Morphological knowledge and learning new words

Abstract

Assuming that children’s vocabulary is crucial to their ability to communicate and their comprehension of written text and thus to their general academic achievement, this study aimed to investigate one of the cognitive factors that might affect children’s vocabulary learning – namely, morphological awareness. The authors think that this knowledge can guide researchers and teachers in the development of methods to promote children’s vocabulary growth. This study showed that morphological awareness contributes to children’s ability to remember novel, word-like stimuli, above and beyond the contribution of children’s phonological skills. This investigation brings a new result that demonstrates that children’s awareness of morphemes might influence more than their mastery of orthography and thus adds to the good reasons already known to nurture children’s awareness of morphemes in school.