Morphological decomposition supports word recognition in primary school children learning to read: evidence from masked priming of German derived words

Background When reading a word, skilled adult readers automatically decompose the word into its separate morphemes by processing word's morpho-orthography. In children, however, it still remains unclear when and how they start to words morphemes. Methods To better understand primary school children learn integrate automatic morphological processes their reading, we conducted masked priming experiment with n = 218 first fourth graders control group of 36 readers. Participants saw prime on computer screen for 67 ms, followed lexical decision task. For each target constructed three words: an unrelated prime, semantic test prime. The was either morpho-semantically, morpho-orthographically or purely orthographically related word. We analysed error rates reaction times linear mixed-effects models combinations. Results analysis revealed one significant interaction in morpho-semantic condition graders. time different effects depending age group: second showed no effects, while third condition, adults both morpho-orthographic condition. Conclusions conclude that (i) written based words' morpho-orthography, (ii) detect stems morphologically complex forms but do not rely representations (iii) show indication these processes. Our results are theoretically consistent ‘semantic view’ within localist account can be explained edge-aligned embedded activation.