Poor comprehenders in English‐only and English language learners: influence of morphological analysis during incidental word learning
Abstract
This study investigated whether weakness in using morphological analysis to infer new word meanings during reading is a source of poor text comprehension and the relative importance of psycholinguistic and cognitive factors as contributors of poor text comprehension in English‐only and English language learners. Thirty‐seven poor comprehenders and 44 typical readers in fourth and fifth grades in the United States were identified. Students were assessed on incidental word learning, vocabulary, morphological awareness, working memory and short‐term memory. Results showed that poor comprehenders were less able to use morphological analysis to interpret unfamiliar words while reading after controlling for vocabulary and morphological awareness. Vocabulary, morphological awareness and incidental word learning better discriminated the membership of poor comprehenders versus typical readers than working memory and short‐term memory in both English‐only and English language learners. The findings underscore the importance of lexical inferencing skills in reading comprehension regardless of language group. What is already known about this topic Poor comprehenders have weaknesses in oral language and working memory. Poor comprehenders have difficulties in some aspects of morphological awareness. What this paper adds Poor comprehenders are less able to use morphological analysis to interpret unfamiliar words while reading compared with typical readers. Poor comprehenders display weaknes…
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Morphological and contextual inferencing have both been found to be related to decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills.
“Morphological and contextual inferencing have largely been investigated separately in the literature on reading development, and both have been found to be related to decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills (e.g., Cain, Oakhill, & Elbro, 2003;McCutchen & Logan, 2011;Zhang & Shulley, 2017).”
From Use of morphological and contextual cues in children’s lexical inferencing in L1 and L2 (2021) · cites this paper as Zhang & Shulley, 2017
Children with good reading comprehension skills were better at morphological inferencing than children with poorer reading comprehension.
“Our results also show that children with good reading comprehension skills were better at morphological inferencing than children with poorer reading comprehension, in line with earlier research (McCutchen & Logan, 2011;Zhang & Shulley, 2017).”
From Use of morphological and contextual cues in children’s lexical inferencing in L1 and L2 (2021) · cites this paper as Zhang & Shulley, 2017
Cites
Nagy, W. E., Herman, P. A., & Anderson, R. C. (1985) · Reading Research Quarterly · doi:10.2307/747758 · Cited by 1,249 · see citing works
McCutchen, D., & Logan, B. (2011) · Reading Research Quarterly · doi:10.1002/rrq.003 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
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Use of morphological and contextual cues in children’s lexical inferencing in L1 and L2
Raudszus, H., Segers, E., & Verhoeven, L. (2021) · Reading and Writing · doi:10.1007/s11145-021-10122-z · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Our results also show that children with good reading comprehension skills were better at morphological inferencing than children with poorer reading comprehension, in line with earlier research (McCutchen & Logan, 2011; Zhang & Shulley, 2017).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluential
- Authors
- Zhang, J., & Shulley, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Houston (US)
- Western Kentucky University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Zhang, Jie
- ORCID
- Zhang, Jie
- Venue
- Journal of Research in Reading
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-01-26
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 169-183
- ISSN
- 0141-0423 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9817
- OpenAlex
- W2581984436
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 2.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Research in Reading (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- poor comprehenders, reading comprehension, morphological awareness, incidental vocabulary learning, lexical inferencing, English language learners, vocabulary, working memory, short-term memory, morphological analysis, morphological structure, morphological relations, second language learners
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