The relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension among Chinese children: evidence from multiple mediation models

Publication date: May 2019Source: Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 72Author(s): Ying Zhao, Xinchun Wu, Peng Sun, Ruibo Xie, Jie Feng, Hongjun ChenAbstract124 Chinese children were tested on a battery of tests at four time points from the grades 1 to 3 (times 1–4) to investigate the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension. Non-verbal intelligence, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) were controlled for in the analyses. The results indicated that T1 morphological awareness contributed to T4 reading comprehension through T2 character recognition and T3 reading fluency, while the chain mediation effect of T2 vocabulary knowledge and T3 reading fluency was not significant. These findings suggest that morphological awareness significantly predicted reading comprehension via character recognition and reading fluency longitudinally. Specifically, the findings highlight the importance of character recognition rather than vocabulary knowledge in young Chinese students' reading development.
Source: Learning and Individual Differences - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research