The Relationship between Derivational Morphological Awareness and Reading Comprehension of Iranian EFL Learner’s Speaking

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between derivational morphological awareness and reading comprehension of Iranian learner’s speaking .The research sample included ۸۷ students (۳۹ females and ۴۸ males) from ۳ schools (Shahriar, Rahnama and Arvand) in Ahvaz , Iran who were assessed in both fourth and fifth grade (۳۵ students from School Shahriar, ۱۳ students from school Rahnama and ۳۹ students from School Arvand). The median age of participants was ۹ years; ۹ months in fourth grade and ۱۰ years; ۹ months in fifth grade. They were instructed in both Iranian and English for a portion of each day, with increasing amounts of English instruction with each grade level.Students’ ability to decompose derived words while reading was assessed using an experimental task .Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the contribution of performance on this task to reading comprehension above and beyond word reading skills, phonological awareness, and breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Prior to examining the relationship between derivational morphological awareness and reading comprehension, descriptive statistics and simple correlations were estimated to determine the levels of predictors and outcomes and to examine morphological awareness in relation to other language and literacy skills. Additionally, a set of one-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine whether there were significant differences between the three participating schools on each of the measures administered.The findings were robust across two measures of reading comprehension and two methods of scoring the experimental task of morphological awareness, and thus support the inclusion of derivational morphology in a model of the English reading comprehension of Iranian learner’s speaking . This implies that this study highlights the need for instructional research into whether teaching morphological awareness to ELLs can serve to broaden their vocabularies and improve their reading comprehension performance.

Keywords:

English language learners(ELLs) , Derivational Morphological Awareness , Reading Comprehension , Descriptive Statistics , one-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA)