Early development and predictors of morphological awareness: disentangling the impact of decoding skills and phonological awareness

Background: Morphological Awareness (MA) has been demonstrated to be influential on the reading outcomes of children and adults. Yet, little is known regarding MA's early development. Aim: The aim of this study is to better understand MA at different stages of development and its association with Phonological Awareness (PA) and reading. Methods and Procedures: In a longitudinal design the development of MA was explored in a group of pre-reading children with a family risk of dyslexia and agematched controls from kindergarten up to and including grade 2. Outcomes and Results: MA deficits were observed in the group with literacy difficulties at all time points. PA was only found to make a significant contribution to MA development at the early stages of formal reading instruction. While first-grade decoding skills were found to contribute significantly to MA in second grade. Conclusions: Evidence supporting a bidirectional relation was found and supports the need for adequate MA intervention and explicit instruction for “at risk” children in the early stages of literacy instruction.status: publishe