TY - JOUR
T1 - Middle School Learners' Use of Latin Roots to Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words
AU - Crosson, Amy C.
AU - McKeown, Margaret G.
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the Institute for Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education for its support of the research described in this article (Award R305A100440). The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2016/4/2
Y1 - 2016/4/2
N2 - ABSTRACT: This study investigated how middle school students leverage information about bound Latin roots (e.g., voc in advocate and vociferous) to infer meanings of unfamiliar words, and how instruction may facilitate morphological analysis using roots. A dynamic assessment of morphological analysis was administered to 29 sixth graders (n = 17 intervention students) and 30 seventh graders (n = 18 intervention students). Qualitative analyses of analytic strategies revealed patterns of morphological problem solving that included direct (i.e., direct application of roots to analyze unfamiliar words) and indirect routes (i.e., use of known words that carry the roots to analyze unfamiliar words). Intervention students applied a direct route at higher rates than control students. Correlational analyses revealed a small but significant treatment effect on establishing meaning memory representations for roots and a significant, positive treatment effect for use of roots to infer unfamiliar word meanings. Overall results show promise for use of bound Latin roots for morphological problem solving.
AB - ABSTRACT: This study investigated how middle school students leverage information about bound Latin roots (e.g., voc in advocate and vociferous) to infer meanings of unfamiliar words, and how instruction may facilitate morphological analysis using roots. A dynamic assessment of morphological analysis was administered to 29 sixth graders (n = 17 intervention students) and 30 seventh graders (n = 18 intervention students). Qualitative analyses of analytic strategies revealed patterns of morphological problem solving that included direct (i.e., direct application of roots to analyze unfamiliar words) and indirect routes (i.e., use of known words that carry the roots to analyze unfamiliar words). Intervention students applied a direct route at higher rates than control students. Correlational analyses revealed a small but significant treatment effect on establishing meaning memory representations for roots and a significant, positive treatment effect for use of roots to infer unfamiliar word meanings. Overall results show promise for use of bound Latin roots for morphological problem solving.
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U2 - 10.1080/07370008.2016.1145121
DO - 10.1080/07370008.2016.1145121
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84961242705
SN - 0737-0008
VL - 34
SP - 148
EP - 171
JO - Cognition and Instruction
JF - Cognition and Instruction
IS - 2
ER -