Universität zu Köln

Goergen, Ruth, De Simone, Elisabetta ORCID: 0000-0002-9737-7626, Schulte-Koerne, Gerd and Moll, Kristina (2021). Predictors of reading and spelling skills in German: The role of morphological awareness. J. Res. Read., 44 (1). S. 210 - 228. HOBOKEN: WILEY. ISSN 1467-9817

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Abstract

Background: The role of morphological awareness for literacy development is non-controversial, but it is likely to depend on the characteristics of a specific orthography. Previous studies analysing the role of morphological awareness are mainly based on English samples; thus, it is unclear how generalisable these results are. In the current study, we evaluated the predictive pattern of morphological awareness on reading and spelling in German, which is characterised by high consistency between morphology and orthography. While many words cannot be spelled correctly by relying on phoneme-grapheme mappings, morphological awareness can be reliably used to infer the correct spelling for many words. In contrast, morphological awareness seems less important for reading in German given the high consistency of grapheme-phoneme mappings. Therefore, we hypothesised that the predictive pattern of morphological awareness for spelling is higher than for reading due to the structure of German orthography. In addition, we examined whether the association between morphological awareness and spelling reflects specific awareness about morphemic units or rather general knowledge about frequent and permissible letter sequences in words. Method: We developed web-based tasks that allowed us to assess morphological awareness using pseudowords. Based on the data of 3,122 third and fourth graders, we analysed the predictive pattern of morphological awareness on reading and spelling after controlling for non-verbal cognitive abilities, age/grade, phoneme awareness and sublexical orthographic sensitivity. Results: We found that morphological awareness accounted for significant amounts of unique variance over and above sublexical orthographic sensitivity in both literacy measures but was a better predictor for spelling than for reading. Conclusions: The role of morphological awareness depends on the structure of a given orthography. In German, this is reflected by differences in the predictive pattern between reading and spelling skills. Furthermore, results support the specific role of morphological awareness for spelling in the German orthography.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Goergen, Ruth UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED De Simone, Elisabetta UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-9737-7626 UNSPECIFIED Schulte-Koerne, Gerd UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Moll, Kristina UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-575111
DOI:	10.1111/1467-9817.12343
Journal or Publication Title:	J. Res. Read.
Volume:	44
Number:	1
Page Range:	S. 210 - 228
Date:	2021
Publisher:	WILEY
Place of Publication:	HOBOKEN
ISSN:	1467-9817
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language VOCABULARY ACQUISITION; LITERACY ACHIEVEMENT; WORD RECOGNITION; CHILDREN; COMPREHENSION; METAANALYSIS; CONSISTENCY; KNOWLEDGE; MORPHEMES; READERS Multiple languages Education & Educational Research; Psychology, Educational Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/57511