An Examination of an Intervention Program Designed to Enhance Reading and Spelling Through the Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Recognition

Abstract: Morphological analysis of words has been shown to characterize skilled reading. A manipulation on the presentation of words, designed to encourage this process, was examined in dyslexic readers. Fifty-eight Hebrew-speaking university students with dyslexia were divided into three groups. One underwent a very short-term morpheme-based training, consisting of a time-restricted exposure to the root morphemes of words presented in a lexical decision task. The rest of the words’ letters remained on screen until a response. Another group received a control training consisting of the same procedure, except that the presentation of a nonmorphological orthographic unit was manipulated. Two untrained control groups, of dyslexic readers and of typical readers (n = 20), received pre- and posttest measures without training. The results suggest modest but positive effects on reading and spelling following the morpheme-based training, thereby suggesting that the morphological manipulation examined should be integrated in more intensive trainings. © 2016 Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.