The Contribute of the Word Roots in Reading among Normal and Dyslexic Readers

Year 2019, Volume: 13, 140 - 147, 31.08.2019

Haneen Wattad

Abstract

The
aim of the present work is to stress the contribute of the word roots in
reading among normal and dyslexic readers. The lexical status of the root
morphemes were examines using two priming paradigms: the masked priming; and
the cross-modal immediate repetition task among regular and dyslexic readers:
Grades sixth, eighth and tenth. The hypothesis was that the roots of words are
lexical entities which have a role in organizing the lexicon, and facilitate
the access to a wide countenance of verbs among regular and dyslexic readers
from ages of elementary to high school. It was also assumed that the effect of
visual morphological priming and effect of auditory morphological priming will
be stronger among those who have a reading disability and among young readers,
compared to more skilled readers. Further, it was assumed that the manner of
representation of morphologically complex words and how to access them is
similar among the all readers in reading Arabic. In addition, it was assumed
that the pace of building a mental lexicon among dyslexic readers is slow, but
the lexicon itself is similar to that of regular readers. The findings confirmed the first hypothesis
about the roots.  It was also found that
regarding readers with dyslexia, the manner of representation of the words that
are morphologically complex is different compared to regular readers. It was concluded
that this difference is a result of a deficit in the initial processing process
among these readers, and that they are apparently relying on other channels
except the morphological one when identifying verbs, which emphasizes the
uniqueness of the Arabic language, its morphological density and its
phonological and lexical richness.

Keywords

Root morphemes, Priming paradigm, Lexical status, Dyslexic readers, Morphological awareness

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