Implementing a scientifically based educational intervention in mainstream primary schools before and during COVID-19 era: Evidence from Greek-speaking children

BACKGROUND

While morphological awareness has been recognized as a fundamental skill in students' literacy acquisition, experimental evidence is still scarce, especially regarding studies during pandemic.

AIM

The aim of the study was to present a scientifically based educational intervention of morphological awareness which was implemented in two mainstream primary schools in Greece during COVID-19 era (2020-2021).

METHOD

Participants were 72 primary school students (3rd/4th Grades) who were divided into an intervention and a control group per class. All students were assessed via tests of intelligence, literacy and language before pandemic. The intervention took place during pandemic in the school classroom of the experimental groups and included a pre-test, a training program and a post-test. The experimental material comprised of compounds which pose particular difficulties to children in terms of spelling and meaning.

RESULTS

The results showed that the systematic exercise of the morphological structure of words increased significantly students' spelling and semantic performance, including those with low literacy performance.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings underline the importance and feasibility of implementing scientifically based educational interventions in mainstream education during COVID-19 era. Theoretical and practical issues concerning the implementation of hybrid models of educational interventions and scientific research in education are discussed.

Dynamic assessment in spelling and morphological awareness in Greek: The case of a transparent orthography

BACKGROUND

Recent research is in favor of the use of dynamic assessment as an important method of combining assessment and intervention in a unified framework for typically and non-typically developing children. However, research is still sparse, in the evaluation of morphological awareness, especially for phonologically regular languages.

AIMS

This study aimed to investigate the role of dynamic assessment in the evaluation of morphological awareness in Greek children.

METHODS

Forty Greek participants (7-8 years old) allocated to an experimental (N = 21) and a control group (N = 19) were preliminary assessed on reading syllables/words, spelling words, vocabulary and morphological awareness. They were also evaluated on static assessments of spelling and word-formation of morphologically complex words, while only the experimental group was evaluated on dynamic assessments of the same tasks.

RESULTS

Children achieved significantly higher performance on the dynamic assessment tasks in comparison to their static ones. Correlations indicated that the degree of children's progress depended greatly on their initial literacy and language skills, while regression analyses revealed that static tasks made a unique contribution to their dynamic performance.

CONCLUSIONS

The results underline the role of dynamic assessment in the evaluation of morphological awareness in a phonologically regular language with rich morphology, such as Greek.

Spelling and Meaning of Compounds in the Early School Years through Classroom Games: An Intervention Study

The study aimed to evaluate the intervention effects on spelling and meaning of compounds by Greek students via group board games in classroom settings. The sample consisted of 60 pupils, who were attending the first and second grade of two primary schools in Greece. Each grade-class was divided into an intervention (N = 29 children) and a control group (N = 31 children). Before intervention, groups were evaluated by standardized tests of reading words/pseudowords, spelling words, and vocabulary. Students were also assessed on compound knowledge by a word analogy task, a meaning task and a spelling task. The experimental design of the intervention included a pre-test, a training program, and a post-test. The pre- and post-assessments consisted of the spelling and the meaning tasks entailing equally morphologically transparent and opaque compounds. The training program was based on word families (N = 10 word families, 56 trained items, 5 sessions) and aimed to offer instruction of morphological decomposition and meaning of words. The findings showed that training was effective in enhancing the spelling and most notably the meaning of compounds. A closer inspection of intervention data in terms of morphological transparency, revealed that training group of first graders improved significantly both on transparent and opaque compounds, while the degree of gains was larger on opaque items for the second graders. These findings are consistent with the experimental literature and particularly optimistic for the literacy enhancement of typically developing children in regular classrooms.

Spelling performance and semantic understanding of compound words by Greek students with learning disabilities

The study aimed to investigate the spelling performance and the semantic understanding of compound words by 103 Greek primary school children (first through sixth grade). The experimental group comprised of 25 children with spelling difficulties and compared with a control group of 78 children of typical development. Children were asked to spell and define 20 concrete and abstract compounds. They were also asked to spell 20 different compounds after providing their definitions in terms of their morphological constituents. Main results indicated that concrete compounds were spelled and defined better than abstract ones, but the experimental group performed significantly lower than the control group on both word types. Children with spelling disabilities were able to use less etymological information in defining compound words than their typical classmates, suggesting that they understand less the internal structure of morphologically complex words. These results are compatible with the experimental literature and are discussed in terms of the morphophonemic nature of Greek language as a transparent orthography with a rich morphology.