| Abstract |
This research examined the longitudinal development of 215 children’s metamorphological abilities from kindergarten to the second grade of primary school and their relationship with learning to read and learning to spell. Morphological awareness was assessed both in kindergarten and in the first two grades of primary school with seven tasks, each of which evaluated different metamorphological abilities. At the same time, the children in kindergarten were evaluated for their general cognitive abilities (e.g. short-term memory, expressive vocabulary) and their early literacy skills (e.g. sound-letter knowledge, phonological awareness). Participants in the survey were also the children’s preschool teachers and parents, who were asked to respond via questionnaires on the frequency of teaching practices in the cultivation of morphological knowledge and the frequency of children’s contact with the written language during the preschool years respectively. At the end of both A and B classes of primary school, their reading ability was evaluated based on their decoding accuracy and speed of words and non-words as well as on their reading comprehension. At the same period, their spelling ability was assessed viewing both their spelling of inflectional suffixes and spelling of stems in words and non-words.
The results indicated both the evolution and the different rate of growth of metamorphological skills and the close relationship with specific cognitive and metalinguistic factors. It also highlighted the prognostic role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension, and secondly, in reading accuracy of words with morphemic features. On the contrary, the results did not record any contribution of metamorphological skills to reading speed of words and non-words regardless of their morphemic structure. In addition, they identified the prognostic role of morphological awareness in spelling of inflectional suffixes in words but not in non-words. Finally, they demonstrated that specific metamorphological skills both in kindergarten and first grade contributed significantly to the spelling of stems in words and non-words in A and B grades respectively .
The findings of this research may be useful in designing specific research approaches of cognitive functions of reading and spelling based on the development framework of individual metamorphological abilities.
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Η ανάπτυξη των μορφολογικών ικανοτήτων παιδιών από το νηπιαγωγείο στη Β΄τάξη δημοτικού και η σχέση τους με τη μάθηση της ανάγνωσης και της ορθογραφημένης γραφής
