Knowledge of Greek and Latin Roots is Related to Reading Comprehension among French-Speaking Sixth Graders

Oct 15, 2026

By the end of primary school, students encounter expository texts with a high proportion of domain-specific academic vocabulary. This vocabulary often contains Greek or Latin roots within word structure, and prior work links root knowledge to reading comprehension. However, no francophone study had examined this relationship. The study measures how Greek and Latin roots relate to reading comprehension in French 6th graders using a task and a standardized comprehension test, alongside morphological awareness, vocabulary breadth, word reading fluency, oral comprehension, and working memory; results show significant prediction.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Conceptual background and related research

Simple View of Reading and working memory

Phonological awareness and morphological awareness

Morphological awareness and domain-specific academic vocabulary

Word representations in reading models

Knowledge of Greek and Latin Roots is Related to Reading Comprehension among French-Speaking Sixth Graders Kathleen Whissell-Turner Université du Québec à Montréal Anila Fejzo Université du Québec à Montréal Abstract By the end of primary school, students are confronted with expository texts known for their high proportion of domain-specific academic vocabulary words. These words usually comprise Greek or Latin roots in their internal structure. Recent findings showed that knowledge of Greek and Latin roots is related to reading comprehension. However, no study has investigated such a relationship in a francophone context. Therefore, the present study sought to measure Greek and Latin roots’ relation to reading comprehension among French 6th graders. To do so, 40 participants were administrated an experimental task on Greek and Latin roots knowledge and a reading comprehension standardized subset test. Variables related to reading comprehension, such as morphological awareness, vocabulary breadth, word reading fluency, oral comprehension, and working memory were also measured. Results showed that knowledge of Greek and Latin roots significantly predicted variation of reading comprehension. This paper discusses scientific and educational implications of this finding. Résumé À la fin de l'école primaire, les élèves sont confrontés à des textes explicatifs connus pour leur forte proportion de mots du vocabulaire académique spécifiques à un domaine. Ces motscomprennent généralement des racines grecques ou latines dans leur structure interne. Des découvertes récentes ont montré que la connaissance des racines grecques et latines est liée à la compréhension de la lecture. Cependant, aucune étude n'a investigué une telle relation dans un contexte francophone. Par conséquent, la présente étude a cherché à mesurer la relation entre les racines grecques et latines et la compréhension de la lecture chez les élèves francophones de 6e année du primaire. Pour ce faire, 40 participants ont été soumis à unetâche expérimentale sur la connaissance des racines grecques et latines et à un sous-test standardisé de compréhension de la lecture. Des variables liées à la compréhension de la lecture telles que la conscience morphologique, l'étendue du vocabulaire, la fluidité de la lecture des mots, la compréhension orale et la mémoire de travail ont également été mesurées. Les résultats ont montré que la connaissance des racines grecques et latines prédisait de manière significative la variation de la compréhension de la lecture. Cet article discute des implications scientifiques et éducatives de cette découverte. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics: 24, 3 (2021): 61-78 CJAL * RCLA Whissell-Turner & Fejzo 62 Knowledge of Greek and Latin Roots is Related to Reading Comprehension among French-Speaking Sixth Graders Reading Comprehension, Morphological Awareness, and Domain-Specific Academic Vocabulary Reading comprehension is known to be a complex ability requiring the interaction of various components regulated by working memory (Kintsch, 1998) . Basically, in the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), reading comprehension is achieved by the interaction of word identification and oral comprehension. Also, a convincing number of studies have shown that metalinguistic abilities such as phonological awareness and morphological awareness are important predictors of reading comprehension. Indeed, phonological awareness, which is the ability to perceive and manipulate the smallest units of sounds in a target language (Kuo & Anderson, 2006), is strongly related to word reading in the early grades (e.g., National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000; Perfetti, 1985) . Further, morphological awareness is a more accurate predictor of reading abilities in the intermediate grades (Deacon et al., 2017). Morphological awareness is an ability focussing on the smallest meaningful units of one’s language, called morphemes (e.g., there ar

FAQs

What is the main research focus of the study?

The study investigates whether knowledge of Greek and Latin roots is related to reading comprehension among French-speaking sixth graders.

How was reading comprehension and roots knowledge assessed?

Participants completed an experimental task on Greek and Latin roots knowledge and a standardized subset test measuring reading comprehension.

Which reading-related variables were also measured?

The study also measured morphological awareness, vocabulary breadth, word reading fluency, oral comprehension, and working memory.

Oct 15, 2026

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