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Morphological awareness in primary 3 bilingual Chinese children in Singapore
Abstract
Singapore has adopted compulsory bilingual education since the 1970s, and research has confirmed that this policy is essential for the country's economic development and cultural continuity (Dixon, 2005; Pakir, 2008). However, little is known about how Singapore‟s bilingual Chinese children become literate in both languages in a formal instructional setting. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the biliteracy development of these children and identifying the underlying linguistic factors that may influence such development. Specifically, the focus is on morphological awareness, which refers to the ability to reflect on and manipulate morphemes and employ word formation rules in the languages one knows (Kuo & Anderson, 2006). Previous research has shown that morphological awareness is closely related to vocabulary and reading comprehension among English and Chinese monolingual children, but it remains unclear whether the association can be found also in children who are learning English and Chinese concurrently. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the relationships between morphological awareness and vocabulary and reading comprehension in the two languages of Singapore Chinese bilingual children.
Seventy-six primary 3 Chinese bilingual children participated in the study. Children‟s morphological awareness in English and Chinese was assessed by two tasks, which tapped into two aspects of morphological awareness - derivational and compound. Vocabulary and reading comprehension in both languages were also tested. The test scores were analyzed using the SPSS programme.
The results indicate that morphological awareness can be found among Singapore English-Chinese bilingual children, with similar levels of derivational and compound morphological awareness in English but more compound morphological awareness in Chinese. Moreover, the data suggest that Singapore Chinese bilingual children seem to have a heightened level of English morphological awareness. The present study also depicts a more complete picture of the relationship between morphological awareness, vocabulary and reading comprehension in both languages. For both languages, morphological awareness is highly related to vocabulary and reading comprehension, with higher correlations between morphological awareness and reading comprehension than between morphological awareness and vocabulary, which may indicate that morphological awareness has direct influence on reading comprehension, beyond the mediating effect of vocabulary. For both languages, different aspects of morphological awareness are related to vocabulary and reading comprehension in a similar pattern: compound morphological awareness is more related to vocabulary and reading comprehension than derivational morphological awareness. Findings from this study also suggest that Singapore bilingual children are able to apply their general knowledge about shared morphological structure from one language to reading in another language.
The present study highlights the impact of language background, language structure and language instruction in establishing bilingual children‟s early reading ability, and provides some suggestions for future biliteracy research.
Seventy-six primary 3 Chinese bilingual children participated in the study. Children‟s morphological awareness in English and Chinese was assessed by two tasks, which tapped into two aspects of morphological awareness - derivational and compound. Vocabulary and reading comprehension in both languages were also tested. The test scores were analyzed using the SPSS programme.
The results indicate that morphological awareness can be found among Singapore English-Chinese bilingual children, with similar levels of derivational and compound morphological awareness in English but more compound morphological awareness in Chinese. Moreover, the data suggest that Singapore Chinese bilingual children seem to have a heightened level of English morphological awareness. The present study also depicts a more complete picture of the relationship between morphological awareness, vocabulary and reading comprehension in both languages. For both languages, morphological awareness is highly related to vocabulary and reading comprehension, with higher correlations between morphological awareness and reading comprehension than between morphological awareness and vocabulary, which may indicate that morphological awareness has direct influence on reading comprehension, beyond the mediating effect of vocabulary. For both languages, different aspects of morphological awareness are related to vocabulary and reading comprehension in a similar pattern: compound morphological awareness is more related to vocabulary and reading comprehension than derivational morphological awareness. Findings from this study also suggest that Singapore bilingual children are able to apply their general knowledge about shared morphological structure from one language to reading in another language.
The present study highlights the impact of language background, language structure and language instruction in establishing bilingual children‟s early reading ability, and provides some suggestions for future biliteracy research.
Date Issued
2010
Call Number
LC3737.S55 Sun
Date Submitted
2010