Trial lecture
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 10:00 - 10:45
Title: Theoretical and methodological reflections on the effects of interventions on morphological awareness across orthographies
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 12:00 -
Evaluation committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Beth Phillips, Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University
- 2nd opponent: Professor Peter F. de Jong, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam
- Chair of committee: Professor Veslemøy Rydland, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
Chair of defence
- Professor Anne Line Wittek, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Principal supervisor: Director CREATE, Professor Arne Ola Lervåg, University of Oslo
- Co-supervisor: Director SpedAims, Leader group CREATE, Professor Monica Melby-Lervåg, University of Oslo
Summary
This doctoral dissertation investigates the relationships between oral language skills, the reading environment, and children’s early reading development. Central to this work is the examination of oral morphological awareness, posited as a potential contributor to children’s vocabulary and reading skills. The dissertation explores how oral morphological awareness, assessed before formal reading instruction, impacts vocabulary, word reading, and reading comprehension. Additionally, it examines the case of the home literacy environment (HLE), focusing on the roles of both mothers and fathers in fostering this HLE through their engagement and provision of literacy resources. An important aspect of this research is its focus on parental reading ability as a proxy for potential genetic confounding that influences the HLE-child associations, highlighting parents’ dual role in providing both the reading environment and a genetic predisposition for reading. This research uses data from a longitudinal cohort study of 259 children who were followed from preschool through Grade 4, supplemented by data from 193 mothers and 144 fathers collected at one time point. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess various hypotheses, emphasizing the advantages of latent variable modelling. The findings from three investigations revealed:
1) A lack of support for the hypothesis that reciprocal developmental associations exist between morphological awareness and vocabulary during early development.
2) A significant association between morphological awareness, specifically in the domain of derivational morphology, and early reading comprehension. This association persisted independently of the associations between reading comprehension and other well-established underlying skills. Yet morphological awareness was not associated with word reading or the developmental changes in reading comprehension.
3) Mothers’ reading activities with their children and the family’s literacy resources are associated with children’s word reading beyond the effect parental reading ability and children’s earlier development of reading ability.
The findings suggests that oral derivational morphology in preschool may be an important contributor to children’s reading comprehension and underscore further exploring how this awareness may influence reading through other reading processes. Moreover, the genetic underpinnings of word reading were highlighted, supporting the idea that while parents’ genetic contributions are significant, they may still be able to impact children’s reading by environmental means. This points to the potential value of supporting parents in enhancing home reading practices.