Improving Reading Comprehension via Instruction in Morpheme Meanings with EAL and L1E Primary Level Students in the United Kingdom

This thesis explored the connection between morphology instruction and reading comprehension with primary aged children. It focused on an intervention that was designed to teach the meaning of common morphemes with the aim of encouraging students to utilize the meaning carrying aspect of morphology as a method to understand vocabulary. The main questions were: Is there a difference between EAL and L1 children in the effectiveness of teaching the semantic meaning of derivational morphemes? Is there an effect of individual differences in gender, attendance and age in the effectiveness of teaching the meaning of morphemes? The second question is What is the effect of measures of reading ability on derivational morphology knowledge? These questions were redesigned to better reflect the measures utilized in the study.
The study employed a double baseline design with participants being their own control group. The participants (n=22, EAL= 11) were recruited from schools in Yorkshire, UK. They were tested on three occasions with ten weeks of instruction between tests. This provided a baseline measure of growth which was then compared to the growth as measured in the same participants after intervention instruction. The measures employed were both standardized measures and researcher constructed measures.
The results indicated that there was a significant improvement in morpheme knowledge and comprehension, particularly with the EAL participants. There were inconclusive results for the L1E participants on the morphology measures. However, for this latter group, there was significant improvement on reading comprehension. The mixed models showed that there were no significant impacts from additional factors except for attendance. There were no significant differences between EAL and L1E participants on overarching components of reading that were measured. While there was growth it was not significant over the intervention period alone, while it was significant over the total period of the study.