Assessing the efficacy of Morphological Analysis Intervention (MAI) with 4th class EAL pupils experiencing language and reading difficulties

Christina Hannify; Marie Raftery

Authors

Christina Hannify National Council for Special Education
Marie Raftery

Keywords:

Morphology, Morphological analysis, L1 (first language), L2 (second language), EAL (English as an additional language), LMY (Language Minority Youth), ELL (English Language Learner), affixes, root words, cognates

Abstract

This study investigated the efficacy of a morphological analysis intervention (MAI) as a pedagogical approach for pupils learning English as an additional language (EAL) who were also experiencing language and reading difficulties. Participants were 4^th class EAL pupils (n=12), age range 9y 7m - 11y 3m, attending a large, urban, DEIS Band 2 school. Participants, equal in terms of the number of boys and girls involved, were randomly assigned to either the intervention (n=8) or comparison condition (n=4). The intervention group received MAI over a six-week period, while the comparison group received their typical guided reading instruction. Performance gains on measures of language and literacy were compared between intervention and comparison groups to evaluate the impact of MAI. Analysis of findings suggest that MAI has a positive impact on pupils’ motivation and engagement during guided reading. Although academic gains on norm-referenced assessments were not found to be statistically significant, intervention participants performed better overall on norm-referenced and researcher-designed measures of vocabulary, word-level reading accuracy, reading comprehension and spelling than comparison-group participants.

References

Abbott, R. D., & Berninger, V. W. (1993). Structural equation modelling of relationships among developmental skills and writing skills in primary and intermediate grade writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(3), 478-508.

Anglin, J. M. (1993). Vocabulary Development: A Morphological Analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58(10), 1-166.

Apel, K., & Lawrence, J. (2011). Contributions of morphological awareness skills to word-level reading and spelling in first-grade children with and without speech sound disorder. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 54(5), 1312-27.

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2010). Response to a review and update on developing literacy in second language learners: Report of the national literacy panel on language minority children and youth. Journal of Literacy Research, 42, 341-348.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E. M., Olejnik, S. F., & Kame’enui, E. J. (2003). Vocabulary tricks: Effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth-grade students’ ability to derive and infer word meanings. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 447-494.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Font, G., Tereshinski, C. A., Kame’enui, E. J., & Olejnik, S. (2002). Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth grade students. Reading Research Quarterly, 37, 150-176.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Language and Cognition, 12(1), 3-11.

Birgisdottir, F., Nunes, T., Pretzlik, U., Burman, D., Gardner, S., & Bell, D. (2006). An intervention program for teaching children about morphemes in the classroom: Effects on spelling. In T. Nunes & P. Bryant (Eds.), Improving literacy by teaching morphemes (pp. 104-120). London: Routledge.

Blachowicz, C., & Fisher, P. J. (2002). Teaching vocabulary in all classrooms (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Bowers, P. N., & Kirby, J. R. (2010). Effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23, 515-537.

Bratlie, S, Brinchmann, E. I., Melby-Lervåg, M., & Torkildsen, J. V. K. (2022). Morphology- A Gateway to Advanced Language: Meta-Analysis of Morphological Knowledge in Language-Minority Children. Review of Educational Research, 92(4), 614–650.

Brown, R.W. (1973). A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Carlisle, J. F. (2010). Effects of Instruction in Morphological Awareness on Literacy Achievement: An Integrative Review. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(4), 464–487.

Carlisle, J. F., & Fleming, J. (2003). Lexical processing of morphologically complex words in the elementary years. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7(3), 239-253.

Carlisle J. F., & Stone C. A. (2005). Exploring the role of morphemes in word reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 428–449.

Central Statistics Office (CSO). (2017). Summary Results. Part 1. Dublin, Ireland: Stationery Office.

Cheung, A. C. K., & Slavin, R. E. (2013). The Effectiveness of Educational Technology Applications for Enhancing Mathematics Achievement in K-12 Classrooms: A Meta-Analysis. Educational Research Review, 9, 88-113.

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2011). Research Methods in Education (7th ed.). London: Routledge.

Deacon, S. H., & Kirby, J. R. (2004). Morphological awareness: Just "more phonological"? The roles of morphological and phonological awareness in reading development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25(2), 223-238.

Elleman, A. M., Lindo, E. J., Morphy, P., & Compton, D. L. (2009). The impact of vocabulary instruction on passage-level comprehension of school-aged children: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(1), 1–44.

Frisson, S., & Sandra, D. (2002). Homophonic Forms of Regularly Inflected Verbs Have Their Own Orthographic Representations: A Developmental Perspective on Spelling Errors. Brain and language, 81, 545-54.

Garcia, G. E. (1995). Improving the English reading of Mexican-American bilingual students through the use of cognate recognition strategies. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, Charlestown, SC.

Goodwin, A. P. (2015). Effectiveness of word solving: Integrating morphological problem- solving within comprehension instruction for middle school students. Read Write, 29, 91-116.

Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2010). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties. Annals of Dyslexia, 60, 183-208.

Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2013). A Meta-Analysis of Morphological Interventions in English: Effects on Literacy Outcomes for School-Age Children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(4), 257-285. DOI: 10.1080/10888438.2012.689791

Graves, M. F. (2000). A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle grade comprehension program. In B. M. Taylor, M. F. Graves, & P. van der Broek (Eds), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades (pp. 116-135).

Kelley, A., & Kohnert, K. (2012). Is there a cognate advantage for Spanish-speaking ELLs? Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 43(2), 191-204.

Kelman, M. E., & Apel, K. (2004). Effects of a Multiple Linguistic and Prescriptive Approach to Spelling Instruction: A Case Study. Communications Disorders Quarterly, 25(2), 56-66.

Kieffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. K. (2008). The role of derivational morphology in the reading comprehension of Spanish-speaking English language learners. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21(8), 783-804.

Kirby, J. R., Deacon, S. H., Bowers, P. N., Izenberg, L., Wade-Woolley, L., & Parrila, R. (2012). Child's morphological awareness and reading ability. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25, 389–410.

Krenca, K., Hipfner-Boucher, K., & Chen, X. (2020). Grammatical gender-marking ability of multilingual children in French immersion. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(5–6), 968–983.

Marulis, L. M., & Neuman, S. B. (2010). The effects of vocabulary intervention on young children’s word learning: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 80(3), 300–335.

Nagy, W. E. (2007). Metalinguistic awareness and the vocabulary-comprehension connection. In R. Wagner, A. Muse, & K. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension (pp. 53–77). New York: Guilford Press.

Nagy, W. E., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). How Many Words are There in Printed School English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19(3), 304-330.

Nagy, W. E., Berninger, V. W., & Abbott, R. D. (2006). Contribution of morphology beyond phonology to literacy outcomes of upper elementary and middle-school students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 134-147.

Nagy, W. E., & Townsend, D. (2012). “Response to Krashen”. Reading Research Quarterly 47(3), 234–234.

National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. (2015). Primary Language Curriculum. Dublin: NCCA.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

OECD. (2006). Where Immigrant Students Succeed - A Comparative Review of Performance and Engagement in PISA 2003. Paris: OECD.

O’Grady, W., Dobrovolsky, M., & Aronoff, M. (1989) Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Orosco, M. J., & O’Connor, R. (2011). Culturally Responsive Instruction for English Language Learners With Learning Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47(6), 515–531.

Pacheco, M. B., & Goodwin, A. P. (2013). Putting Two and Two Together: Middle school students’ morphological problem-solving strategies for unknown words. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, (56)7, 541-553.

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (2nd ed). London: Sage.

Reed, D. R. (2008). A synthesis of morphology interventions and effects on reading outcomes for students in grades K-12. Learning disabilities Research and practice, 23(1), 36-49.

Robson, C. (2011). Real world research: a resource for users of social research methods in applied settings (3rd ed.). Chichester: Wiley.

Rogde, K., Hagen, Å. M., Melby-Lervåg, M., & Lervåg, A. (2019). The effect of linguistic comprehension instruction on generalized language and reading comprehension skills: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 15(4), e1059.

. Saddiqa, A. (2018). The Role of Pashto (as L1) and Urdu (as L2) in English Language Learning. Linguistics and Literature Review, 4, 1-17, 10.29145/2018/llr/040101.

Singleton, D., Smyth, S., & Debaene, E. (2009). “Second language Acquisition and native language maintenance in the Polish diaspora in Ireland and France” and “Our languages: who in Ireland speaks and understands Russian?” The rationale, structure and aims of two Dublin-based research projects. In Współczesne migracje: Dylematy Europy i Polski (pp. 196-220). Warsaw: Centre for Migration Research, University of Warsaw.

Smyth, E., Darmody, M., McGinnity, F., & Byrne, D. (2009). Adapting to diversity: Irish schools and newcomer students. Research Series 8. Dublin: ESRI.

Tong, X., Deacon, S. H., Kirby, J., Cain, K., & Parrila, R. (2011). Morphological awareness: A key to understanding poor reading comprehension in English. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103, 523–534. doi:10.1037/a0023495

Vender, M., Hu, S., Mantione, F., Savazzi, S., Delfitto, D., & Melloni, C. (2018). Inflectional morphology: Evidence for an advantage of bilingualism in dyslexia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(2), 155–172.

White, T. G., Power, M. A., & White, S. (1989). Morphological Analysis: Implications for Teaching and Understanding Vocabulary Growth. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(3), 283-304.

Wolter, J. A., & Apel, K. (2010). Initial acquisition of mental graphemic representations in children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 179-195.

Wolter, J. A., & Dilworth, V. (2013). The effects of a multilingual morphological awareness approach for improving language and literacy. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47(1), 76-85.

Wysocki, K., & Jenkins, J. R. (1987). Deriving Word Meanings through Morphological Generalization. Reading research Quarterly, 22(1), 66-81.

Zhang, D. (2016). Morphology in Malay-English biliteracy acquisition: an intervention study. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 5, 546-562.

Zhang, D., & Koda, K. (2013). Morphological Awareness and Reading Comprehension in a

Foreign Language: A Study of Young Chinese EFL Learners. System, 41, 901-913.

Assessing the efficacy of Morphological Analysis Intervention (MAI) with 4th class EAL pupils experiencing language and reading difficulties

Authors

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Information

Make a Submission