Roles of receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness and short-term memory on the development of morphological awareness

Abstract

This study mainly explored the development of Chinese morphological awareness of the kindergarten children from Grade Two to Grade Three. And we also studied the roles of receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness and short-term memory on the development of Chinese morphological awareness after controlling children’s age, gender, mother's highest educational level and family total income. 181 Hongkong children (mean age = 34.78 months; range: 28–41 months, 102 male children) from seven non-profit-making kindergartens in Hongkong were invited to take part in this study. The assessments were conducted in four waves, and the time interval between the tests was about half a year. In Time 1, children accepted the tests of morphological awareness, phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary and short-time memory. And the information of children’s age, gender, mother's highest educational level and family total income were also collected. In Time 2, Time 3 and Time 4, children just received the test of morphological awareness. All the tests were conducted individually. In each time wave, each child was tested over at least two sessions on two or more separate days, with each session lasting fewer than 20 minutes. In the data analysis, the growth-curve modelling was used to examine the initial level and growth rate of Chinese morphological awareness and predict the roles of the predictors on the development of Chinese morphological awareness. Results showed that the development of young children's Chinese morphological awareness increased with age, and there were differences in the initial level and development of morphological awareness. However, the initial status and growth rate of Chinese morphological awareness were unrelated. The reason may be that the later development of Chinese morphological awareness was not determined by its initial level, but the influence of other factors, such as language training, will affect its subsequent development. Besides, vocabulary can predict the initial level and development rate of Chinese morphological awareness. However, phonological awareness and short-term memory can only predict the initial level of Chinese morphological awareness. Therefore, among these predictors, vocabulary understanding has the greatest influence on the development of morphological awareness, while other predictors have limited influence on it. This study widened the current researches on Chinese morphological awareness and identified the effective predictors of the development of Chinese morphological awareness. It can also bring some inspiration to the educational implications. The cultivation of receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness and short-term memory may effectively improve the initial level of Chinese morphological awareness, while the training of receptive vocabulary may improve the development of Chinese morphological awareness.