The Effect Of English Morphological Awareness On Word Reading

The present study investigated the effect and dynamic development of English morphological awareness on Chinese adolescents’ English word level reading ability by cross sectional method. Morphological awareness was assessed from three levels in the present study:discrimination, identification, and manipulation abilities, respectively. The predictive power of morphological awareness on word reading was also taken into consideration. A sample of128teenagers from three grades participated in a battery of tests including three sorts of morphological awareness tests, a nonverbal intelligence test, and a word level reading test. The new measures had satisfactory reliabilities. Results indicated that the morphological manipulation ability is the most powerful predictor on English word reading controlling the effects of nonverbal ability, while the predictive effect of morphological discrimination ability emerges in the Senior2, and morphological identification ability doesn’t contribute to word reading. Furthermore, students’ morphological awareness develops with grade level and age but its contribution to word reading declines slightly with growth of grades, which is discrepant from monolingual English learners. The conclusion is drawn that morphological awareness plays an important role in word level reading among Chinese teenagers, and it is necessary to assess and instruct morphological awareness more frequently in English classes.