The Effects of Strategic Morphological Analysis Instruction on the Vocabulary Performance of Secondary Students with and without Disabilities

Abstract

This study tested the effects of teaching high school students with learning disabilities (LD) and other students enrolled in general education classes a morphemic analysis strategy for analyzing and predicting the meaning of words. A comparison-group design was used with random assignment of three intact classes to each of two conditions: (a) the Word Mapping condition, where students learned the morphological analysis strategy; and (b) the Vocabulary LINCing condition, where students learned a mnemonic strategy. Three other classes were used to establish a norm for knowledge of targeted words. Students in both strategy groups and students with and without disabilities learned their respective strategy and the meaning of taught words. Word Mapping students with and without disabilities earned higher scores on a test of morphological analysis than students in the other groups. Thus, students were able to learn generative and non-generative vocabulary strategies and could apply a generative strategy to analyze and create meaning for unknown words, an important skill while reading assignments and taking reading tests.