Exploring the Dynamic Interplays of Morphological Awareness and Reading Skills in Chinese Children

ABSTRACT Theoretical work has suggested close associations between morphological awareness (MA) and reading skills in Chinese; however, the nature and direction of these time‐ordered links are little known. This study examined the interplays of MA and reading skills using a continuous‐time modeling approach to three waves of two‐year longitudinal data from first‐ ( N = 149; 69 girls) and third‐grade ( N = 142; 74 girls) Chinese children. Results showed that (a) increases in MA predicted subsequent increases in reading skills (i.e., word‐reading accuracy, word‐reading fluency, and sentence‐reading comprehension) and vice versa, (b) age only moderated the predictive effect of MA on sentence‐reading comprehension, and (c) the magnitude of these effects was time‐sensitive. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.