The Contribute of the Word Roots in Reading among Normal and Dyslexic Readers

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to stress the contribute of the word roots in reading among normal and dyslexic readers. The lexical status of the root morphemes were examines using two priming paradigms: the masked priming; and the cross-modal immediate repetition task among regular and dyslexic readers: Grades sixth, eighth and tenth. The hypothesis was that the roots of words are lexical entities which have a role in organizing the lexicon, and facilitate the access to a wide countenance of verbs among regular and dyslexic readers from ages of elementary to high school. It was also assumed that the effect of visual morphological priming and effect of auditory morphological priming will be stronger among those who have a reading disability and among young readers, compared to more skilled readers. Further, it was assumed that the manner of representation of morphologically complex words and how to access them is similar among the all readers in reading Arabic. In addition, it was assumed that the pace of building a mental lexicon among dyslexic readers is slow, but the lexicon itself is similar to that of regular readers. The findings confirmed the first hypothesis about the roots.  It was also found that regarding readers with dyslexia, the manner of representation of the words that are morphologically complex is different compared to regular readers. It was concluded that this difference is a result of a deficit in the initial processing process among these readers, and that they are apparently relying on other channels except the morphological one when identifying verbs, which emphasizes the uniqueness of the Arabic language, its morphological density and its phonological and lexical richness.