Fostering Children’s Literacy Skills and Morphological Awareness in Computer-Based Environment

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to fostering reading comprehension skills in primary school age children by concentrating on the linguistic and pedagogical aspects of literacy skills through analysing the relationship between literacy skills and morphological awareness. We attempted to give a theoretical foundation to an online reading intervention programme intending to develop reading comprehension and morphological awareness by investigating reading intervention programmes fostering both constructs together. Tapping into the theoretical background shed the light on the fact that several successful reading intervention programmes fostering both skills have been designed for primary school age children; we endeavoured to show the pedagogical relevance and the possible benefits of implementing such a programme at school. Based on the literature we have started to develop an online game-based reading intervention programme in order to endorse both constructs. The programme fosters children’s skills playfully. In the first version of the programme the number of reading comprehension tasks exceeded the number of morphological tasks. We have piloted the first four units of our intervention programme. The results were promising, therefore, using the experiences of the pilot study we are going to increase the number of exercises focusing on morphological awareness and we are planning an impact evaluation as well.