July 10th ~ All About Morphemes; SSSR findings: Orthographic Mapping; Teacher Knowledge; Results of the Survey
The Weekly Newsletter That Keeps You Informed of The Latest Reading Research
Welcome to the Reading Research Recap, a weekly newsletter featuring the latest reading research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The goal of the Recap is to share recent scientific findings and foster an appreciation of science as a way to navigate the world. I try to make this one of the most informative emails you get each week. If you enjoy this issue, please share it. I am always interested in improving the newsletter and welcome feedback.
Welcome! This is Issue No. 9
“Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated…”
~Anne Roe, The Making of a Scientist
✏️Notes
Results of the poll (and my responses) are at the bottom- thank you everyone who gave opinions!
Archives of old posts are located here. If you subscribed and aren’t getting e-mails, try checking your spam filters. If that doesn’t work go here.
I was amazed by the number of new subscribers after last week’s post! I’m guessing it was because the top two studies were highly relevant to practitioners: they both offered research-based suggestions that could be implemented immediately. However, as I stated before in earlier posts, I would view new research studies with a bit of caution- maybe something to keep on your radar but no need to “change course” (unless the new research was a very large double-blind RCT with an active control group).
Substack (the platform this newsletter is hosted on) changed their policies recently and allowed commenting on posts. I will try and respond to comments as best I can. I am also hoping that some of the reading researchers who are subscribers will chime in and answer practitioner questions! My hope in creating this platform is to allow more two-way communication between practitioners and researchers. Two of the comments on last week’s post presented neat (in my opinion) ideas for reading researchers that would have immediate practical implications for practitioners.
Here’s What The Recap Covers Today
When to teach morphological awareness
A model of reading that incorporates morphology
The difference between bound and free morphemes
Which worked better for teaching decoding of polysyllabic words: more practice with words or teaching decoding rules
📊Research
There were a flurry of recent articles about morphemes. What are Morphemes? “Morphemes are the units of meaning that that make up words, such as prefixes, roots and suffixes.” It is important to note that: “Morphological regularities in English carry meaning information even when letter–sound mappings are inconsistent. For instance, the spelling of the suffix-ed reliably denotes past tense in poured, started and dropped even though pronunciation differs (/d/, /.schwa;d/ and /t/, respectively).” Citation
Morphological Awareness Matters for All Readers
Rationale: to determine when and for whom morphological awareness matters
Sample: about 400 British English children in 3 age ranges (6-8, 9-11, 12-13)
Methods: PCA; Hierarchical Multiple Regression; Quantile Regression
Findings: morphological awareness accounted for significant unique variance in reading comprehension across all groups and ranges of reading ability
Implications: morphological skills should be taught throughout development- from the beginning stages of reading on up through adolescence; even good comprehenders can benefit from morphological awareness training
Citation: James, E., Currie, N., Tong, S., & Cain, K. (2020). The relations between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in beginner readers through to young adolescents. Journal of Research in Reading. Link
A New Model: The Morphological Pathways Framework (*full paper preprint available below*)
This isn’t an observational or experimental study. Instead, the authors draw on ample experimental evidence to show the precise mechanism by which morphology influences word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. Instead of developing an entirely new model they couch their Morphological Pathways Framework within the Reading Systems Framework. To see how they update the model, take a look at this the figure on page 35 of their pre-print. Full paper preprint here: https://osf.io/b5zc3.
Citation: Levesque, K., Breadmore, H., & Deacon, H. (2020). How morphology impacts reading and spelling: Advancing the role of morphology in models of literacy development.
All Morphemes Are Not the Same
There are different types of morphemes. Bound morphemes cannot stand alone, while “free” morphemes can. See here.
n = 80 fluently young adult readers; ANOVAs, mixed-effect analyses
Findings: “words composed of bound stem and free morphemes are processed differently suggests that such words may be learned differently, and therefore, that morphological instruction may need to differentiate across types of morphemes.”
Citation: Coch, D., Hua, J., and Landers‐Nelson, A. ( 2020) All morphemes are not the same: accuracy and response times in a lexical decision task differentiate types of morphemes. Journal of Research in Reading. Link
📖📚📉📊📈📖📚📉📈📊📉📚📚📖📉📊📈
Society for the Scientific Study of Reading’s Annual Conference
SSSR stands for the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. Each year they hold a conference. The conference is generally focused on more “basic science” (vs. applied studies) but there are some very interesting posters and talks about applied findings as well.
A few weeks before the conference they send out a pdf of the conference program. It always felt like Christmas 🎄 to me when I saw the pdf. I would print it out and highlight all the cutting-edge research I wanted to check out (sometimes 75% of the program would be highlighted).
The 2020 conference was supposed to be happening now in California but obviously was cancelled due to Covid-19. However, the initial proposal abstracts are still online here to peruse.
A word of warning: because conference findings are often very new, not all results presented at conferences have undergone rigorous peer-review. Many go on to be published in peer-reviewed journals, but some do not. Therefore, most of the following findings should be treated with extra caution.
I can’t link to the direct paper that was part of a symposium (a symposium is a group of 4-5 talks on a similar topic). Therefore, I link to the full symposium (and you will have to a do a little scrolling).
Select Findings from SSSR
(all abstracts here)
Symposium: Instruction to Support Orthographic Mapping
Reading Rescue (a multi-sensory, one on one and small group reading intervention for first graders) was “highly effective” in improving struggling readers’ orthographic mapping skills (first paper)
When teaching polysyllabic words, more practice was better for achieving fluency than teaching decoding rules in 54 3rd and 4th graders with reading difficulties (second paper)
Symposium: Professional Development on Literacy Instruction and Dyslexia & Symposium: Seeking Improvement in Literacy Instruction Through an Ecological Model Lens (These 2 symposia were similar so I combined my summary)
Teachers still lack language knowledge (papers 1 & 2 from the first symposium; and paper 2 from the second symposium)
and special education teachers had the lowest level of knowledge in one study (paper 4, symposium 2)
we need to explore different types of surveys for assessing teacher knowledge (paper 3);
online learning modules show promise for increasing teacher knowledge (papers 4 & 5 of first symposium). Though, the effects might be limited (paper 1 second symposium)
But increasing knowledge is not enough; teachers need support in applying their knowledge in a classroom situation (paper 5, symposium 2)
though, teachers can’t do it alone, and many teachers stated a lack of principal support for a writing intervention (paper 3, symposium 2)
Other cool SSSR research
Test-makers are not reporting critical information such as predictive validity, sensitivity, and specificity (poster)
Maybe we should be assessing more than literacy in screeners (first paper)
Results of the survey
Comments:
Thanks for your work!
I have just discovered this blog and think it is fantastic. Allows me access to research I couldn't afford to subscribe to. We don't get enough scientific data at school to base our teaching directions on. Thank you so much
I love the recap. It makes it possible for me to keep up with recent research that would otherwise be inaccessible for me. Thank you!!
As a time poor teacher (and mum) who is really keen to keep up with the current research your newsletter is a God-send - THANK YOU :)
Bold key conclusion? Keep up your excellent work! So helpful.
Neena, the selection of research likely to have practical value to teachers, but unlikely to be accessed by teachers is excellent. Very helpful to weigh in on books, often expensive, often not written so much with practitioner audiences' needs in mind.
New subscriber, but so far really enjoying all the info!!!
I am so appreciative of your work. You are providing a critical service and I know that it is no without much effort. I applaud your efforts and look forward to your continued publications.
I don't think I'm getting our newsletter weekly. But I get so many emails. Do you post the weekly newsletters somewhere else? Maybe a website with a section listing each week? Thanks for a wonderful resource. I'm having a cup of hot chocolate and learning! Have a safe Fourth. A.
This has been wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to share with us!
This is the first one I’ve read. I like it how it is - short and to the point. Bullet points helped, too. Very helpful!
Join The Reading League and ask for quotes and feedback from other experts on the texts you review.
I think info about the sample size (n) is really important, as it is a huge factor in determining the statistical power of their analyses.
Thank you for this newsletter!
My responses to two comments:
Join The Reading League and ask for quotes and feedback from other experts on the texts you review.
I am a member of the reading league! I pay for their journal and enjoy reading it. I would love to get quotes and feedback from other experts on the research presented. I think the easiest/most feasible way to do this would be through commenting on the posts (see update about commenting in the “Notes” section above). If a member of The Reading League wants to sign up with a “certified” reading league email (example: Mary@thereadingleague.org) and they comment on the post, then everyone can see their opinion- knowing that it represents The Reading League’s opinion. I can reach out to them and see what they think about this idea.
As for other expert quotations, I often quote the original research which is published by experts in the field. Lastly, I know that some expert reading researchers subscribe to the Recap and I am hoping that they will start commenting on the posts as well so that the Recap can serve as a bidirectional discussion between reading researchers and practitioners/parents.
I think info about the sample size (n) is really important, as it is a huge factor in determining the statistical power of their analyses.
Yes, I agree! You will notice a lot more n’s now. The sample size information is also usually available in the abstract- which I always link to- and I did not want to be redundant at first.
~Neena