Morphological awareness is a significantly stronger correlate of adult reading comprehension than phonological awareness and RAN¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesis r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · checked against its sources 2026-10-17 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Morphological awareness (r = .59) was significantly more related to reading comprehension than phonological awareness (r = .34) and RAN (r = .15), judged by non-overlapping 95% CIs. → Tighe 2016

Evidence¶

Tighe 2016¶

Tighe, Elizabeth L.; Schatschneider, Christopher. (2016). Examining the Relationships of Component Reading Skills to Reading Comprehension in Struggling Adult Readers: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219414555415

q3 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2

In the random effects synthesis, significance among predictor effect sizes was determined by non-overlapping 95% confidence intervals at the p < .05 level; morphological awareness's CI did not overlap those of phonological awareness or RAN. No standardized effect size for the difference is printed.

"Morphological awareness had the strongest relationship with reading comprehension (r = .59) and was significantly more related to reading comprehension than phonological awareness (r = .34) and RAN (r = .15)."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Morphological Awareness — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Phonological Awareness — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Processing Speed — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Reading and Language — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Morphological awareness contributes to pseudoword reading and reading comprehension beyond phonological awareness — related
• Pseudoword decoding, orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness show moderate relationships with adult reading comprehension (rs .34–.42) — related
• Six component reading skills show strong average relationships with reading comprehension in struggling adult readers (rs ≥ .50) — related
• Rapid automatized naming is the only component skill weakly related to reading comprehension in struggling adult readers (r = .15) — related
• Word reading efficiency and sentence comprehension show distinct behavioral subcomponent profiles: word reading correlates with phonological subcomponents, comprehension with morphological awareness and orthography-semantic mapping — related
• In reading-related outcomes, group differences involving RD or RDMD are largest for reading tasks and phonological processing and smallest for RAN — related
• Efficiency in phonological and orthographic processing contributes significantly to individual differences in adult ESL reading measures — related
• Real word decoding relates more strongly to adult reading comprehension (r = .52) than pseudoword decoding (r = .42), though not significantly — related
• Most predictor effect sizes showed high heterogeneity; only morphological awareness, working memory, and language comprehension fell in the moderate I² range — related
• Morphological Instruction Improves Vocabulary — related
• The correlation between morphological awareness and reading comprehension is r = .536 in school-aged readers of English — related
• RAN is significantly and substantially correlated with mathematics (r = .37) across studies — related