .48, p < .01) at Time 1; the relation between receptive vocabulary and compound
structure task was moderate. By Time 2, both compound awareness measures were
highly correlated with children’s expressive vocabulary (for compound structure, r = .37,
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Time 1 Time 2
Pe
rce
nta
ge S
core
Compound Analogy
Canada Younger CohortCanada Older CohortChina Younger CohortChina Older Cohort
73
for compound analogy, r = .62, both p’s < .01). Longitudinally, performance on the two
compound tasks at Time 1were significantly linked with expressive vocabulary assessed
at Time 2 (both p’s < .01) among children in Canada. For children in China, Time 1
compound analogy task was strongly correlated with Time 2 expressive vocabulary (r
= .54, p < .01); the strength of the association between Time 1 compound structure task
and Time 2 expressive vocabulary was moderate.
For children in China, the correlations between compound awareness and reading
comprehension were also examined. The correlations coefficients indicated that at Time
1, compound analogy was strongly associated with reading comprehension (r = .39, p
< .01); the association between compound structure and reading comprehension however,
was not statistically significant. At Time 2, the compound analogy task was significantly
correlated with reading comprehension, whereas the relation between the compound
structure task and reading comprehension approached significance (p = .06). When
examined across time, Time 1 compound analogy but not Time 1 compound structure
was strongly correlated with Time 2 reading comprehension.
74
Table 9.
Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Children in Canada.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age --
2. Non-verbal ability .52** --
3. Mother’s education -.03 .19 --
4. T1 RAN -.46** -.10 .05 --
5. T1 Phonological awareness .46** .49** .27* -.20 --
6. T1 Compound structure .28* .11 .07 -.35** .29* --
7. T1 Compound analogy .40** .45** .30* -.34** .53** .48** --
8. T1 Character reading .21 .32** .20 -.32** .34** .31** .44** --
9. T1 Receptive vocabulary .43** .45** .31* -.53** .37** .51** .72** .52** --
10. T2 RAN -.38** -.22 -.03 .83** -.14 -.27 -.32* -.36** -.51** --
11. T2 Phonological awareness .34* .45** .47** -.23 .61** .37** .55** .49** .58** -.46** --
12. T2 Compound structure .42** .25 .22 -.15 .24 .06 .27 .15 .25 -.45** .45** --
13. T2 Compound analogy .37** .44** .37** -.41** .52** .52** .78** .45** .70** -.51** .61** .27* --
14. T2 Character reading .17 .24 .28* -.41** .34* .31* .41** .89** .53** -.46** .57** .26 .45** --
15. T2 Receptive vocabulary .32* .26 .09 -.52** .29* .39** .44** .61** .68** -.61** .46** .27* .60** .66**
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ a The children in the younger cohort was not administered the Reading Comprehension task at Time 1; therefore, the correlations between T1 Reading
Comprehension and other variables only include correlational coefficients calculated for the children in the older cohort.
*p < .05, **p < .01
75
Table 10.
Correlations among all Measures at Time 1 and Time 2 for the Children in China. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age --
2. Non-verbal ability .37** --
3. Mother’s education -.09 .27* --
4. T1 RAN -.59** -.37** .09 --
5. T1 Phonological awareness .69** .57** -.07 -.61** --
6. T1 Compound structure -.02 .21* .33** .08 -.05 --
7. T1 Compound analogy .21 .61** .36** -.15 .44** .26* --
8. T1 Character reading .48** .41** -.07 -.63** .57** -.05 .38** --
9. T1 Receptive vocabulary .39** .60** .24* -.34** .54** .09 .48** .39** --
10. T1 Reading comprehensiona .09 .29 .14 -.47** .54** -.02 .39** .77** .29 --
11. T2 RAN -.57** -.35** .06 .80** -.60** .06 -.20 -.57** -.30* -.23 --
12. T2 Phonological awareness .74** .53** -.11 -.69** .81** -.09 .42** .69** .51** .46** -.67** --
13. T2 Compound structure .13 .35** .30** -.23* .24* .25* .41** .21 .17 .16 -.20 .18 --
14. T2 Compound analogy .30* .54** .32** -.28* .47** .36** .69** .38** .54** .43** -.23* .41** .41** --
15. T2 Character reading .71** .52** -.01 -.69** .75** -.03 .42** .87** .48** .77** -.72** .82** .23* .41** --
16. T2 Receptive vocabulary .09 .56** .46** -.15 .26* .20 .54** .31** .63** .35* -.18 .29** .37** .62** .34** --
17. T2 Reading comprehension .70** .62** .05 -.72** .81** -.09 .40** .72** .55** .39* -.77** .84** .21 .40** .87** .34**
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ a The children in the younger cohort was not administered the Reading Comprehension task at Time 1; therefore, the correlations between T1 Reading
Comprehension and other variables only include correlational coefficients calculated for the children in the older cohort.
*p < .05, **p < .01
76
The Role of Compound Awareness in Vocabulary
A series of regression analyses were conducted to examine the role of compound
awareness in concurrent and subsequent vocabulary. To determine the concurrent,
independent contributions of compound awareness on vocabulary acquisition, four sets
of hierarchical linear regression analyses were carried out, one for each cohort at the two
measurement points. We included the participants in Canada and China in the same
regression analyses to assess whether the compound awareness measures had the same
effects on vocabulary across the two countries. In each set of hierarchical regression
analysis, a baseline control model was created to take into account the effects of child’s
incoming characteristics (age, non-verbal abilities, and mother’s education), RAN ability
and phonological awareness. Control variables were kept in the subsequent models
regardless of their significance level in order to account for the collinearity they may
share with compound awareness in predicting vocabulary. The compound awareness
measures were added to the regression models after the control variables have been
entered. Following the procedure outlined by Pedhazur (1997), to analyze the joint
effects of compound awareness and country, children’s country (coded as an effect
vector), and the interaction terms computed as the product of each compound measure
and country were entered last into our regression models. Thus, for each model, child’s
incoming characteristics were entered in step one, RAN was entered in step two,
phonological awareness was entered in step three, the two compound awareness
measures were jointly entered in step four, the country effect vector was entered in step
five, and the compound awareness by country interaction terms were entered in step six.
77
We also conducted two sets of hierarchical regressions (i.e., one for each cohort)
to assess the longitudinal relations between Time 1 compound awareness and Time 2
expressive vocabulary. In these regression models, the order of entry of the control
variables was child’s incoming characteristics, Time 1 receptive vocabulary, Time 1
RAN, and Time 1 phonological awareness. Compound awareness measures
administered at Time 1 were entered together in the step following the control variables
(i.e., step five). The country effect vector and the interaction terms between country and
the Time 1 compound measures were entered in the final two steps of the model,
respectively.
Table 11 summarizes the results from the regression analyses conducted to
determine the predictors of concurrent vocabulary for the two cohorts across the two
countries. As indicated by the upper half of the table, for the younger cohort, the
compound awareness measures significantly explained approximately 22% of the unique
variance in receptive vocabulary at Time 1, after accounting for the effects of all other
reading related variables. Notably, the interaction terms between the compound
measures and country was significant, suggesting that the effects of the compound
measures changed as a function of country. To further explore the nature of this
interaction effect, regression analyses were ran separately for the two countries while
controlling for the same variables as the initial analysis, and entering the two compound
measures in the last step. Results from these regressions are presented in Table 12. They
indicated that for children in Canada, compound awareness explained 19% of the
variance in receptive vocabulary beyond the effects of the other reading related variables.
In contrast, compound awareness did not account for a significant portion of unique
78
variance in vocabulary for children in China. Final beta weights further showed that for
children in Canada, mother’s education, RAN, and the two compound awareness tasks
were unique predictors of vocabulary. For children in China, there was no unique
predictor of vocabulary.
Similar to Time 1, the upper half of Table 11 indicates that performance on the
compound measures jointly accounted for a significant proportion (approximately 21%)
of the unique variance in expressive vocabulary among the younger cohort at Time 2.
This contribution by compound awareness was found to be significant even after taking
into consideration the effects of the control variables, which have all accounted for
unique portions of variance in expressive vocabulary. None of the interaction terms was
significant, meaning that the effects of compound awareness were similar across the two
countries. Together, the variables considered in this model explained about 82% of the
variance in children’s expressive vocabulary.
Longitudinally, as shown in Table 13, after controlling for the effects of the other
reading related factors, measures of compound awareness administered at Time 1
significantly predicted an additional 8.4% of the variance in children’s Time 2 expressive
vocabulary for the younger children. The unique contribution of compound awareness to
expressive vocabulary is similar across Canada and China, as indicated by the non-
significant interaction terms. Together, all variables entered in the model accounted for
about 85% of the variance in expressive vocabulary.
As shown in the lower half of Table 11, among the older cohort, compound
awareness contributed to explain about 20% of the unique variance in receptive
vocabulary at Time 1. Similarly, it uniquely accounted for approximately 30% of the
79
variance in children’s expressive vocabulary at Time 2, beyond the effects of all the other
predictor variables entered into that regression. At both time points, none of the
interactions between the compound measures and country reached statistical significance,
signifying that the influence of compound awareness on the older cohort’s vocabulary
was similar across the two countries. Final beta weight values showed that at Time 1,
mother’s education and the compound analogy task were unique predictors of receptive
vocabulary. At Time 2, the compound analogy task was the sole unique predictor of
children’s expressive vocabulary. Altogether, the variables considered in the regression
models accounted for approximately 63% of the variance in receptive vocabulary at Time
1, and explained about 70% of the variance in expressive vocabulary at Time 2.
For the older children, as indicated in Table 13, Time 1 compound tasks
significantly explained a unique 5.2% of the variance in Time 2 expressive vocabulary.
Moreover, like their younger counterparts, the contribution of compound awareness to
expressive vocabulary did not differ as a function of country. Jointly, the factors
examined in this model accounted for over 76% of the variance in the older children’s
expressive vocabulary.
80
Table 11.
Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent Chinese Vocabulary.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Time 1 Time 2
(Receptive vocabulary) (Expressive vocabulary)
_________________________________________________________________
Step and predictors ∆R2
R2 β t ∆R
2 R
2 β t
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort
1. Age -.027 -.235 -.069 -.839
Non-verbal ability .189 2.106* .065 .882
Mother’s education .166** .166 .154 1.576 .223** .223 -.012 -.158
2. RAN .136** .302 -.266 -2.395* .074* .297 -.212 -2.782**
3. Phonological awareness .003 .304 -.024 -.237 .146** .442 .110 .992
4. Compound structure -.024 -.168 .068 .566
Compound analogy .220** .524 .097 .700 .212** .655 .120 .968
5. Country .051** .575 -1.104 -3.616** .153** .808 -.871 -3.721**
6. Country × Compound structure .460 1.585 -.249 -1.058
Country × Compound analogy .050* .624 .295 1.665 .010 .818 .319 1.637
Older Cohort
1. Age .016 .183 .014 .166
Non-verbal ability .124 .989 .035 .328
Mother’s education .196** .200 .268 2.108* .133~ .133 .109 .847
2. RAN .081* .277 -.155 -1.736~ .071* .204 .048 .426
3. Phonological awareness .033~ .311 .025 .251 .004 .209 .057 .460
4. Compound structure .021 .149 .064 .632
Compound analogy .202** .513 .353 2.363* .301** .509 .393 2.711**
5. Country .110** .624 -.516 -1.145 .182** .692 -.871 -1.925~
6. Country × Compound structure -.103 -.262 .262 .666
Country × Compound analogy .002 .625 .115 .466 .003 .695 -.034 -.108
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
81
Table 12.
Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Concurrent Chinese Receptive Vocabulary for the Younger Cohort at Time 1.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Canada China
________________________________________________________________
Step and predictors ∆R2
R2 β t ∆R
2 R
2 β t
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age -.111 -.647 .132 .683
Non-verbal ability .239 2.041~ .232 1.195
Mother’s education .277* .277 .231 2.280* .170~ .170 .005 .025
3. RAN .266** .543 -.456 -2.725* .002 .172 .062 .353
4. Phonological awareness .023 .566 -.122 -.905 .043 .215 .222 1.157
5. Compound structure .315 2.468* -.081 -.445
Compound analogy .190** .756 .368 2.817** .010 .226 .116 .579
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ *p<.05, **p<.01
82
Table 13.
Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regressions Predicting Time 2 Chinese Expressive Vocabulary.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Younger Cohort Older Cohort
________________________________________________________________
Step and predictors ∆R2
R2 β t ∆R
2 R
2 β t
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Age -.053 -.676 -.053 -.659
Non-verbal ability .026 .340 -.075 -.606
Mother’s education .165* .165 -.083 -1.112 .135~ .135 .080 .679
2. T1 Receptive vocabulary .444** .609 .223 2.405* .451** .586 .483 3.808**
3. T1 RAN .025~ .634 -.261 -3.684** .032* .618 -.264 -3.000**
4. T1 Phonological awareness .002 .636 .172 2.040* .032* .650 -.253 -2.471*
5. T1 Compound structure -.008 -.071 .033 .287
T1 Compound analogy .084** .721 .094 .851 .052* .702 .220 1.578
6. Country .126** .846 -.743 -2.825** .055** .757 -.559 -1.417
7.Country × T1 Compound structure .220 .888 .267 .795
Country × T1 Compound analogy .003 .849 -.092 -.638 .004 .761 -.098 -.429
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ *p<.05, **p<.01
83
The Role of Compound Awareness in Reading Comprehension
Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to assess the concurrent and
longitudinal contribution of compound awareness on reading comprehension among the
children in China. Given we were interested in whether compound awareness had the
same effects on reading comprehension across the older and younger cohort in China, we
included the children from the two cohorts in the same regression models, and followed
the procedures outlined by Pedhazur (1997; described below) to examine the interaction
between compound awareness and cohort. As mentioned earlier, children in Canada
were excluded from these analyses because of their lower than chance level performance
on the reading comprehension task.
The effects of compound awareness on concurrent reading comprehension were
first examined. Specifically, because reading comprehension skills was not evaluated at
Time 1 for the younger cohort, only the concurrent relation between compound
awareness and reading comprehension at Time 2 was considered in the current analysis.
A set of baseline control variables were entered into the regression model prior to the
compound measures to control for their effects in predicting reading comprehension.
The order of their entry was child’s incoming characteristics, expressive vocabulary,
character reading, RAN, and phonological awareness. The two compound tasks were
entered into the regression model together thereafter. Finally, to assess whether the
influence of compound awareness changed as a function of cohort, a cohort effect vector
was entered into the model in the step following the compound tasks, and the interaction
terms calculated as the product of the compound measures and the cohort vector were
entered last into the regression model.
84
Results from the analyses at Time 2 for children in China are summarized in
Table 14, with reading comprehension as the outcome variable. As indicated by the table,
the compound awareness measures did not account for any additional variance in reading
comprehension at Time 2 beyond the contributions of the child’s incoming
characteristics, character reading, RAN, and phonological awareness, which have
accounted for close to 85% of the variance in reading comprehension. The interactions
between the cohort effect vector and the compound measures were not significant,
suggesting that the role of compound awareness in reading comprehension was similar
for the two cohorts. Altogether, the factors considered in the model explained over 88%
of the variance in reading comprehension. Final beta weights showed that children’s
non-verbal reasoning ability, character reading skills, and RAN skills were unique
predictors of their reading comprehension.
85
Table 14.
Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Concurrent Chinese Reading Comprehension
for children in China at Time 2.
Step and predictors ∆R2
R2 β t
___________________________________________________________________
1. Age -.065 -.719
Non-verbal ability .194 2.763**
Mother’s education .680** .680 .042 .693
2. T2 Expressive vocabulary .002 .682 -.039 -.540
3. T2 Character reading .124** .806 .264 2.348*
4. T2 RAN .033** .838 -.283 -3.793**
5. T2 Phonological awareness .011* .849 .005 .041
6. T2 Compound structure .157 -.569
T2 Compound analogy .000 .849 -.053 1.523
7. Cohort .023** .872 .337 1.270
8. Cohort × T2 Compound structure -.425 -1.961~
Cohort × T2 Compound analogy .012~ .884 .471 1.922
~
________________________________________________________________________________ ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
The effects of early compound awareness on reading comprehension skills
measured one year later were then examined among the children in China. For each
regression model, the order of entry of the control variables was child’s incoming
characteristics, Time 1 receptive vocabulary, Time 1 Chinese character reading, Time 1
RAN, and Time 1 phonological awareness. The two compound measures were entered
together in the step immediately following the control variables, ensued by the cohort
effect vector. Lastly, the interaction terms between the compound tasks and the cohort
vector were entered into the regression model.
As shown in Table 15, results from the longitudinal analysis indicated that child’s
incoming characteristics explained a significant portion of variance in Time 2 reading
comprehension among the children in China, as did Time 1 character reading, RAN, and
86
phonological awareness. Together, these control variables accounted for about 80% of
the variance in reading comprehension. While compound awareness explained an
additional 1.5% of unique variance in reading comprehension after the effects of these
reading related factors have been controlled for, the contribution of compound awareness
did not reach statistical significance. The non-significant interactions between the cohort
effect vector and the compound measures suggest that the influence of compound
awareness on reading comprehension did not vary as a function of cohort for the children
in China. Final beta weight values revealed that non-verbal reasoning ability and RAN
were unique predictors of reading comprehension measured one year after. Together, the
factors included in this model predicted over 84% of the variance in Time 2 reading
comprehension.
Table 15.
Longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Regression Predicting Time 2 Chinese Reading
Comprehension for Children in China.
Step and predictors ∆R2
R2 β t
_____________________________________________________________________
1. Age -.022 -.199
Non-verbal ability .229 2.162*
Mother’s education .676** .676 .076 1.154
2. T1 Receptive vocabulary .000 .676 -.028 -.347
3. T1 Character reading .040** .716 .153 1.755~
4. T1 RAN .050** .766 -.206 -2.393*
5. T1 Phonological awareness .035** .801 .184 1.492
6. T1 Compound structure -.083 -.990
T1 Compound analogy .015 .816 -.037 -.381
7. Cohort .025** .841 .140 .424
8. Cohort × T1 Compound structure .223 .817
Cohort × T1 Compound analogy .002 .843 .028 .133
______________________________________________________________________ ~p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01
87
Discussion
While many scholars maintain that morphological awareness plays a significant
role in reading Chinese (e.g., Hoosain, 1992; Nagy & Anderson, 1998; Shu et al., 1995),
few empirical studies have been carried out to validate such hypothesis, with most of
them being cross-sectional research focusing on monolingual Chinese speakers. The
present study has thus advanced our understanding about the contribution of compound
awareness to Chinese reading outcomes among young children in several important ways.
First, we have shown that compound awareness predicted vocabulary concurrently as
well as prospectively among children in the early school years. These relations remained
robust after taking into account the effects of mother’s education, non-verbal reasoning
abilities, rapid automatized naming and phonological awareness, further underscoring the
central role that compound awareness plays in children’s Chinese reading development.
More importantly, we have demonstrated that the influence of compound awareness on
vocabulary was largely similar among children who were monolingual Chinese speakers
and Chinese-speaking ELL children who were learning Chinese and English
simultaneously. Lastly, among monolingual Chinese children, our study provided
support for an indirect relation between compound awareness and reading
comprehension through character reading. These results will be discussed in more detail
below.
Development in Compound Awareness
In the current study, we used two measures to examine our participants’
developmental trends in Chinese compound awareness, namely, the compound analogy
task and the compound structure task. Results indicated that children’s performance on
the compound analogy task improved continuously from kindergarten to grade 2. This is
88
in keeping with results from previous studies of monolingual Chinese students, which
have shown that awareness for compound structures and for the meanings of the
constituent morphemes in compound words emerges by age 5, and continues to develop
in the early elementary school years (e.g., Chen et al., 2009; Chow & Chow, 2005;
McBride-Chang et al., 2003; 2008). Notably, our results indicated that Chinese-speaking
ELL children in Canada had comparable rates of growth in compound awareness over
the early school years as their monolingual Chinese counterparts, despite the fact that
they lagged behind by approximately one year in the overall developmental trajectory.
Given that the Chinese reading abilities of the children in Canada were generally quite
low, their gains in compound awareness substantiated that oral language is the primary
source from which compound awareness emerge (McBride-Chang et al., 2007). On the
other hand, the gap in performance levels observed between the children in China and
their Canadian counterparts on the analogy task underscored the impact of children’s
language-learning environment on their metalinguistic skills development. Having
received daily Chinese instruction in public schools, children in China appeared to have
developed greater sensitivity towards compound structures and morpheme meanings
earlier on than the Canadian group, who had comparatively less formal education in
Chinese.
Surprisingly, we did not find a systematic change in children’s performance on
the compound structure task over time. While performance on the structure task did not
vary significantly between Time 1 and Time 2 for the children in Canada and the older
cohort in China, the younger cohort in China showed signs of regression in their
performance after one year. One possible reason for the lack of significant changes over
89
time for the first three groups mentioned is that children’s ability to identify head
morphemes develops relatively early – as shown in our study and elsewhere (e.g., Clark
et al., 1985; Chen et al., 2009), children as young as 5 years of age are already quite
adept at identifying the head morphemes of compounds. As a result, children may have
reached ceiling on this task by Time 1 and seemed to make little improvement between
Time 1 and Time 2. The reason for the stronger performance at Time 1 than at Time 2
for the younger group in China on the task is not entirely clear; however, we posit that it
may be related to the low reliability of the task. In all, with no prior study that followed
specifically the acquisition and development of Chinese children’s awareness of head
morphemes in the early years, future studies are necessary to determine whether the
current pattern of finding is unique to our sample.
The Role of Compound Awareness in Vocabulary
The main research question we asked at the outset of this study was whether and
to what extent individual differences in compound awareness similarly predicts variance
in vocabulary and reading comprehension skills among Chinese children in Canada and
in China. In terms of the influence of compound awareness on word learning, our results
indicated that compound awareness plays a critical role in vocabulary acquisition for
children from both countries throughout the early school years.
Our analyses showed that, with the exception of the kindergarten children in
China, performance on the compound tasks consistently accounted for over 20% of the
unique variance in concurrent receptive and expressive vocabulary for children between
kindergarten and grade 2. For children in both countries, compound awareness measured
at kindergarten and grade 1 also predicted significantly expressive vocabulary one year
90
later, further reinforcing the importance of compound awareness in children’s Chinese
vocabulary learning throughout the early school years. Remarkably, these relations
remained significant even after controlling for a number of reading related factors
including non-verbal reasoning ability, rapid automatized naming and phonological
awareness, which shared a substantial amount of variance with compound awareness.
Our findings concurred with previous studies conducted among monolingual Chinese
speakers in the early school years (e.g., Chen et al., 2009; McBride-Chang et al., 2005b,
2006, 2008), and confirmed the unique role of compound awareness in vocabulary
development, beyond children’s family SES, general non-verbal reasoning and other
metalinguistic abilities. Most significantly, our study was the first to show that among
first and second graders, the contribution of compound awareness to vocabulary was
similar for children in Canada and in China. This suggests that at these grades,
compound awareness is equally important in Chinese vocabulary acquisition for children
who are learning one language or two languages simultaneously.
Some characteristics of Chinese words are believed to make compound awareness
particularly critical to learning Chinese vocabulary. First, as aforementioned, more than
75% of Chinese words are two- to three-morpheme compounds (Sun et al., 1996).
According to Geva (2008), the extent to which an aspect of morphological awareness is
associated with literacy development in a language depends on the specific features of
the morphological structure of the language. Considering the prevalence of compounds
in Chinese, it is therefore of no surprise that compound awareness would play a
prominent role in Chinese vocabulary acquisition. Also, Chinese morphemes are highly
productive. On average, a single Chinese morpheme is found in 17 compound words
91
(Yin, 1984; Yuan & Huang, 1998). Hence, when children encounter a new word, it is
likely that they will be familiar with some or all of the constituent morphemes.
Moreover, since many Chinese compounds are semantically transparent, once a child has
gained some knowledge of the compounding rules, the child can easily build on the parts
of the words he/she is familiar with in inferring and learning the meanings of the novel
words. Given these features, sensitivity to compound structures and morpheme
meanings would help children bootstrap vocabulary knowledge. Likewise, these features
will enable young learners to produce a large number of compound words (e.g., Chen et
al., 2009; McBride-Chang et al., 2007, 2008). These processes appeared to be similarly
at work among children who are learning Chinese as monolingual or bilingual speakers.
For the kindergarten children in China, our results indicated that compound
awareness did not play a significant role in predicting their concurrent receptive
vocabulary. These contrasted several studies of Chinese monolingual speakers that have
demonstrated significant effects of compound awareness among kindergarten children
(e.g., McBride-Chang et al., 2006; 2008). We suspect that the non-significant findings
among this subgroup of students may be a result of their exceptionally strong
performance on the compound structure task in conjunction with an average performance
on the vocabulary measures, which may have interacted to decrease the strength of the
association between the two constructs.
The Role of Compound Awareness in Reading Comprehension
We investigated the effects of compound awareness on reading comprehension
among the participants from China. Analyses revealed that for these children, compound
awareness did not explain any unique variance in concurrent or subsequent reading
92
comprehension. These results contrasted findings from some previous studies involving
native Chinese-speaking children (Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li et al., 2002; Shu et al., 2006;
Wang, 2000), in which morphological awareness was demonstrated to be significantly
and uniquely associated with reading comprehension. One reason for the differences is
that in those studies, they have controlled for fewer metalinguistic and literacy skills
which, in the present study, have shared a substantial amount of variance with compound
awareness. Consequently, compound awareness did not emerge as a significant predictor
of reading comprehension. This is consistent with a suggestion made by some
researchers that students may require a threshold of morphological awareness before they
can leverage their morphological skills as an independent tool for comprehending text
(e.g., Carlisle, 2000; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Nagy et al., 2003).
A second possibility is that the contribution of compound awareness to reading
comprehension was mediated by character reading. Our analyses indicated that measures
of compound awareness shared a large amount of variance with character reading, which
accounted for significant proportions of unique variance in concurrent and subsequent
reading comprehension. As a result, when compound awareness was entered into the
regression models after character reading, it was not able to predict additional unique
variance in reading comprehension. Theoretically, the ability to distinguish morphemes
in oral language and mapping them onto print should promote children’s ability to read
different characters, which in turn facilitate text comprehension. Among monolingual
Chinese children, studies have demonstrated the importance of compound awareness in
character and word reading (Chen et al., 2009; McBride-Chang et al., 2003, 2005, 2008b;
Shu et al., 2006), as well as the role of character reading in reading comprehension (e.g.,
93
Leong et al., 2007, 2008a, 2008b). Given our current findings, future research should
aim to explore the relation between morphological awareness, character reading, and
reading comprehension using more complex path models.
We did not find children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary explaining a
significant portion of variance in reading comprehension. While vocabulary knowledge
may be important for older children’s reading comprehension (Ku & Anderson, 2003;
Shu et al., 2006), our results indicated that for children who are beginner readers of
Chinese such as those involved in our study, oral vocabulary may be less predictive of
reading comprehension in comparison to character reading. This is plausible considering
that most students who are at the beginning stages of learning to read have richer oral
vocabularies than the vocabulary in the materials they are reading. Thus, for most
beginning readers, the primary reading challenge they face is decoding print into the oral
language forms that they already know rather than having to acquire new vocabulary to
interpret the text. Not surprisingly then, variability in children’s reading comprehension
performance is much more likely to depend on their ability to decode the characters as
opposed to their vocabulary knowledge.
94
Chapter 7 Conclusion
General Discussion
While the importance of morphological awareness to reading has been
consistently demonstrated in monolingual speakers of several languages (e.g., English,
Chinese, Hebrew), little research has been conducted to establish these relations in
children who are learning to read in an L2 or in bilingual contexts. Yet, studies focusing
on L2 and bilingual children are critical in broadening our understanding of the relations
between underlying cognitive processes and reading skills development across different
linguistic contexts. To address this dearth of research, in this thesis, the contribution of
morphological awareness to reading was examined among a group of Chinese-speaking
ELL students. These children were immersed in a bilingual environment – they learned
Chinese (L1) at home and attended heritage language classes on a weekly basis, while
receiving formal instruction in English (L2) daily in public schools. Their language-
learning environment thus diverged substantially from that of monolingual speakers with
respect to the number of languages they learned, as well as the amount of exposure to
each language. Our underlying hypothesis was that if morphological awareness and
reading are intrinsically related within English and Chinese, then morphological
awareness should predict variances in English and Chinese reading in these Chinese-
speaking ELL children, despite the fact that they were learning the languages within
linguistic contexts that were in many ways distinct from those of monolingual speakers.
Results from Study 1 indicated that the unique contributions of morphological
awareness to Chinese-speaking ELL children’s English vocabulary and reading
comprehension increased with age. These results were largely similar to those found in
past studies involving monolingual English-speaking children in the early elementary
95
school years. In Study 2, morphological awareness predicted vocabulary similarly in
Chinese children from Canada and China in grade 1 and grade 2, even though the
Chinese language skills of the Canadian group were not at par with their China
counterparts. Taken together, findings from the two studies supported that at least in the
early school years, the links between morphological awareness and reading in English
and in Chinese are not unique to first language acquisition or to monolingual contexts.
Quite the contrary, it appeared that there are intrinsic relations between morphological
awareness and reading within English and Chinese, over and above differences in
children’s proficiency in these languages and their language-learning contexts.
Our results are most congruent with a “universal” view in understanding the
relations between underlying cognitive processes and reading, which purports that the
same cognitive constructs can account for children’s reading skills in any given language,
irrespective of their language background or oral proficiency (Geva, 2008; Muter &
Diethelm, 2001). Several strands of research in reading development have provided
support for the universal framework in English. For example, research comparing
monolingual English-speaking children and ELLs coming from various linguistic
backgrounds showed that phonological awareness and lexical access are important for
reading in both groups (e.g., Chiappe, Glaeser, & Ferko, 2007; Chiappe, Siegel, & Wade-
Woolley, 2002; da Fontura & Siegel, 1995; Jonegan, Verhoeven, & Siegel, 2007; Lesaux
& Siegel, 2003; Lipka & Siegel, 2007). Studies of children living in various countries
who are learning to read English in a foreign language context also reported significant
relations between phonological awareness and reading in English that are comparable to
those demonstrated in monolingual English speakers (e.g., Dufva & Voeten, 1999; Muter
96
& Diethelm, 2001). In research on morphological awareness however, only one study to
date has been carried out to show similar effects of morphological awareness on English
reading among upper-elementary English L1 speakers and their ELL counterparts (i.e.,
Siegel, 2008). Results from Study 1 of this thesis thus provided valuable evidence for
extending the extant universal framework to include the relations between morphological
awareness and reading skills in English, particularly among the early elementary school
children. With respect to Chinese reading skills development, previous research has
mostly focused on L1 children who are learning Chinese in monolingual contexts. By
demonstrating similarities in children studying Chinese in two different linguistic
contexts, Study 2 of this thesis found support for a “universal” position on the relations
between morphological awareness and reading skills development in Chinese as well.
Limitations and Future Directions
Insofar the results of the present study increase our understanding of the
importance of morphological awareness in reading Chinese and English across varying
linguistic-learning contexts, several limitations is to be noted as a guide for future
research. First, Study 1 has involved a relatively small sample; therefore, larger samples
should be used to replicate the current study in the future. Another limitation in the
Study 1 sample is the relatively restricted range of SES. Most children in our study have
come from middle or high SES families; over 60% of the mothers have completed at
least a university degree. To the extent that this sample is representative of the
demographics of the more recent Chinese immigrants in Canada3, it may preclude us
from drawing any conclusions about children who are raised in low SES families.
3 According to analyses conducted using data from the Landed Immigrant Data System in Canada, 60.5%
of the adult Chinese immigrants arriving in Canada between 1996 and 2001 have a post-secondary degree
(Guo & DeVoretz, 2007).
97
Children from low SES families are less likely to be exposed to highly stimulating home
literacy environments, and may therefore be at a disadvantage in their vocabulary
knowledge and reading comprehension upon school entry (Hart & Risley, 1995; van
Steensel, 2006). Future studies should recruit ELL children from a broader range of SES
and linguistic backgrounds.
In assessing children’s Chinese compound awareness in Study 2, all compounds
presented were nouns with a subordinate structure, in which the head morpheme
specifies the semantic category of the compound and the other morpheme(s) modify or
restrict the head morpheme, e.g., 长颈鹿 (long-neck-deer: giraffe). There are, however,
other types of structures such as coordinative, e.g., 花灯 (flower lamp: lantern), verb-
object, e.g., 滑冰 (slide ice: skate), subject-predicate, e.g., 头疼 (head hurt: headache),
verb-complement, e.g., 扩大 (enlarge big: enlarge). Chinese compounds also fulfill
different syntactic functions such as verbs and adjectives. In order to become a fluent
reader, Chinese children would need to master these various types of compounds.
Therefore, there should be a more systematic examination of children’s awareness of
different types of compound structures and their impact on reading in future studies.
Relatedly, while our research and many others have focused specifically on compound
morphology because of its prevalence in Chinese, it would be important to distinguish
and compare the influence of various types of morphology (i.e., inflection, compound,
derivation) on reading outcomes in the future.
Finally, it is important to note that the association between morphological
awareness and reading is likely to be reciprocal rather than unidirectional in both English
and Chinese. Results from our study and others (e.g., Carlisle, 1995; Carlisle & Fleming,
98
2003; Chen et al., 2009; Shu et al., 2006) have shown that morphological awareness can
predict English and Chinese vocabulary growth as well as reading comprehension over
time. Yet, it is also likely that exposure to printed words reciprocally influences the
development of morphological awareness – as children read more books with a greater
number of morphologically complex words, they will have more practice and become
more adept in recognizing the morphological structure of words (Katz, 2004; McBride-
Chang et al., 2008). Therefore, the bidirectional influences of morphological awareness
and literacy development in English as well as in Chinese should be more extensively
explored in future longitudinal research.
99
Appendix A
Morphological Production Task
Practice Items
A. Cat. I have two ___________. [cats]
B. Farm. My uncle is a ___________. [farmer]
C. Look. I found the kitten after I ___________. [looked]
Test Items
1. Growth She wanted her plant to ___________. [grow]
2. Density The smoke in the room was very ___________. [dense]
3. Description The picture is hard to ___________. [describe]
4. Runner How fast can she ___________. [run]
5. Jacket Millie has three ___________. [jackets]
6. Skip Yesterday at recess, the girls ___________. [skipped]
7. Music That lady with the piano is a ___________. [musician]
8. Slow I was glad that I wasn’t the ___________. [slowest]
9. Science I want to grow up to be a ___________. [scientist]
10. Four The horse came in ___________. [fourth]
11. Dance She is an excellent ___________. [dancer]
12. Art Harry’s mother is an ___________. [artist]
13. Cloud I really hope that it’s not ___________. [cloudy]
14. Paint Jane is a messy ___________. [painter]
15. Curl His hair is very ___________. [curly]
16. Calm The teacher asked us to walk ___________. [calmly]
17. Magic He was a very good ___________. [musician]
18. Strong He wanted to show off his ___________. [strength]
19. Discuss Mom and dad had a long boring ___________. [discussion]
20. Appear He cared about his ___________. [appearance]
21. Remark The speed of the car was ___________. [remarkable]
22. Major He won the vote by a ___________. [majority]
23. Humour The story was quite ___________. [humorous]
24. Mystery The dark glasses made the man look ___________. [mysterious]
100
Appendix B
Morphological Analogy Task
Practice Items
A. A bug that bothers people in bed is called a bedbug. What do we call a bug that
bothers people on the sofa? [sofabug]
B. There is a centre where children are cared for during the day. We call it a childcare
centre. If there is a centre where pets are cared for during the day, what do we call
it? [petcare centre]
Test Items
1. There is a team of dogs that pulls a sled and we call it a dogsled team. Now there is a
team of cats that pulls a sled, what do we call it? [catsled team]
2. A little house that is built in a tree is called a treehouse. What do we call a house
that is built in a shrub? [shrubhouse]
3. There is a dog that spends most times in the yard around a farm and we call it a
farmyard dog. Now there is a mouse that spends time in the yard around a farm,
what do we call it? [farmyard mouse]
4. Some fish are found deep in the sea. We call them deep-sea fish. If we found fish
deep in the lake, what do we call them? [deep-lake fish]
5. Early in the morning, we can see the sun rising. This is called a sunrise. At night, we
might also see the moon rising. What could we all this? [moonrise]
6. One type of worm that is about the length of an inch is called an inchworm. If there
were a snake about the length of an inch, what could we call it? [inchsnake]
7. There is a kind of whale with a hump on its back. We call it a humpback whale. If
there was a kind of whale with a hump on its head, what do we call it? [humphead
whale]
8. There is a pill that is taken to help an ache that a person has in their head and we call
it a headache pill. Now there is a pill to help an ache in a person’s toe, what do we
call it? [toeache pill]
9. A boat that moves because of its sails is called a sailboat. What would we call a
train that moved with sails? [sailtrain]
10. A toy that one needs to wind up to start, we call it a wind-up toy. If there is a bird
that winds up to start, what do we call it? [wind-up bird]
101
11. Some buildings are built very high and we call them high-rise buildings. Some
buildings are built very low, what do we call them? [low-rise buildings]
12. A board that is written on with chalk is called a chalkboard. If we wrote with
chalk on a plate, what do we call it? [chalkplate]
13. There is an egg that is boiled to make it hard, we call a hard-boiled egg. If we
baked an egg to make it hard, we would we call it? [hard-baked egg]
14. When beef is cooked by stirring and frying it in a pan, we call it stir fried beef.
When stirring and frying nuts, what do we call it? [stir fried nuts]
15. The metal shoes that are put on horses are called horseshoes. If we put metal shoes
on pigs, what do we call them? [pigshoes]
102
Appendix C
Compound Structure Task
Practice Items
A. 鸟蜜 – 我们给鸟采的蜜起个名字，你看哪个更好？ 1.“蜜鸟” 还是 2.“鸟
蜜”？
B. 刺象 – 我们给身上有刺的大象起一个名字,你看哪个更好？ 1. “刺象”还是
2.“象刺”？
Test Items
1. 鸡车 – 我们给这个用鸡来拉的车起一个名字，你看哪个更好？ 1. “鸡车”还
是 2. “车鸡”？
2. 鸟缸 – 我们给这个鸟住的缸起个名字，你看哪个更好？1. “鸟缸”还是 2.
“缸鸟”？
3. 马钱 – 我们给这个上面有马的钱起个名字,你看哪个更好？1. “钱马”还是 2.
“马钱”？
4. 狗翅 – 我们给狗的翅膀个名字，你看哪个更好？1. “狗翅”还是 2.“翅狗”？
5. 叶蒜 – 我们给这些长着叶子的大蒜起个名字，你看哪个更好？1.“蒜叶”还是
2. “叶蒜”？
6. 须龟 – 我们给这只长着好多胡须的乌龟起一个名字,你看哪个更好？1. “须龟”
还是 2. “龟须”？
7. 角猴 – 我们给这只头上长着角的猴子起个名字，看哪个更好？1. “角猴”还
是 2. “猴角”？
8. 轮床 – 我们给有轮子的床起个名字，你看哪个更好？1.“床轮”还是 2.“轮
床”？
9. 篮草 – 我们给放在篮子里的草起个名字，你看哪个更好？1.“草篮”还是 2.
“篮草”？
10. 袋猫 – 我们给身上长口袋的猫起一个名字,你看哪个更好？1.“袋猫”还是 2.
“猫袋”？
11. 鼠耳 – 我们给老鼠的耳朵起一个名字,你看哪个更好？1. “耳鼠”还是 2.
“鼠耳”？
12. 毛蛙 – 我们给全身长毛的青蛙起一个名字,你看哪个更好？1.“毛蛙”还是 2.
“蛙毛”？
103
Appendix D
Compound Analogy Task
Practice Items
A. “如果有个盒子, 是用来装饭的, 我们就叫它饭盒. 如果有个袋子, 是用来装
我们什么?” [饭袋]
B. “头很胖的鱼我们叫胖头鱼，那么头很胖的鸭我们叫它什么？” [胖头鸭]
Test Items
1. 有一种鹿，脖子很长，我们叫它长颈鹿，那么有一种大象，脖子也很长，我们
叫它什么？ [长颈象]
2. 戴在手上的表我们叫手表，那么戴在脚上的表我们可以叫它什么？[脚表]
3. 有一种鹰，头长得像猫，我们叫它猫头鹰；那么另外一种鹰，头长得像狗，我
们叫它什么？[狗头鹰]
4. 长在树上的叶子我们叫树叶，那么长在树上的瓜我们叫它什么？[树瓜]
5. 往马路上洒清水的车我们叫洒水车，往马路上洒鲜花的车我们叫什么？[洒花
车]
6. 可以用来插花的瓶子我们叫花瓶，那么可以用来插花的锅我们叫它什么？[花
锅]
7. 有一种鸟，用嘴啄大树，给大树治病，我们叫啄木鸟，那么有一种虫，也用嘴
啄大树，给大树治病，我们叫它什么？[啄木虫]
8. 放在台子上的灯我们叫台灯，放在椅子上的灯我们叫它什么？ [椅灯]
9. 装在自行车前面用来放东西的小筐我们叫车筐，那么装在自行车前面用来放东
西的小桶我们可以叫它什么？[车桶]
10. 有一种家用电器，可以用来把衣服洗干净，我们叫它洗衣机，那另外一种家用
电器，可以用来把鞋子洗干净，我们叫它什么？[洗鞋机]
11. 有一种葵花，向着太阳生长，我们叫它向日葵，那么另外一种葵花，背着太阳
生长，我们叫它什么？[背日葵]
104
12. 用动物的皮做的鞋我们叫皮鞋，用动物的毛做的鞋我们叫什么？[毛鞋]
13. 有一种炮，可以向高处发射炮弹，我们叫高射炮，那么另外一种炮，可以向低
处发射炮弹，我们叫它什么？ [低射炮]
14. 有一种橡皮圈, 在水里遇到危险时用来救命, 我们叫救生圈，那么有一种橡皮
球, 在水里遇到危险时也用来救命, 我们叫它什么呢？[救生球]
15. 有一种车站，可以给车添加汽油，我们叫做加油站； 那么另外一种车站，可
以给车添加清水，我们叫它什么？[加水站]
105
Appendix E
Chinese Receptive Vocabulary (Sample Items)
Practice Items
A B
C D
106
Test Items
第 3题 第 10题
第 19题 第 28题
107
Appendix F
Chinese Picture Naming (Sample Items)
001[太阳] 002 [眼睛]
035 [水桶] 036 [萝卜]
107 [帐幕] 108 [弓]
108
Appendix G
Chinese Reading Comprehension (Sample Items)
Practice Items
练习 1
这是羊。
1 2 3 4 5
练习 2
我们坐马车出去玩。
1 2 3 4 5
练习 3
那个小女孩在房子前面玩球。
1 2 3 4 5
109
Test Items
第 1题
他在吃饭。
1 2 3 4 5
第 10题
两个孩子去上学。
1 2 3 4 5
第 21题
马路对面推着婴儿车的妇女在跟警察讲话。
1 2 3 4 5
第 34题
两位先生走在街上，一个雪球从后面飞过来。
1 2 3 4 5
110
Appendix H
Syllable and Phoneme Deletion Task (Chinese)
Practice Items
A. 我说火车， 现在不说出火，还剩______ (车).
B. 我说 牙书鱼， 现在不说出书， 还剩______ (牙鱼).
C. 我说 kan4 (看), 现在不说出 /k/, 还剩_______; an4 (按)
D. 我说 gin3, 现在不说出 /g/, 还剩_______; (y)in3 (引)
Test Items
1. 我说工作, 现在不说出作, 还剩________; （工）
2. 我说下不更, 现在不说出下, 还剩________; （不更）
3. 我说捶苦, 现在不说出苦, 还剩________; （捶）
4. 我说悬士约，现在不说出约, 还剩________; （悬士）
5. 我说 gi1 biang4 ten2, 现在不说出 biang4, 还剩_______; (gi1 ten2)
6. 我说面包, 现在不说出面, 还剩________; （包）
7. 我说 rei3 cin1 due4, 现在不说出 due4, 还剩_______; (rei3 cin1)
8. 我说麦当劳, 现在不说出当, 还剩________; （麦劳）
9. 我说西红柿, 现在不说出西, 还剩________; （红柿）
10. 我说 fao3 biu2, 现在不说出 biu2, 还剩_______; (fao3)
11. 我说熏孔, 现在不说出熏, 还剩________;（孔）
12. 我说 kie4 pun1, 现在不说出 kie4, 还剩________; （pun1）
13. 我说 bie1 (憋), 现在不说出 /b/, 还剩_______; ye1 (噎)
14. 我说 fang2 (房), 现在不说出/f/, 还剩______; ang2 (昂)
15. 我说 len1, 现在不说出 /l/, 还剩______; en1 (恩)
16. 我说 duo3 (躲), 现在不说出/d/,还剩______; wo3 (我)
17. 我说 tou3, 现在不说出 /t/, 还剩______; ou3 (藕)
18. 我说 ha1, 现在不说出/h/,还剩______; a1 (啊)
19. 我说 fai3, 现在不说出 /f/, 还剩______; ai3 (矮)
20. 我说 se4 (色), 现在不说出 /s/, 还剩_______; e4 (饿)
21. 我说 mun2, 现在不说出/m/, 还剩______; (w)un2 (文)
22. 我说 piao4 (票), 现在不说出 /p/, 还剩______; yao4 (要)
23. 我说 zhuai4 (拽), 现在不说出 /zh/, 还剩______; wai4 (外)
24. 我说 nui2, 现在不说出 /n/, 还剩______; (w)ui2 (为)
111
Appendix I
Chinese Character Reading
Test Items
1 三 山 月 木 日 女 右 白 米
2 水 几 门 十 鸟 四 立 豆 长
3 天 火 刀 瓜 石 王 耳 果 去
4 小 风 鱼 羊 土 九 目 虫 爸
5 口 田 马 牛 车 人 禾 龙 好
6 狗 北 放 燕 啦 呼 建 官 尊
7 老 红 习 苦 低 仔 越 滑 顺
8 画 来 再 打 结 蝴 摆 昨 尔
9 海 同 背 旗 亭 故 严 绝 供
10 伞 吹 处 热 重 食 换 随 庙
11 述 搂 狭 烫 苔 膛 擒 歹 硕
12 拳 扒 杜 绊 狈 盗 蹑 慰 酬
13 续 伦 瞎 媳 俄 蒲 蜷 妥 殷
14 搏 况 临 僻 黝 惨 忐 钦 赫
15 势 寞 贡 浙 歼 荆 昙 雇 儒
112
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