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The development of a measure of root awareness to account for reading performance in the Arabic language: A development and validation study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2018

SANA TIBI ,
JAMIE L. TOCK  and
JOHN R. KIRBY
SANA TIBI*
Affiliation:
Florida State University
JAMIE L. TOCK
Affiliation:
Florida State University
JOHN R. KIRBY
Affiliation:
Queen’s University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Sana Tibi, School of Communication Science and Disorders, Florida State University, 201 W. Bloxham Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1200. E-mail: sana.tibi@cci.fsu.edu
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Abstract

Morphological awareness (MA) is an important predictor of reading outcomes in different languages. The consonantal root is a salient feature of Arabic lexical structure and critical to MA. The goals of this study were to (a) develop a measure of root awareness (RA) as one dimension of MA in Arabic, and (b) validate the RA measure by predicting reading outcomes in an Arabic population. A set of RA items was administered to 194 Arabic-speaking third-grade children. A one-factor model was specified using confirmatory factor analysis to examine the model fit of the RA measure. A structural equation model was then developed to examine the relation between the RA measure and important reading outcome measures including word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. The results of these analyses indicated good model fit, and the RA measure accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in the outcomes. The establishment of the RA measure is an important preliminary step to efficiently assessing MA in Arabic and could serve as an integral tool for studying reading development.

Keywords

morphologyreading comprehensionroot awarenessscale developmentword reading
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 303 - 322
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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