{"title":"Morphological density and reading comprehension in Hebrew novice readers","authors":"Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum","doi":"10.1007/s11145-024-10526-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Hebrew allows the representation of the meaning of a few words in one dense form by using bound morphemes that linearly attach to the word. By manipulating words’ density in text, that is, decomposing them into isolated words which changes the length of the text, it was possible to check the impact of density on reading comprehension in novice readers. Each of the 292 s graders from a low SES background, of whom 79 were struggling readers (poor decoders) and the rest were typical readers, were tested in two reading comprehension tests: dense and decomposed. They also were tested in other literacy measures (word recognition, decoding, morphological awareness, vocabulary, and spelling) to learn about their reading proficiency and awareness of morphemes. The results showed a significant interaction between text type and reading ability group, while controlling for vocabulary, indicating that text density levels had varying effects on reading performance in each reading ability group. This interaction manifested as typical readers benefiting more from decomposed texts, evidenced by improved comprehension scores for these texts compared to dense texts. In contrast, struggling readers’ comprehension scores did not significantly differ between the two text types, suggesting that text density did not influence their reading performance to the same extent. Furthermore, typical readers exhibited better performance across all literacy measures, including morphological awareness. Findings suggest that a certain level of phonological decoding and morphological awareness are needed to benefit from decomposed texts. Morphological density adds another layer of difficulty for novice readers, who need to unfold the word’s structure and reveal the full meaning – a process that is assumed to be cognitively complex. They also highlight the importance of morpheme awareness in dense, morphologically complex languages like Hebrew at an early age.</p>","PeriodicalId":48204,"journal":{"name":"Reading and Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Reading and Writing","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10526-7","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Hebrew allows the representation of the meaning of a few words in one dense form by using bound morphemes that linearly attach to the word. By manipulating words’ density in text, that is, decomposing them into isolated words which changes the length of the text, it was possible to check the impact of density on reading comprehension in novice readers. Each of the 292 s graders from a low SES background, of whom 79 were struggling readers (poor decoders) and the rest were typical readers, were tested in two reading comprehension tests: dense and decomposed. They also were tested in other literacy measures (word recognition, decoding, morphological awareness, vocabulary, and spelling) to learn about their reading proficiency and awareness of morphemes. The results showed a significant interaction between text type and reading ability group, while controlling for vocabulary, indicating that text density levels had varying effects on reading performance in each reading ability group. This interaction manifested as typical readers benefiting more from decomposed texts, evidenced by improved comprehension scores for these texts compared to dense texts. In contrast, struggling readers’ comprehension scores did not significantly differ between the two text types, suggesting that text density did not influence their reading performance to the same extent. Furthermore, typical readers exhibited better performance across all literacy measures, including morphological awareness. Findings suggest that a certain level of phonological decoding and morphological awareness are needed to benefit from decomposed texts. Morphological density adds another layer of difficulty for novice readers, who need to unfold the word’s structure and reveal the full meaning – a process that is assumed to be cognitively complex. They also highlight the importance of morpheme awareness in dense, morphologically complex languages like Hebrew at an early age.
期刊介绍：
Reading and writing skills are fundamental to literacy. Consequently, the processes involved in reading and writing and the failure to acquire these skills, as well as the loss of once well-developed reading and writing abilities have been the targets of intense research activity involving professionals from a variety of disciplines, such as neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and education. The findings that have emanated from this research are most often written up in a lingua that is specific to the particular discipline involved, and are published in specialized journals. This generally leaves the expert in one area almost totally unaware of what may be taking place in any area other than their own. Reading and Writing cuts through this fog of jargon, breaking down the artificial boundaries between disciplines. The journal focuses on the interaction among various fields, such as linguistics, information processing, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, speech and hearing science and education. Reading and Writing publishes high-quality, scientific articles pertaining to the processes, acquisition, and loss of reading and writing skills. The journal fully represents the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of research in the field, focusing on the interaction among various disciplines, such as linguistics, information processing, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, speech and hearing science and education. Coverage in Reading and Writing includes models of reading, writing and spelling at all age levels; orthography and its relation to reading and writing; computer literacy; cross-cultural studies; and developmental and acquired disorders of reading and writing. It publishes research articles, critical reviews, theoretical papers, and case studies. Reading and Writing is one of the most highly cited journals in Education, Educational Research, and Educational Psychology.
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