The effects of explicit morphological analysis instruction in early elementary Spanish speakers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of implicit and explicit morphological analysis instruction in Spanish, a language characterized by high morphological complexity and relatively consistent letter–sound correspondences. For 3 days, 94 Grade 3 Spanish monolingual students (43 girls; M_age = 8.9 years) were trained on target words containing experimenter-designed suffixes consistent in form and meaning (e.g., the suffix -isba refers to a factory in words such as “botisba” [a boot factory] and “cajisba” [a box factory]). Explicit and implicit instruction differed in the attention given to the co-occurrence of the suffixes in the target words. One day (immediate posttest) and 1 week (delayed posttest) after training concluded, participants were tested on their learning of the suffixes’ form using a suffix identification task and meaning using a word definition and a multiple-choice task. Results of mixed-effects models showed that explicit instruction yielded better results for the learning of the form of the suffixes. Regarding meaning, across-condition differences were detected only in the word definition task; explicit instruction produced better results for both trained and transfer words. We discuss our findings in the context of the grain-size unit theory and examine the interplay between the language’s orthographic and morphological characteristics, considering their impact on classroom instruction.