Morphological awareness in arithmetic word-problem solving among Chinese early adolescents

The current study explored a specific reading subskill, morphological awareness, in arithmetic word-problem solving among Chinese early adolescent students (N = 668, mean age = 11.3 years). Participants completed measures of Chinese morphological awareness, receptive vocabulary as well as arithmetic word-problem solving. Drawing upon multivariate analyses (hierarchical multiple regression and path analysis), the study showed that morphological awareness facets collectively contributed to arithmetic word-problem solving above and beyond age and receptive vocabulary. More specifically, recognition and discrimination of compound words were uniquely associated with word-problem-solving skills. The current study highlights the uniqueness of Chinese morphological awareness in structural linguistic input, and the facilitative effect of morphological awareness on arithmetic problem-solving.