Prosodic reading, reading comprehension and morphological skills in Hebrew-speaking fourth graders

Employing prosody skilfully, one of the cornerstones of fluent reading, is an indicator of text comprehension. Morphological knowledge has been shown to underlie lexical acquisition and to be related to reading development. The relationship between reading comprehension, prosodic reading and morphological knowledge was investigated in 51 Hebrew-speaking fourth-grade students aged 9-10. Participants were tested on comprehension of two stories and on appropriate prosodic reading of one of them. Their prosodic reading was compared with an agreed prosodic map compiled from experts' reading. Participants were also administered a battery of morphological tasks. All three domains, including almost all of their component parts, were strongly correlated. The multiple regression in steps showed that morphology and reading comprehension each contribute to prosodic reading, while morphology and prosody each contribute to reading comprehension. The connection between reading comprehension and prosodic reading is however moderated by good morphological skills.