The role of phonological opacity in reading achievement

This study investigated the relation among phonological awareness, morpholo gical awareness, and reading achievement in 69 children with and without la nguage-learning disabilities. Children participated in two morphological ta sks that assessed skill in identifying the bases and suffixes of phonologic ally transparent and opaque derivatives. Transparent derivatives preserve t he phonological characteristics of the base word (e.g., allow-allowable, pu re-purist); opaque derivatives involve stress and/or vowel changes to the b ase (e.g., acid-acidic, flame-flamable). Children with language-learning di sabilities were outperformed by chronological-age peers on each task and sh owed a level of accuracy similar to that of younger, typically achieving ch ildren. Regression analyses were used to determine the proportion of varian ce in reading accounted For by the morphological tasks beyond that accounte d For by age and vocabulary knowledge. Performance with transparent derivat ives added a significant, but small, proportion (6.9%) to total variance in word-identification scores and a nonsignificant proportion (2.2%) to passa ge-comprehension scores. Performance with opaque derivatives added a substa ntial contribution to word-identification scores (19.9%) and passage-compre hension scores (16.5%) beyond that accounted for by age, vocabulary knowled ge, and performance with transparent derivatives. These results suggest tha t the ability to analyze phonological changes associated with derivation ma y mediate much of the link between the type of morphological awareness asse ssed here and reading achievement.