TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of morphological awareness in word reading skills in Japanese
T2 - a within-language cross-orthographic perspective
AU - Muroya, Naoko
AU - Inoue, Tomohiro
AU - Hosokawa, Miyuki
AU - Georgiou, George K.
AU - Maekawa, Hisao
AU - Parrila, Rauno
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - We examined the relationship between morphological awareness and word reading skills in syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. Participants were 127 Grade 1 Japanese-speaking children who were followed until Grade 2. The results showed that Grade 1 morphological awareness was uniquely and comparably associated with word reading skills in both Hiragana and Kanji in Grade 1 after controlling for nonverbal and verbal cognitive abilities, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming. The effect of Grade 1 morphological awareness on Grade 2 Kanji word recognition was slightly stronger (∆R2 = .10) than the effect on Grade 2 Hiragana reading fluency (∆R2 = .03). The findings suggest that morphological awareness plays an important role in early word reading skills across the two scripts, and with reading skill development it may become more important for mastering morphographic Kanji characters.
AB - We examined the relationship between morphological awareness and word reading skills in syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. Participants were 127 Grade 1 Japanese-speaking children who were followed until Grade 2. The results showed that Grade 1 morphological awareness was uniquely and comparably associated with word reading skills in both Hiragana and Kanji in Grade 1 after controlling for nonverbal and verbal cognitive abilities, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming. The effect of Grade 1 morphological awareness on Grade 2 Kanji word recognition was slightly stronger (∆R2 = .10) than the effect on Grade 2 Hiragana reading fluency (∆R2 = .03). The findings suggest that morphological awareness plays an important role in early word reading skills across the two scripts, and with reading skill development it may become more important for mastering morphographic Kanji characters.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020404938&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10888438.2017.1323906
DO - 10.1080/10888438.2017.1323906
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020404938
SN - 1088-8438
VL - 21
SP - 449
EP - 462
JO - Scientific Studies of Reading
JF - Scientific Studies of Reading
IS - 6
ER -