The roles of morphology, phonology, and prosody in reading and spelling multisyllabic words

Abstract While most English words are multisyllabic, research on literacy acquisition has tended to focus early of monosyllabic words. The processes involved in multisyllabic word reading and spelling middle childhood likely differ from those spelling. current paper examines the contributions morphological awareness (MA; derivational morphemes), prosodic sensitivity (sensitivity lexical stress), phonological (PA; phonemes) for spelling, after accounting background variables (age, vocabulary, nonverbal IQ, short-term memory). Seventy 7–10-year-old children completed a battery tasks. MA were independent predictors reading, while PA These results contrast with previous research, which instead found that plays more prominent role appears demonstrate only an indirect influence. However, studies largely examined shorter, one three syllable findings indicate when longer sensitivity, PA, have differing direct influences literacy. relate important