Morphological Awareness Instruction and Word-Level Literacy Development among Secondary Learners

Abstract

This study explored the effectiveness of morphological awareness instruction in improving word-level literacy among secondary learners at Santo Tomas National High School, Santo Tomas, Isabela. A switching-replications quasi-experimental design with repeated measurements was employed, allowing two instructional sequences to receive the intervention during separate phases. The program provided explicit instruction in morpheme identification, word decomposition, affix meaning, derivational production, word-family construction, morphological decoding, and interpretation of unfamiliar complex words. Data were gathered through a validated Morphological Awareness and Word-Level Literacy Battery administered at baseline, after the first instructional phase, and after the second phase. Linear mixed-effects growth models, planned contrasts, Hedges’ corrected effect sizes, and bootstrap confidence intervals were used to evaluate instructional gains, replication, and maintenance. Results showed significant improvements in morphological awareness and word-level literacy after exposure to the intervention. Large effects were observed in word decomposition, derivational production, morphological decoding, and complex-word recognition. The second instructional sequence demonstrated comparable gains after receiving the program, confirming the replicability of the instructional effect. Performance was maintained after direct instruction had ended, although difficulties remained in morphological spelling, unfamiliar word interpretation, and academic word-form use. The findings indicated that explicit attention to roots, prefixes, suffixes, and related word forms strengthened learners’ ability to process complex words. Integrating morphology-based activities into English and subject-area instruction was therefore recommended to support sustained vocabulary, decoding, spelling, and word-recognition development.