Dynamic Assessment of Morphological Awareness and Third-Grade Literacy Success

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine a dynamic assessment with graduated prompts to assess morphological awareness and determine whether such a task was related to third-grade literacy success. Method A dynamic assessment of morphological awareness was adapted and administered to 54 third-grade students in addition to a norm-referenced language and literacy battery. Results A dynamic assessment of morphological awareness measured a range of performance including that of emerging morphological awareness abilities and provided rich linguistic insights for how best to scaffold and prompt for such a skill. In addition, the dynamic morphological awareness measure was found to be significantly related to, and to contribute unique variance to, reading comprehension abilities. Conclusions These results suggest that morphological awareness is an important factor to consider when addressing students' literacy performance in early elementary school and that dynamic assessment appears to be a clinically valuable tool when examining early morphological awareness abilities.