TY - JOUR
T1 - The Curious Role of Morphological Family Size in Language Minority Learners’ Problem Solving of Unfamiliar Words
AU - Crosson, Amy C.
AU - Lei, Pui Wa
AU - Cheng, Weiyi
AU - McKeown, Margaret G.
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the Spencer Foundation (Grant 201400167 awarded to Amy Crosson) and Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education (Grant R305A160401 awarded to Penn State University). The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the funders, and no official endorsement should be inferred. We are grateful to Matthew Carlson of the Center for Language Science, Penn State, and to two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that contributed to this manuscript. Many thanks to David Medler in the Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, for generously providing access to the MCWord database.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Institute for Education Sciences [Award R305A160401]; Spencer Foundation [Award #201400167]. We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the Spencer Foundation (Grant 201400167 awarded to Amy Crosson) and Institute of Education Sciences, ?U.S. Department of Education?(Grant R305A160401 awarded to Penn State University). The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the funders, and no official endorsement should be inferred. We are grateful to Matthew Carlson of the Center for Language Science, Penn State, and to two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that contributed to this manuscript. Many thanks to David Medler in the Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, for generously providing access to the MCWord database. We are grateful to Amaya Madden for assistance with manuscript preparation. Above all, we are grateful to our school district collaborators, in particular Jonathan Covel, Debra Friss, Christine Tapu, and Mark McMahon, and participating students, without whom this work would not be possible.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - Given that words from the academic layer of English typically carry bound roots (min in diminish) rather than free-standing base words (small in smaller), there is a need to understand the factors that make bound roots more or less accessible for morphological problem-solving unfamiliar words. We investigated the contributions of learner characteristics and morpheme/word characteristics to the morphological problem-solving skill of 87 language minority learners. Participants analyzed 18 morphologically complex, unfamiliar words on a Morphological Analysis Task. Among learner characteristics, results from multilevel logistic models indicated that only English proficiency predicted difficulty. For root characteristics, semantic opaqueness, phonological shift, and orthographic neighborhood size predicted difficulty as expected. Morphological family size also predicted difficulty, but in unexpected ways, with larger family size predicting greater difficulty. Exploratory analyses suggested that family size may interact with other root characteristics to further influence difficulty. Findings hold implications for models of morphological processing and literacy intervention design.
AB - Given that words from the academic layer of English typically carry bound roots (min in diminish) rather than free-standing base words (small in smaller), there is a need to understand the factors that make bound roots more or less accessible for morphological problem-solving unfamiliar words. We investigated the contributions of learner characteristics and morpheme/word characteristics to the morphological problem-solving skill of 87 language minority learners. Participants analyzed 18 morphologically complex, unfamiliar words on a Morphological Analysis Task. Among learner characteristics, results from multilevel logistic models indicated that only English proficiency predicted difficulty. For root characteristics, semantic opaqueness, phonological shift, and orthographic neighborhood size predicted difficulty as expected. Morphological family size also predicted difficulty, but in unexpected ways, with larger family size predicting greater difficulty. Exploratory analyses suggested that family size may interact with other root characteristics to further influence difficulty. Findings hold implications for models of morphological processing and literacy intervention design.
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U2 - 10.1080/10888438.2019.1701475
DO - 10.1080/10888438.2019.1701475
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85076955082
SN - 1088-8438
VL - 24
SP - 445
EP - 461
JO - Scientific Studies of Reading
JF - Scientific Studies of Reading
IS - 6
ER -