Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Morphological Awareness Intervention

Abstract

Researchers have established that morphological awareness is an important skill because it contributes unique variance to word-level reading and reading comprehension; however, few studies include students with reading disorders. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether training morphological awareness would improve morphological awareness skills of students with reading disorders. Ten students were administered four morphological awareness tasks pre and post treatment. Treatment focused on increasing students’ awareness of affixes through oral and written activities. Results revealed a significant group difference on one of the morphological awareness tasks ( d = 2.58). Because this was an underpowered pilot study, effect sizes were calculated for all morphological awareness tasks and ranged from 0.28 to 2.58. Although not significant, the effect sizes across tasks offer promise to support a fully powered intervention study. Specific student diagnostic assessment information was included because interventions may have differential effects depending on the students’ strengths and weaknesses.