Abstract: Vocabulary knowledge has been found to be an important indicator of language development and to play a critical role in reading comprehension. Children’s morphological awareness, which refers to the ability to re?ect on and manipulate morphemes and to employ word formation rules to understand morphologically complex words, may be the underlying skill that is particularly associated with vocabulary growth. Although a relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge has been widely observed, questions remain about the direction of that relationship. The structure of morphological awareness includes homophone awareness, homograph awareness, and compounding awareness in Chinese. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the temporal relationship between morphological awareness (including homophone awareness, homograph awareness, and compounding awareness) and vocabulary knowledge among Chinese grade one children. In total, 145 Chinese grade one children (77 boys, 68 girls) participated at two time points: fall (Time 1) and spring (Time 2) of the first grade. The interval was six months. We measured morphological awareness and vocabulary in both times, in addition to their phonological awareness and nonverbal reasoning at Time 1 as control measures. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary after controlling for intelligence, phonological awareness and the auto-regression effects. The results showed that (1) with the age, IQ, phonological awareness and auto-regression effects of vocabulary controlled, homophone awareness at Time 1 accounted for a further small but significant amount of variance (2%) in vocabulary at Time 2. Compounding awareness at Time 1 predicted a unique amount of variance (1%) in vocabulary at Time 2 beyond the auto-regression and the effects of reading-related skills. However, homograph awareness at Time 1 did not predict variance in vocabulary at Time 2; (2) with the age, IQ, phonological awareness and auto-regression effects controlled, vocabulary knowledge at Time 1 predicted unique variance in homophone awareness (5%), homograph awareness (11%), and compounding awareness (4%) at Time 2, respectively. The results suggest a reciprocal relationship between children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary among Chinese children. Children’s ability of morphological analysis makes them decompose complex words to infer the meaning of morphologically complex words from the morphemes and compound structure. In addition, children’s ability of discriminating homophones and homographs makes them be sensitive to the phonological, graphic and semantic connection in vocabulary development. In the other hand, vocabulary size facilitates meaning extraction that allows children to infer the meaning of critical morphemes to avoid confusing many homophones and homographs better. The findings in the present study adds to our understanding of the relationship between these two developing skills.

Key words: Morphological awareness, Vocabulary, Longitudinal study, Chinese children

摘要： 以145名小学一年级儿童为被试，进行为期6个月的追踪，考察了儿童复合、同音和同形等不同层面语素意识与口语词汇的双向关系。结果发现：(1)控制了年龄、一般认知能力、语音意识及口语词汇的自回归效应后，同音和复合语素意识对口语词汇的发展具有显著的预测作用。(2)控制了相关变量及自回归效应后，口语词汇能够显著预测复合、同音和同形语素意识的发展。

关键词: 语素意识, 口语词汇, 追踪研究, 汉语儿童