Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, 229–241
doi:10.1093/deafed/env019
Advance Access publication May 14, 2015
Empirical Manuscript
empirical manuscript
Effects of Morphographic Instruction on the
Morphographic Analysis Skills of Deaf and Hard-ofHearing Students
Jessica W. Trussell*,1, Susan R. Easterbrooks2
Rochester Institute of Technology and 2Georgia State University
1
*Correspondence should be sent to Jessica W. Trussell, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, 52 Lomb Memorial
Drive, Rochester, NY 14623 (e-mail: [email protected]).
Abstract
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students have delayed morphographic knowledge that negatively affects their
morphographic analysis and decoding abilities. Morphographic analysis instruction may improve DHH students’
morphographic knowledge delay. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of morphographic instruction on
the morphographic analysis skills of reading-delayed, late-elementary DHH students. The research question was: What
effect does morphographic instruction have on the morphographic analysis skills of DHH students who are reading below
grade level? The study included 3 student participants and 1 teacher participant from a local school district. The researchers
used a multiprobe multiple baseline across participants design. The intervention was implemented for 20 min a day, 5 days
a week for 2–3 weeks. Visual analysis of the data revealed the requisite number of demonstrations of effect and replications.
The intervention improved DHH students’ ability to dissect words and determine affix meanings, which may in turn
positively affect their decoding abilities. Implications of this study and future research are discussed.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) readers often do not attain
grade-equivalent reading levels (Easterbrooks & Beal-Alvarez,
2012). Perhaps one reason is that they do not bring the same
morphographic knowledge to the reading task as their hearing
counterparts (Gaustad, Kelly, Payne, & Lylak, 2002). The smallest
units of a language that retain meaning are called morphemes
(Reed, 2008). When morphemes are represented through
orthography, they are called morphographs (Maggs, McMillan,
Patching, & Hawke, 1981). Morphographic knowledge includes
understanding the meanings of affixes, roots, and base words,
deconstructing words into their component morphographs, and
combining morphographs in a rule-base manner to create a new
word or to change the grammatical class of a word (Gaustad,
2000). Morphographs include base words, roots, and affixes
(Maggs et al., 1981); every word contains one or more morphographs (Dixon, 1991). For example, the word review can be analyzed morphographically (i.e., separated into its component
morphographs) as re- and view. Re- means again and view means
to look at; therefore, review means to look at again.
Deacon and Kirby (2004) discovered that morphographic skills
and phonological skills were comparable as predictors of reading
comprehension in typically hearing students in fourth through
ninth grades. For third through fifth graders, morphographic
skills made a unique contribution to word reading beyond that
of phonological skills (Deacon & Kirby, 2004). Similarly, Nagy,
Berninger, and Abbott (2006) found that morphographic knowledge makes a unique contribution to decoding accuracy for
hearing fourth and fifth graders. These findings indicate a shift
from a phonological focus to morphological focus on decoding
(Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy et al., 2006) in the upper elementary grades: phonological skills plateau and morphological
skills continue to develop (Berninger, Abbott, Nagy, & Carlisle,
2010). Although the importance of phonological instruction for
DHH students has been documented (Beal-Alvarez, Lederberg,
Received: November 18, 2014; Revisions Received: April 18, 2015; Accepted: April 22, 2015
© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
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230 | Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 3
& Easterbrooks, 2012; Bergeron, Lederberg, Easterbrooks, Miller,
& Connor, 2009; Guardino, Syverud, Joyner, Nicols, & King, 2011;
Trezek & Hancock, 2013; Trezek & Malmgren, 2005; Trezek &
Wang, 2006; Tucci & Easterbrooks, 2014; Wang, Spychala, Harris,
& Oetting, 2013), research on morphographic knowledge (Deacon
& Kirby, 2004; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012; Nagy et al., 2006) indicates
that morphographic instruction may be similarly important to
their reading achievement (Hearing: Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy
et al., 2006; Deaf: Nunes, Bryant, & Barros, 2012). This type of
instruction is included in state standards (California Department
of Education, 2007; Colorado Department of Education, 2010;
Idaho Department of Education, 2010) and the Common Core
standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2011).
However, it is rarely included in DHH students’ daily reading lessons (Gaustad, 2000). This gap in instruction is troubling because
these students often have a morphographic knowledge delay
that begins at an early age (Gaustad, 1986) and persists through
college (Gaustad et al., 2002).
The link between morphographic knowledge and reading
comprehension can be explained in two ways. First, English has
more morphographically transparent words than phonologically transparent words. For instance, let us consider the words
magic and magician. These two words share the morphograph
“magic” that retains its spelling in both words but when one says
the words (i.e., magic /mædʒɪk/, magician /mədʒɪʃən/), the voiceless stop /k/ becomes a voiceless fricative /ʃ/. When readers see
these two words, they may notice the orthographic similarity
(i.e., magic) and guess that the two words are related although
when readers only hear the words, this relationship is not as
clear (McCutchen, Logan, & Biangardi-Orpe, 2012).
Second, morphographic knowledge makes a significant contribution to reading comprehension through vocabulary (Kieffer
& Lesaux, 2012) also utilizing a morphographic decoding strategy that improves one’s vocabulary (Baumann, Edwards, Boland,
Olejnik, & Kame’enui, 2003). When readers’ morphographically
decode, they should be breaking multimorphographic words
into their constituent morphographs, determining the morphographs meanings, and reconstructing the word to assess its
meaning within the sentence. For example, a student may know
the meanings of the morphograph re- and the root word write.
When the reader decodes the novel word rewrite, she can deconstruct the word, recall the meanings, and assess if the meaning “to compose again” fits the sentence. Now, the reader has
encountered a new word and used her morphographic knowledge to determine the word’s meaning and in turn improve her
vocabulary (Arnbak & Elbro, 2000). Those readers who have a
larger vocabularies are better readers than those with smaller
vocabularies (Kyle & Harris, 2010) and 60% of unfamiliar vocabulary that children attempt to read at the fifth grade level can be
morphographically decoded (Nagy & Anderson, 1984).
Morphographs are separated into two categories: inflectional
and derivational. Inflectional morphographs, such as -ed and
–s, provide surface structure grammar (Verhoeven & Perfetti,
2003). Derivational morphographs, such as dis- and –less, are
combined to change the meaning of root words (like vs. dislike)
or to change the grammatical category and the meaning of the
root words (speech [noun] vs. speechless [adjective]). Derivational
morphographs are the focus of the present study. Applying derivational morphographic knowledge while reading is a tool for
decoding novel words for meaning (Arnbak & Elbro, 2000) and
maybe important to DHH students because decoding using morphographic strategies can be a visual process (Gaustad, 2000).
There is some indication that hearing students with disabilities
who have not mastered the phoneme/grapheme relationship
benefit from morphographic instruction (Arnbak & Elbro, 2000;
Berninger et al., 2007), suggesting that this might be the same
for DHH students. Morphographic instruction is grounded in the
lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2001).
The lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2001) proposes
that word knowledge supports literacy skills; that is, the quality of one’s bank of known words and known meanings directly
influences the development of literacy skills. Emergent readers
have a limited lexicon, or word bank, and they often decode
words using individual letters (Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2003). As
emergent readers develop, they begin to decode words in orthographic chunks (i.e., morphographs; van Hoogmoed, Knoors,
Schreuder, & Verhoeven, 2013) employing higher quality lexical
retrieval. A morphographic knowledge delay can interfere with
the decoding process and impede higher lexical quality retrieval.
Morphographic Knowledge and Instruction
Morphographic knowledge delay affects DHH students regardless of communication modality (e.g., listening and spoken language [LSL], Signed Exact English, and American Sign Language
[ASL]; Gaustad et al., 2002; Guo, Spencer, & Tomblin, 2013). DHH
students who use LSL may not hear some morphemes (Guo
et al., 2013) and those who use sign language may not see
English morphemes (Gaustad et al., 2002) during conversation
or instruction. Children who do not gain morphological knowledge through incidental means are deficient in their use of
morphemes expressively (Guo et al., 2013) and struggle to understand morphemes when they see them in print (Dixon, Zhao, &
Joshi, 2012). Further, many DHH children are delayed language
learners (Lederberg & Spencer, 2009) who process morphographically complex words inefficiently because they depend on the
lexical language level. For example, rethink is a morphographically complex word because its meaning is clear from its constituent morphographs. However, delayed language learners will
not deconstruct the word into its constituent parts to determine
its meaning; they will look at it as a whole word and attempt to
determine meaning (Jiang, 2004). Perhaps, this processing deficit
could be remedied through morphographic analysis instruction.
Morphographic analysis instruction includes several components: (a) recognizing constituent morphographs within
multimorphographic words, (b) learning the morphographs’
meanings, and (c) studying the rules to create new words from
derivational morphographs (Harris, Schumaker, & Deshler,
2011). Morphographic analysis interventions that focused on
derivational morphographs have been implemented at varying grade levels with positive effects on hearing students’
morphographic analysis skills (Apel, Brimo, Diehm, & Apel,
2013; Harris et al., 2011; Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987). Apel et al.
(2013) implemented a morphological/morphographic intervention with kindergarteners and first and second graders
with large effect sizes for morphological knowledge. Wysocki
and Jenkins (1987) found similar gains in fourth, sixth, and
eighth grade students. Harris et al. (2011) discovered that the
student participants who received morphographic instruction
decoded novel words for meaning with higher accuracy than
student participants who received instruction on a vocabulary
retention strategy or business-as-usual instruction (Harris
et al., 2011). Although the use of derivational morphographic
instructional strategies with DHH students has yet to be
empirically tested (xxxBlindedxxx, 2014), the findings of Harris
et al. (2011) indicate that students who are at risk for morphographic knowledge delay benefit from explicit instruction in
this area.
Note. L = left; R = right; CI = cochlear implant; HA = hearing aid; GE = grade equivalency expressed in grade level months; SS = standard score; WJ-III = Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement; LID = letter/word identification;
LWI = letter-word identification; PC = passage comprehension.
a
Age expressed in years;months.
b
Percentage correct out of 33 test items.
91
89
81
3.2
2.9
2.0
94
98
92
3.9
4.5
3.1
English
English
English and Cambodian
HA
HA and CI
HA
Sign/speech
Sign/speech
Sign/speech
65/65
90/CI
70/50
Fifth
Fifth
Fourth
Megan
Sienna
Brian
10;2
10;0
9;3
SS
GE
SS
GE
Agea
Grade
Initially, four student participants and one teacher participant
were included in this study. However, the fourth participant
left the study as his family relocated to another school during
baseline data collection. As indicated in Table 1, all student participants had a diagnosed hearing loss, literacy instruction from
a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing (TODHH), a literacy
goal on their current Individualized Education Program, placement in the fourth through eighth grade, a second to fourth
grade reading ability determined by Woodcock Johnson III Tests
of Achievement (WJ-III: Woodcock, McGrew, Mather, & Schrank,
2001), letter-word identification (LWI), and passage comprehension
(PC) subtests, instruction in a self-contained DHH classroom for
reading, and no severe visual, cognitive, or physical disabilities
that inhibited their ability to utilize the instructional materials.
Although the study was open to fourth through eighth grade
students, the student participants that agreed to participate
were in the fourth (Brian) and fifth grades (Megan and Sienna).
This age group was targeted because of the model curriculum’s
Table 1. Student participants’ information
Participants
Student
Method
Unaided at 1,000 Hz (L/R) (dB)
Comm. mode
Amp.
Language in home
WJ-III LWI
WJ-III PC
Morphemic awareness score (%)b
Based on the principles of Direct Instruction (DI; MarchandMartell et al., 2004), Spelling through Morphographs (Dixon &
Engelmann, 2007) is a DI curriculum that explicitly teaches affix
meaning and morphographic analysis through scripted lessons, planned practice, and cumulative review. The curriculum
includes affix meaning instruction, word building, word dissecting, and spelling rule activities (Dixon & Engelmann, 2007).
Corrective Spelling through Morphographs (Dixon & Engelmann,
1979), the precursor to Spelling through Morphographs, was
implemented with typically hearing fourth, fifth (Maggs et al.,
1981), and seventh graders (Robinson & Hesse, 1981) with positive effects on spelling (Maggs et al., 1981) and morphographic
analysis (Robinson & Hesse, 1981). Kraemer, Kramer, Koch,
Madigan, and Steely (2001) implemented Corrective Spelling
through Morphographs as well as other DI curriculums with 6th–
12th grade DHH students. Although effects of Corrective Spelling
through Morphographs alone cannot be determined because it was
part of an intervention package, the researchers (Kraemer et al.,
2001) found positive effects on spelling, reading comprehension,
and language. To date, this curriculum has not been investigated
with DHH students measuring morphographic analysis.
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of
morphographic instruction on the morphographic analysis
skills of fourth and fifth grade DHH students with a reading level
between second and fourth grade. Elements from the Spelling
through Morphographs curriculum were chosen to develop lesson plans for the present study because DI curriculums have
been effective for teaching discreet literacy skills to DHH students (Trezek & Malmgren, 2005; Trezek, Wang, Woods, Gampp,
& Paul, 2007) in the past. Hence, the present study did not
intend to investigate the implementation of the Spelling through
Morphographs curriculum itself but to use elements of the curriculum to develop scripted lesson plans. The primary research
question was: What effect does morphographic instruction have
on the morphographic analysis skills of DHH students who are
reading below grade level? The secondary research questions
were: If gains are made in morphographic knowledge, will that
knowledge generalize to untaught words? If gains are made in
morphographic knowledge, will that knowledge maintain over
time? What effect does this instruction have on students’ affix
knowledge?
70
91
45
Trussell et al. | 231
232 | Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 3
guidelines. To further describe the student participants, the
primary author requested the students’ age, expressive and
receptive language modality preference, and home language
information. All the students used sign and speech in the
classroom for receptive and expressive communication and
used English at home with the exception of Brian. English and
Cambodian were used in his home.
The teacher participant was the TODHH for the student
participants. She held a current certification for teaching DHH
students, verified that she was the teacher of record for the student participants’ reading, attended professional development
related to the curriculum, and provided a minimum of 45 min
daily literacy instruction to the student participants. The classroom was managed by two TODHHs; however, after consenting
and completing training for the study, one teacher was not able
to participate for health reasons. The remaining TODHH did not
feel that she could complete all the parts of the study due to
time constraints and the needs of other students not included
in the study so the primary author, a state-certified, experienced
TODHH, taught one of the student participants. The TODHH
taught Megan and Brian (pseudonyms). The primary author
taught Sienna (pseudonym).
Setting
The study was conducted in a public school setting in the northwestern United States. The classroom included DHH students
from kindergarten to sixth grade and two TODHHs. The student
participants received instruction in a small group setting using
simultaneous communication (i.e., signing and speaking at the
same time). Therefore, simultaneous communication was used
during assessments, probes, and intervention instruction that
were conducted in the DHH classroom. The classroom had two
circle tables and one kidney table with three to four chairs surrounding them.
Research Design
We implemented a multiprobe multiple baseline across participants design (Kazdin, 2011) across 4 weeks of intervention.
Multiple baseline single case designs are utilized when the
behavior being measured cannot be reversed or unlearned
(Kazdin). Further, this research design allows the researchers
to analyze the data at an individual level. Analyzing the data
at this level is important to address the variability often found
among DHH students (Harris & Beech, 1998) and to address
the individualized nature of special education (Horner et al.,
2005).
Materials
Study eligibility measures
Two subtests of the WJ-III were given to verify the student participants’ reading ability level and determine if the student
was eligible (second and fourth grade level on the LWI and PC
subtests) for the study. The first subtest administered was the
LWI subtest. During this assessment, the student participant
was asked to recognize different English letters or read words
that were presented on a flipbook. The second subtest that was
administered was the PC subtest. During this assessment, the
student participant read sentences or passages with missing
words that were presented on a flipbook. The student participant tried to determine what the missing words should be to
make the passage complete.
Preintervention material
First, the Morphemic Awareness Test (Luetke, Stryker, & McLean,
2013) was used to measure the students’ awareness of the associations of base and derived or inflectional morphographs. The
task included the presentation of a sentence with four possible answers. The students must read or have the sentence read
to them and then choose the correct derived or inflected form
that completes the sentence. This assessment informed the
researchers of the student participant’s current morphographic
knowledge. Reliability and validity data for this measure are
not available at this time, but the assessment was created specifically for DHH students and is readily available. The original
assessment had three test items for each morphograph tested;
however, the primary author chose to present one test item for
each morphograph due to time restrictions. The student participants completed the assessment in a permanent product
format.
The second measure was a researchers-created pretest that
included 30 words from the district curriculum that were potential target words. The students attempted to analyze each word
morphographically (e.g., ___+____=biannual). Also, the pretest
included reading and telling the meaning of the base words that
would be potentially taught in the lessons. For example, the student would attempt to read the printed word annual and tell the
primary author what the word meant. This pretest was given to
determine the word sets for the study to ensure that the student
participants had not previously acquired the skills targeted by
the intervention and to discern the students’ base-word knowledge. Weak base-word knowledge may negatively affect the students’ ability to analyze the derived form (Carlisle & Katz, 2006).
For example, if one did not know the base form pack, then one
may struggle to analyze the derived form repack.
Intervention materials
Several materials were required in order to implement this
study. First, the TODHH and primary author delivered 10 daily
scripted lessons during intervention instruction time. In addition, the primary author created 40 visual organizer pages (20 for
the teacher and 20 for the primary author) that could be reused
and were part of the daily instruction. The TODHH received a
Spelling through Morphographs teacher guide book to review prior
to intervention. This book provided an overview of the curriculum and some strategies to improve student learning. Each student had 10 workbook pages modeled after the Spelling through
Morphographs workbook.
Baseline/generalization/maintenance probes
The baseline/generalization/maintenance probes were modeled after the curriculum’s workbook exercises. The probe
consisted of morphographically analyzing the 10 target words
(Table 2) with two morphographic units (e.g., ___+___ = dental).
These probes were given during the following phases: baseline,
generalization, and maintenance. There were several versions
of each measure. The items themselves remained unchanged,
but the numerical order of the items was varied. Generalization
and maintenance probes were not collected for affix meaning
because that skill was not the primary focus of this study.
Intervention repeated measures
The intervention repeated measures were similar to the baseline/generalization/maintenance probes in every way but one.
The intervention repeated measures consisted of analyzing only
the five target words that were being taught in that intervention phase. Similar to the baseline/generalization/maintenance
Trussell et al. | 233
Table 2. Target words lists
Intervention Week 1
Intervention Week 2
Assistant
Mythology
Amoral
Section
Dental
Biannual
Adduct
Actually
Difference
Gullible
probes, there were several versions of each measure where the
items did not change, but the numerical order was varied.
Validity and fidelity measures
Two researcher-created social validity measures were completed
by the TODHH and student participants to determine the validity of this intervention within the school context. The measures
asked different questions in a similar format. Regarding the
fidelity measure, the primary author adapted an instruction
implementation fidelity measure that is used widely with DI
programs. The original measure included a zero to three rating
for each area. It was adapted to include percentages of occurrence that corresponded with the zero, one, two, or three rating.
For example, if the teacher followed the script 80% of the time,
the TODHH would be given a score of 3 for that requirement.
Also, the primary author created the assessment and probe
implementation fidelity measure. This measure was a checklist
created to ensure that the probes and repeated measures were
administered in the same manner each time.
Independent and Dependent Variables
The independent variable for this study was morphographic
instruction modeled after the Spelling through Morphographs curriculum (Figure 1) and implemented for 20 min a day, 5 days a
week for 2–3 weeks. The lessons included fast-paced instruction
and interactive communication between the TODHH or primary
author and the student. The TODHH or primary author used
simultaneous communication to present the lessons. The primary author, TODHH, and students used ASL signs in an English
word order with emphasis on using signs that were conceptually accurate.
The TODHH and primary author went over the scripted
lessons and discussed sign usage in order to deliver instruction similarly using conceptually accurate signs. In addition,
the TODHH and primary author agreed to fingerspell the word
morphograph during instruction and assessment sessions. To
address how to sign the target affixes, the TODHH and primary
author determined what the goal of the lesson was. If the lesson
objective was to teach the morphograph, the TODHH or primary
author fingerspelled the morphograph smoothly without stopping between letters. If the lesson objective was to teach the
spelling of the morphograph, the TODHH or primary author fingerspelled the morphograph with a slight delay between the letters. The students were expected to respond similarly depending
on the goal of the lesson. Although not discouraged to use their
voices, the student participants accommodated the TODHH and
primary author and used simultaneous communication during
the intervention and assessment sessions. At times, the activity
required a written response (i.e., What is the first morphograph?
(signal), MYTH, Write that in the first blank.) or pointing (i.e., Where
do I write the first morphograph, MYTH?).
Several modifications were made to the original curriculum
when developing the lessons for this study. First, each target
Figure 1. Lesson example from Spelling through Morphographs. Reprinted with
permission from Dixon and Engelmann (2007).
morphograph was taught and reviewed in the same manner.
No one morphograph received more instruction or emphasis
across days than another morphograph. Second, the intervention lesson plans included root word instruction (assist means
to help), affix instruction (-ant means a person or things that
does something), word dissection (The first morphograph in
the word assistant is assist. Show me where you would write the
first morphograph assist. assist + _____ = assistant), and morphographic rules (all words have morphographs). The original curriculum includes further instruction such as oral spelling and
word discrimination that were not included in this intervention
instruction. These activities were not included because we were
measuring discrete skills (word analysis and affix meaning) as
a result of instruction. Including spelling instruction and word
discrimination instruction would have lengthened instruction
time without providing data to answer the research question.
Third, the meaning of the root word was taught along with
the affix because based on pretesting, the student participants
did not know the root word meanings. Lastly, a visual organizer (Figure 2) was included to provide visual support during
234 | Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 3
Figure 2. Visual organizer example.
instruction (Easterbrooks & Stoner, 2006). After developing the
lessons including these modifications, the primary author had
the lessons approved by a senior researcher experienced with
implementing DI curriculums.
In addition, the primary author created workbook pages or
planned practice that were consistent from lesson to lesson and
modeled after Spelling through Morphographs. Planned practice
included word dissection (_____ + _____ = assistant), affix definition matching (-ant = a person or thing that does something),
word meaning (_______ a person or thing that helps), and sentence completion (My ________ helps me with everything.). In the
word dissection portion of the workbook page, there were novel
words that included a taught morphograph (taught word: biannual and novel word: bicycle) for further practice. The TODHH
or primary author gave the student participant feedback on the
workbook pages and corrected the student participant’s mistakes with them. Make-up sessions were provided if students
were absent.
Lastly, the TODHH or primary author employed correction
procedures prescribed in the model curriculum. If the student
participant made a mistake on the morphographic analysis during planned practice, then TODHH or researcher analyzed the
word correctly using the graphic organizer and the student participant corrected the practice. If the student participant made
mistakes during the affix instruction, the TODHH or researcher
utilized a model, test, and delayed test correction procedure.
The TODHH or researcher modeled the answer (e.g., The morphograph re- means again.), asked the student to tell her the
answer that was just given (e.g., What does the morphograph
re- mean?), and delayed for a few seconds and tests again (e.g.,
What is the morphograph? What does the morphograph remean? Please correct your paper.).
The dependent variable for this study was correct responses
to morphographic analysis items (e.g., _______ + ________ = gullible; Harris et al., 2011). A correct response was defined as having the entire word dissected correctly. There were two sets of
five target multimorphographic words created from the pretest
results (Table 2). One word set was taught in intervention session one and the second word set was taught in intervention
session two. Each word set met the following criteria: all the
words had two morphographs, two words had eight to nine letter words, and three words had 10–12 letters (Harris et al., 2011).
Procedures
Once approval was attained, the primary author recruited
teacher participants and consents were obtained. Next, a letter
was sent home to the families whose children met the criteria and parental permission was obtained. Lastly, the primary
author discussed the study with each potential student participant. The student participants assented by signing a letter
explaining the research study. The letter was read to them if
needed.
Prior to baseline, two events occurred. First, teacher participants received a 2-hr training in implementing the intervention.
The primary author explained the nature of DI and taught several
practice lessons (Stephenson, Dostal, & Wolbers, 2013). During
the training, the teacher participants taught an example lesson
to each other. The teachers were required to obtain a 90% fidelity
score in training before they were allowed to teach the intervention. The TODHH received a 91% implementation fidelity score.
Second, the primary author conducted four preintervention
observations (2 announced and 2 unannounced) to ensure that
morphographic instruction (i.e., word dissecting, word building,
affix instruction, or morphographic spelling rules) was not part
of the teacher participants’ daily literacy instruction. Although
the primary author did not witness any direct morphographic
instruction, there was a small poster on the classroom wall that
included the word “prefix” and its definition.
At this point, pretesting began. The primary author administered the WJ-III subtests, Morphemic Awareness Test, and the
researcher-created target word pretest to the student participants prior to collecting baseline data. The student received no
feedback during the test. The primary author scored all assessments and determined the 10 target words from the results of
the target word pretest. These 10 target words were separated
into two sets of 5 words for the two intervention phases. The
TODHH agreed not to instruct on morphographs or the 10 target
words for the duration of the research study.
Baseline/probe phase
During the first session, baseline probes were administered to all
student participants individually. The baseline probe included
dissecting all 10 words included in the intervention. When
administering baseline probes, the TODHH obtained assent, distributed the assessment or probe, requested that the student
wait for further instructions, and provided scripted instructions. For example, the TODHH said, “Fill in the blanks to show
the morphographs in each word.” The following is how the task
appeared to the student participants: ________ +________ = biannual or _______ + _________ = mythology. The student participant
worked on the probe for no more than 10 min. The TODHH collected the assessment and provided no feedback. The primary
author scored all measures and graphed the students’ percentage of correct responses.
Baseline was established for participant one (Megan) when
she demonstrated a minimum of five consecutive data points
with a mean score of 20% or less correct responses out of 10 possible responses on the baseline probe or until stability was established (Kazdin, 2011). Once baseline was established for Megan,
she began intervention instruction and the remaining two student participants (Sienna and Brian) received business-as-usual
literacy instruction from the TODHH or the primary author.
Sienna and Brian established baseline through a minimum of
five probes with three of those probes occurring consecutively
prior to intervention or until baseline was stable (Kazdin, 2011).
Affix meaning scores were also obtained from the student
worksheets. Five affixes were taught in each phase of the intervention for a total of 10 affixes. A correct response was defined
as matching the appropriate affix to its meaning. Although, data
pertaining to affix meaning did not determine phase changes,
the primary author was interested in the student participants’
ability to determine, through matching, the meanings of the
taught affixes. One affix meaning accuracy data point was collected in baseline before the intervention began.
Intervention phases
There were two intervention phases. Five target multimorphographic words were taught during each phase. At the beginning of
Trussell et al. | 235
the intervention session each day, the TODHH or primary author
assessed the student participant using the procedure described
previously. The intervention phases taught five target multimorphographic words each; therefore, intervention repeated measures only included the five target words being taught during that
phase of the intervention. For both intervention phases, mastery
criteria were a minimum of five data points with a score of 80%
or better correct responses out of five possible responses on for
three out of four consecutive data points. When a student participant met these criteria, another student participant began
intervention and the current student participant moved on to
the generalization phase. If a student participant did not make
progress on the intervention assessments during the intervention phases, the TODHH or primary author would continue the
intervention for a minimum of 10 sessions. After 10 sessions,
that student participant would be excused from the study and
the next participant would be entered into intervention when
baseline criterion was met.
During the intervention phases, the TODHH or primary author
followed the lesson script and conducted the lesson as described.
The student participant responded to questions through sign language and voice. Affix meaning accuracy data were obtained from
the student worksheet daily prior to correction. Generalization or
maintenance data were not collected for affix meaning. When
intervention phase one mastery criteria were met, the generalization phase began. Simultaneously, another student began
intervention. When intervention phase two phase-change criteria were met, the maintenance phase began.
Generalization phase
Procedures, during the generalization phase, were the same as
for baseline. At this point in the study, the student participant
had received instruction on 5 out of the 10 words on the baseline probe. The generalization probe included all 10 words (5
instructed and 5 not instructed). If the student scored between
0% and 80%, then TODHH or primary author started the second
intervention phase. If the student scored above 80%, then the
student did generalized the skill and would begin the maintenance phase.
Maintenance phase
Once mastery criteria for second intervention phase were met,
the student participant did not interact with any of the intervention materials for 10 sessions. During the 10 sessions, the
student received business-as-usual literacy instruction from the
TODHH. The same assessment procedures described previously
were used. The students completed the maintenance probe that
included all 10 targeted words. The primary author scored the
probes and graphed the scores.
Social Validity
Participants also provided information on a social validity
assessment that evaluated the effectiveness of the intervention
in terms of ease of implementation, appropriateness to setting,
cost effectiveness, and perceived benefit to the TODHH and student participants. Ratings are addressed in Results section.
Fidelity
Fidelity was collected on the baseline/intervention/generalization/maintenance sessions, intervention implementation, and
permanent product scoring. All assessment and intervention
sessions were digitally recorded to aid in collecting fidelity and
reliability scores. Fidelity was collected on 50% of randomly
selected assessment sessions, intervention sessions, and permanent products. Interrater reliability was collected on 30% of
the 50% sessions or permanent products mentioned previously.
Fidelity and reliability were collected on the assessment sessions
through a researcher-created checklist. For the intervention sessions, fidelity and reliability were collected through a rating
form. Lastly, permanent products were scored independently
and compared to determine fidelity and reliability. Second and
third raters were trained and completed practice sessions not
included in the final calculations. These raters scored or rated
sessions or products independently. Reliability was calculated
through point-by-point agreement (agreements/agreements +
disagreements × 100; Kazdin, 2011) with an expectation of 88%
or better. Fidelity and reliability percentages are listed in Table 3.
Results
Preassessment Results
Before initiating baseline data collection, the primary author
administered several assessments. The reasons for administering the assessments were twofold: (a) to ensure that the student
participants met the study’s inclusion criteria and (b) to understand their skills better. Overall scores are presented in Table 1.
Reading ability
The primary author administered the WJ-III LWI and PC subtests. As indicated in Table 1, Megan, Sienna, and Brian had a
reading delay. They all performed better on the letter/word identification subtest than on the PC subtest. Also, they all met the
criteria to be included in the study because they all were reading
at or between the second to fourth grade levels.
Morphemic awareness
On the Morphemic Awareness Test, Megan did not know the derivational morphographs un-, mis-, -ful, and pre-. Sienna did not
know the morphographs –ness, mis-, and im-. Lastly, Brian did
not know several morphographs: –ly, dis-, mis-, -less, re-, -ment,
-ness, pre-, -ent, -able, and -ous. According to the district curriculum, all of the morphographs that Megan and Sienna struggled
with should have been mastered by the end of fourth grade. For
Brian, 7 out of 11 of the morphographs he struggled with should
have been mastered by third grade. These findings indicated that
these students were not meeting minimum district grade-level
requirements in the area of morphology, warranting the present
Table 3. Fidelity and reliability calculations
Fidelity
Assessment sessions
Intervention sessions
Permanent Product
Reliability
Percentage
Range
Percentage
Range
97
93
100
78–100%
90–98%
100–100%
97
90
100
86–100%
87–93%
100–100%
236 | Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 3
intervention. Finally, the primary author asked each student to
read and give a definition of the base words that would be part
of the intervention. Megan and Sienna could read all of the base
words but could only define one word, assist. Brian could decode
the word dent but could not define any of the target base words.
Intervention Results
After scoring the repeated measures, the student participants’
morphographic analysis scores were graphed using the multiple
baselines across student design (Kazdin, 2011). Visual analysis of
the morphographic analysis data paths was used to analyze the
results at the student level. The primary author evaluated the
morphographic analysis data for the following features: stability, level, trend, immediacy of effect, percentage of overlapping
data, and consistency similar to Guardino and Antia (2012) and
suggested in Kratochwill et al. (2010).
Megan
Morphographic analysis
Figure 3 presents Megan’s data. Her morphographic analysis data path is indicated with circles. During baseline, Megan
demonstrated a mean accuracy of 14%, and she met the criterion
to enter intervention. During the first intervention phase, there
was a change in level (M = 14% to M = 100%) and an immediacy
of effect (6.7–100% accuracy). Megan’s intervention data scores
presented a stable trend at 100% accuracy, which met the criteria
to enter the generalization phase. Megan obtained 60% accuracy
on the generalization measure, which met the criteria for her to
enter the second intervention phase. The second intervention
phase data were consistent with the first intervention phase
data. There was a change in level (M = 14% to M = 100%) and
an immediacy of effect from 60% to 100% accuracy. The second
intervention phase data were stable at 100% accuracy. Because
Megan’s scores met mastery criteria, data collection ceased. At
this point, Megan did not interact with any intervention materials for 10 sessions. After 10 sessions, a maintenance data point
was collected. She obtained a 60% accuracy score on the maintenance probe. There was 0% of overlapping data between phases
(i.e., the percentage of data from one phase that is the same as
the data from a previous phase; Kratochwill et al., 2010).
Affix meaning
The triangle data path denotes the affix meaning accuracy
scores. During baseline, Megan obtained 0% accuracy on the
Figure 3. Student participants’ graphs. BL = baseline, Int. = intervention, and G = generalization.
Trussell et al. | 237
affix meaning probe. Intervention data presented an increasing
trend that was consistent across both intervention phases. The
mean across both intervention phases was greater than 90%.
There were no overlapping data between phases.
Sienna
Morphographic analysis
Figure 3 presents Sienna’s data. During baseline, Sienna’s scores
were stable with a mean of 15% accuracy. Sienna’s phase one
intervention data presented an increasing trend with a change
in level (M = 15% to M = 96%) and an immediacy of effect from
13% to 93% accuracy, she entered the generalization phase.
Sienna obtained a score of 70% accuracy on the generalization
probe and began the second phase of intervention. Consistent
with intervention phase one, there was a change in level from
15% to 92% accuracy and an immediacy of effect from 70% to
87% accuracy. After 10 sessions, the TODHH administered the
maintenance probe and Sienna obtained a score of 100% accuracy. There was 0% overlapping data between phases.
Affix meaning
Sienna obtained 0% accuracy on the affix meaning probe during baseline. Intervention data presented an increasing trend
and were consistent for both intervention phases. The mean for
phases one and two intervention data reached 60% accuracy.
There were no overlapping data between phases.
Brian
Morphographic analysis.
Figure 3 presents Brian’s data. Brian’s baseline data were stable at a mean of 9% accuracy and he was entered into the
intervention phase. Data from intervention phase one were
plotted and demonstrated an increasing trend with a change
in level (M = 9% to M = 92%) and an immediacy of effect from
10% to 87% accuracy. Brian entered the generalization phase.
He obtained a score of 60% accuracy on the generalization
measure and the second phase of intervention began. Unlike
the other two students, Brian’s phase two’s intervention data
were not consistent with his data from phase one. Perhaps
this may be attributed to the 2-day school break that occurred
during phase two intervention data collection (see missing
data points). However, there was a change in level (M = 9%
to M = 76%) and no immediacy of effect from 60% to 60%
accuracy. With criteria met, Brian was moved into the maintenance phase. Brian obtained a 90% accuracy score on the
maintenance data probe with 0% of overlapping data between
phases.
Affix meaning
Brian obtained 0% accuracy on the affix meaning probe during
baseline: he demonstrated an increasing trend during intervention. His means during intervention phase one mean was
56% and for intervention phase two was 60%. The intervention
phases were consistent, and there were no overlapping data
between phases.
Social validity
Social validity ratings were collected separately for the student
participants and TODHH. The students rated the intervention on
different aspects from one to five. A score of 1 indicated that
they strongly disagreed, 3 indicated indifference, and 5 indicated
strongly agreed. The numbers were accompanied by an icon to
assist them in understanding the rating system. The results are
displayed in Table 4. Overall, the students rated the intervention as a three or higher on average in all areas. The TODHH also
completed a social validity questionnaire.
The TODHH responded to a questionnaire that rated the
intervention on a scale of 1–5: a score of 1 indicated that she
strongly disagreed and 5 indicated strongly agreed. The TODHH
strongly agreed that the intervention would be easy to implement and was appropriate for classroom instruction. She agreed
that she would like to implement the intervention after the
study was completed. Lastly, the TODHH felt indifferent about
the intervention aligning with her literacy goals for the students
and whether or not the intervention was beneficial for the students. The TODHH also answered three open-ended questions.
The first question asked the TODHH how she would change
the intervention. The TODHH indicated that she would like to
implement the intervention with small groups instead of one
on one. The second question asked about the challenges and
benefits of implementing a scripted curriculum. The TODHH
responded that the benefits were that the script helped maintain the integrity of the instruction and made it easy to stay on
task. The challenge was that one student found the repetition
frustrating. The last question on the questionnaire asked how
the students reacted to the intervention. The TODHH responded
that most of the students reacted positively. One student “was
frustrated toward the end” because the student did not like the
repetitive nature of the script “just wanted to move on.” Overall,
the TODHH’s responses indicated that she liked the intervention
but would prefer to implement it in small groups and that this
type of instruction may not be suitable to address all students’
learning needs or styles.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of morphographic instruction on the morphographic analysis skills
of DHH students. Our primary research question was: What
effect does morphographic instruction have on the morphographic analysis skills of DHH students who are reading below
grade level? We answered this question through repeated
assessment of morphographic analysis skill. We found that
morphographic instruction does positively change the student
participants’ morphographic analysis skills. There were three
demonstrations of effect (Kratochwill et al., 2010) confirmed by
the change from baseline to intervention for all three student
participants. Further, Sienna and Brian’s data replicated the data
paths (Kratochwill et al., 2010) of the first participant, Megan.
When looking across the graphs, all baselines were consistent,
and Sienna and Brian’s intervention data were consistent with
one another. A functional relation between the morphographic
Table 4. Student participants’ social validity ratings
Statement
I liked learning about morphographs
Learning about morphographs was fun
I can break apart words now
I would recommend learning about morphographs to
a friend
I learned a lot about morphographs
I can use what I learned about morphographs in other
classes at school
Mean rating
4.3
3.7
4.7
3.0
4.7
3.7
238 | Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 3
intervention and the students’ morphographic analysis skills
was established. These findings support previous findings that
DHH students can improve literacy skills through DI programs
(Trezek & Hancock, 2013; Trezek & Malmgren, 2005; Trezek &
Wang, 2006) paired with a visual organizer (Easterbrooks &
Stoner, 2006).
Second, we asked if students would be able to generalize
what they had learned to untaught words. All of the students
were able to analyze one or two untaught words during the generalization phase. However, they were not able to apply the word
analysis knowledge at a mastery level. This finding suggests
that DHH students require more than a short intervention: they
may need ongoing teacher-led, explicit instruction in the area of
morphographs as a part of their daily literacy curriculum if the
intention is for them to generalize from taught to untaught morphographs. During the student participants’ workbook planned
practice, there were novel words with taught morphographs
on the student worksheets and the students were able to dissect the word appropriately (e.g., taught word = section, novel
word = action). Indicating that a generalization measure that
included taught morphographs with novel root words may have
also been an appropriate measure.
Third, we asked the following question: If gains are made in
morphographic knowledge, will that knowledge maintain over
time? Sienna and Brian maintained the majority of the morphographic analysis skills that they learned during the intervention. Interestingly, they both scored the intervention more
favorably on the social validity questionnaire than did Megan.
Megan maintained her morphographic analysis knowledge over
time but not as well as the other two participants. Also, she did
not like the format of the intervention. She was often asking
the TODHH to “do it (the intervention) quickly.” In contrast, her
data showed the largest immediacy of effect and change in level
when compared to Sienna’s and Brian’s data paths indicating
that she might have benefitted from a faster-paced intervention
with a greater number of morphographs. Perhaps, she did not
respond well to paper and pencil tasks but would have enjoyed a
more active intervention. Some students may find the repetition
of DI frustrating as described by the TODHH participant on the
social validity questionnaire. This suggests that the intervention
should incorporate differentiated instruction in future trials as
consistent with current best practices in education.
Lastly, we wanted to know if morphographic instruction
could influence students’ affix knowledge. We found that the
participants increased their ability to match an affix to its
meaning on the student workbook pages. The slope for the affix
knowledge data paths for Brain and Sienna were not as steep
as the slope for their morphographic analysis, suggesting that
although they might readily have learned the task of breaking the words apart in rote fashion, they did not have an equal
facility with the underlying meaning of the affixes. During the
affix tasks, Brian and Sienna would often confuse two or three
of the affixes and were required to go through correction procedures. The students required more instructional sessions to
master the affix meanings than they took to master the morphographic analysis. These findings suggest that DHH students
require explicit instruction that is focused on meaning as well
as morphographic analysis.
Further, DHH students may need more repetitions (Ensor
& Koller, 1997) as well as scaffolding than other populations
(Plessow-Wolfson & Epstein, 2005) during meaning-based
instruction. This is important because morphographic skills
continue to grow beyond fourth grade (Berninger et al., 2010;
Deacon & Kirby, 2004). These students were in fourth and fifth
grades and had a morphographic knowledge delay during the
same period of time when hearing children’s morphographic
knowledge is growing. With instruction, their skills improved.
This finding supports the work of others who have suggested
that DHH students benefit from instruction from professionals
who have experience working with DHH students and who provide high-quality instruction (Marschark, Sapere, Convertino, &
Pelz, 2008)
During pretesting, the researchers discovered that Megan and
Sienna could decode the root words but could define only one of
those root words. Brian could neither decode nor define the root
words prior to intervention. This gap in background knowledge
did not seem to influence their ability to learn the target affixes
and root words. Modifying curriculum and planning lessons,
with the understanding that DHH students often bring deficient
background knowledge to tasks, is common (Hoffman & Wang,
2010; Schirmer, 2000; Wang & Paul, 2011). Reading in meaningful chunks is a developmentally appropriate task for students
this age (Carlisle & Fleming, 2003) and the Individuals with
Disabilities Education act requires educators to provide access
to the general education curriculum. For these students, that
meant providing instruction on morphographs with modifications to bridge the gap between grade-level demands and the
student’s present level of performance.
Megan’s baseline performance warrants further examination. During baseline, all of the student participants were
incorrectly deconstructing the target words by dissecting
them into syllables. Megan was the only participant who
would try different combinations of word parts, often attempting syllable breaks, at each opportunity. The primary author
tracked her correctly scored responses, and they changed
each time she completed the probe, indicating that she was
attempting a new strategy. Also, her accuracy scores declined
throughout the baseline phase. This inconsistency in accuracy indicated that although Megan could guess the correct
morphographic deconstruction of a word at times, she was
not employing consistent morphographic rules to answer the
probe. This finding suggests that DHH students may require
morphographic analysis instruction to deconstruct words
using morphographic rules.
The importance of this study’s findings is rooted in the need
to address the continued literacy struggles for DHH students
(Easterbrooks & Beal-Alvarez, 2012) and to add to the knowledge base surrounding morphographic analysis in the field of
deaf education (Tucci, Trussell, & Easterbrooks, 2014). Improving
a DHH students’ morphographic analysis and affix meaning knowledge could not only influence their decoding skills
(Carlisle, 2000) and vocabulary but also, more distally, their reading comprehension (Carlson, Jenkins, Li, & Brownell, 2013; Dyer,
MacSweeney, Szczerbinski, Green, & Campbell, 2003).
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
This study has several limitations that lead to recommendations for future research. As with all single case design studies,
replication from an independent lab is needed to meet standards of research rigor (Kratochwill et al., 2010). Future researchers may consider replicating this study in various geographic
locations or employing group design. The scripted lessons may
be a second limitation of this study. The social validity results
suggest that not all students enjoy this kind of paper and pencilbased instruction; instructional designers might consider more
active ways of teaching this skill such as using Smartboards and
iPads. Also, future researchers may choose to modify the script
Trussell et al. | 239
(e.g., shorten the script, less repetitions) to see if they find similar results.
A third limitation was the age of the students. Fourth through
eighth grade may be late to begin morphographic instruction,
especially considering that it appears in the Common Core
Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2011) in
second grade. This age group was targeted because of the model
curriculum’s guidelines. However, future researchers may want
to implement morphographic interventions with younger students (Apel et al., 2013).
A fourth limitation to this study was choosing the words that
were not semantically salient to teach a new skill. The target
word gullible can be broken into “gull” meaning “to trick” and
“ible” meaning “can or able to.” Historically, the word gullible
meant “able to trick,” but the current meaning of gullible is
“quick to believe something that is not true” (Gullible [Def. 1],
n.d.). There is a debate surrounding teaching root word meanings because the meanings have changed throughout the years;
however, students can still glean some information from the
words if they know the root meanings (Goodwin, 2014). During
initial morphographic analysis instruction, future researchers
may choose words that the root word meanings have remained
the same.
Further, we chose our target words from the district approved
spelling list. Future researchers may decide to teach word
groups that are aligned with curriculum content. For example,
the morphograph –ology can be combined with many root words
(i.e., biology, sociology, and psychology). Teaching word families
aligned with content area texts may provide the DHH reader
with more word familiarity to aid in understanding the morphograph in different contexts (Carlisle & Katz, 2006).
A fifth limitation is the focus of this intervention on a single
literacy skill. In the future, researchers may decide to investigate
the affix and root word meaning instruction more in-depth and
as part of a comprehensive literacy curriculum. The results of
this study indicate that learning and using affix meanings will be
more difficult than rote word analysis. Future researchers could
integrate context clue instruction (Ram, Marinellie, Benigno, &
McCarthy, 2013) or phonological instruction with morphological
or morphographic instruction (Nunes, Bryant, & Olsson, 2009) to
see if the skills support each other. Lastly, this intervention did
not teach morphographic analysis dissection rules for derived
words that change their spelling. Consequently, future researchers may choose to build on this study’s findings by teaching
more complex word dissection strategies that address derived
forms that change spelling.
Conclusion
Word dissection skills are a part of morphographic knowledge and are positively correlated with reading comprehension (Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy et al., 2006; Nunes, Burman,
Evans, & Bell, 2010). DHH students often have a morphographic
knowledge delay that may negatively affect their reading ability
(Gaustad & Kelly, 2004). Based on the results of the present study,
morphographic instruction can also improve students’ morphographic analysis skills that may in turn improve their decoding
abilities. Although this type of instruction could provide this
population with a meaning-oriented word identification strategy (Arnbak & Elbro, 2000) that is less dependent upon phonemic decoding (Mayberry, del Giudice, & Lieberman, 2011), the
results also suggest the importance of explicit instruction that
addresses affix meanings and word deconstruction. Although
additional research is needed to validate morphographic
instruction for this population, the study contributes positively
to the morphographic instruction evidence base for instructing
DHH students.
Conflicts of Interest
No conflicts of interest were reported.
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