JCPSLP Vol 22 No 1 2020

for vocabulary learning purposes. During Clarification activities, children learn to identify when they are not understanding, and to search for clues within the text. Detailed information on Reciprocal Teaching is available in Palincsar and Brown (1984), and information on how to combine Reciprocal Teaching with Direct Vocabulary Instruction is available in Clarke et al. (2014), see Table 1. Instruction in morphological analysis should also form part of a comprehensive vocabulary instruction program. Children who have good knowledge of prefixes and suffixes, and who understand how morphemes can be combined, may be able to decipher the meanings of unfamiliar morphologically complex words. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have shown that morphological instruction can lead to improved vocabulary knowledge, though the evidence that such instruction leads to reading comprehension improvements is less secure (Bowers et al., 2010; Goodwin & Ahn, 2010, 2013). Therefore, morphological instruction is likely to be most effective as part of a multi-component program of reading comprehension instruction, along with direct vocabulary instruction and discourse-level instruction such as Reciprocal Teaching. Indeed, morphological instruction was part of two successful vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction programs (LARRC et al., 2019; Lesaux, Kieffer, Kelley, & Harris, 2014). There is a wealth of literature on different methods of morphology instruction, but these methods are seldom directly compared to each other, meaning that there is no clear evidence to recommend one method over another. However, most researchers agree that children should learn the meanings of bases and affixes (e.g., the prefix dis- means something like not or opposite to, the Latin base -tract means something like drag or pull ), they should learn how morphology influences spelling (e.g., the rules for dropping final -e , doubling consonants and changing -y to -i ), and they should learn how to apply this information to problem solve or analyse the meanings of words (e.g., Bowers, et al., 2010; Goodwin, Lipsky, & Ahn, 2012; Manyak, Baumann, & Manyak, 2018). For example, children could complete activities such as working out the base form in a group of related words (e.g., tractor , retract , subtract ) and then use this information to hypothesise about the words’ meanings (Bowers & Kirby, 2010; Manyak et al., 2018). Suggestions for further reading on morphology instruction are provided in Table 1. Conclusions and clinical implications Given the reciprocal nature of the links between written and spoken language, many children with oral language difficulties are likely to also have reading comprehension difficulties (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999; Catts, Sittner Bridges, Little, & Tomblin, 2008; Kelso, Fletcher, & Lee, 2007). SLPs have a crucial role to play in identifying and remediating reading comprehension difficulties. Oral language intervention for school-aged children should be designed with reading comprehension outcomes in mind, and vocabulary intervention methods can form part of an SLP’s repertoire of strategies for doing so. Children with weak vocabulary knowledge need direct, explicit instruction in useful, functional words. They are also likely to benefit from instruction in morphological knowledge and broader vocabulary-learning strategies. However, it is important to bear in mind that while direct vocabulary instruction is very effective for improving

as orthographic facilitation . It has been demonstrated predominantly in studies of typically developing children, although a small number of studies have demonstrated the effect in children with developmental language disorder (see Colenbrander, et al., 2019). For further resources on direct vocabulary instruction, see Table 1.

Table 1 Resources and further reading

Direct vocabulary instruction

Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2008). Creating robust vocabulary: Frequently asked questions and extended examples . New York: Guildford Press. Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R., & Deacon, S. H. (2010). The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research , 80 (2), 144–179. doi:10.3102/0034654309359353 Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2013). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions in english: Effects on literacy outcomes for school-age children. Scientific Studies of Reading , 17 (4), 257–285. doi:10.1080 /10888438.2012.689791 Goodwin, A., Lipsky, M., & Ahn, S. (2012). Word detectives: Using units of meaning to support literacy. The Reading Teacher , 65 (7), 461–470. doi:10.1002/trtr.01069 Manyak, P. C., Baumann, J. F., & Manyak, A.M. (2018). Morphological analysis instruction in the elementary grades: Which morphemes to teach and how to teach them. The Reading Teacher , 72 (3), 289–300. doi:10.1002/trtr.1713 Clarke, P. J., Truelove, E., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2014). Developing reading comprehension . Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell. Language and Reading Research Consortium. (2019). Let’s know! and Vamos a aprender! [Curriculum supplements]. Available at https://larrc.ehe.osu.edu/ Strategy-based vocabulary instruction Studies of broad, strategy-based instruction are many and varied, but only a small number of multi-component studies have found evidence of training-related improvements on both vocabulary and reading comprehension. The study by Clarke et al. (2010) found evidence of long-term improvements in vocabulary and reading comprehension as a result of a multi-component oral language intervention program. This program made use of a set of strategies known as “Reciprocal Teaching” (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), which may be particularly compatible with Robust Vocabulary Instruction. Reciprocal Teaching strategies also formed part of another successful multi-component intervention study (LARRC et al., 2019). The core activity of Reciprocal Teaching is discussion about a written text. Initially, the instructor models comprehension strategies, and gradually releases responsibility to the student(s). There are four strategies (Clarification, Prediction, Summarisation, and Question Generation), though Clarification may be the most relevant Morphology instruction Multi-component instruction programs

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JCPSLP Volume 22, Number 1 2020

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology