Morphological awareness and the reading comprehension of ELLs
Given the prevalence of reading comprehension difficulties among ELLs and the
evidence that morphological awareness may play a role in reading comprehension
for native English speakers, it is important to investigate this linguistic skill as a
potential source of reading difficulties among ELLs. Limited morphological
awareness could be an important source of reading comprehension difficulties for
ELLs—they may be particularly likely to have deficits in morphological awareness
due to their limited exposure to oral and written English; these deficits may in turn
explain difficulties in acquiring new vocabulary experienced by many ELLs.
As noted in the recent report from the National Literacy Panel on Language
Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006), there is growing
consensus that many of the skills that predict reading difficulties among native
English speakers (most notably, phonological awareness) play similar roles in
predicting difficulties among ELLs. Given the linguistic basis for morphological
awareness and its relationship to vocabulary, it is reasonable to hypothesize that it
will play a similar role in predicting reading comprehension difficulties among
ELLs to that it plays for native English speakers.