本研究探討了對英文的詞素認知、詞性敏感度和閱讀理解之間的關係為何。研究調查對象為台灣北部111名學習英語的大學生。為調查受試者的英文詞素知識、詞性敏感度和閱讀理解能力之間的關係，受試者進行了以下五項測驗：1)前綴辨別測試、2)真實單詞之後綴辨別測試、3)無意義詞之後綴辨別測試、4)詞性辨別測試及5)全民英檢中高級的閱讀理解測試。因結果顯示前綴辨別測試和閱讀理解測試之間並無關聯，故台灣大學生可能在閱讀中無法利用前綴知識。此外，台灣大學生俱有詞性敏感度，亦理解詞性與後綴的關係。然而，只有閱讀理解力較差的學生才會在閱讀時使用後綴知識。

The present study has addressed what kinds of relationships among morphological awareness, the sensitivity of syntactic category, and reading comprehension are. The participants were 111 college students from northern Taiwan, and all of them were English as foreign language learners. To investigate the relationship among the knowledge of affix, the sensitivity of syntactic category, and reading comprehension, they received five literacy measures: Prefix Identification Test, Real Word Suffix Test, Nonsense Word Suffix Test, Part of Speech Identification Test, and Reading Comprehension Test from the question database which target high-intermediate level of General English Proficiency Test. The results showed that the Taiwanese college students could not utilize the knowledge of prefix in reading because there was no correlation between the Prefix Identification Test and the Reading Comprehension Test. In addition, the Taiwanese college students possessed the sensitivity of syntactic categories and understand the relationships between the syntactic categories and suffixes. However, only the poor readers’ reading comprehension was influenced by the knowledge of suffix, and they would tend to use more knowledge of suffix in reading.  

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	i
CHINESE ABSTRACT	ii
ABSTRACT	iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION	vii
LIST OF TABLES	viii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION	1
1.1 Background	1
1.2 Statement of the problem	5
1.3 The purpose of this study	7
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW	9
2.1 The categories of morpheme	9
2.2 Morphological awareness	10
2.3 Reading comprehension and morphological awareness	13
2.4 Syntactic category and suffixes	19
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY	22
3.1 The present study	22
3.2 Participants	23
3.3 Measures	25
3.2.1 Real Word Suffix Test	26
3.2.2 Nonsense Word Suffix Test	27
3.2.3 Part of Speech Identification Test	28
3.2.4 Prefix Identification Test	29
3.2.5 Reading Comprehension Test	30
3.4 Procedure	32
3.5 Data analysis	34
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS	36
4.1 The relationships among the literacy measures of all participants	36
4.1.1 Correlations between the RCT and all affix tests	39
4.2 The relationships among the literacy measures in the three groups	40
4.2.1 Descriptive statistics for all literacy measures in the three RCC groups	41
4.2.2 Correlations between the RCT and affix tests in the three RCC groups	45
4.3 Comparison and relationship between prefixes and suffixes	47
4.3.1 Comparisons Between the PIT, RWST, and NWST	47
4.3.2 Comparisons of three affix tests in three RCC groups	48
4.4 Correlation between parts of speech and affixes	51
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION	57
5.1 Minor influence of prefixes on reading comprehension	57
5.2 Significant influence of suffixes only in the low reading comprehension group	61
5.3 The strong correlation between awareness of syntactic categories and suffixes among Taiwanese EFL learners	64
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION	68
6.1 Conclusion	68
6.2 Pedagogy implication	70
6.3 Limitations and suggestions for future study	73
REFERENCES	76
APPENDIX A: Questionnaire on Personal Information	85
APPENDIX B: Real Word Suffix Test	86
APPENDIX C: Nonsense Word Suffix Test	88
APPENDIX D: Part of Speech Identification Test	90
APPENDIX E: Prefix Identification Test	91
APPENDIX F: Reading Comprehension Test	93

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for All Literacy Measures	37
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for the Accuracy Rate of All Literacy Measures	38
Table 3 Correlations Between Reading Comprehension Score and All Affix Tests	39
Table 4 The Three RCC Groups’ Performance on Each Test	42
Table 5 The Three RCC Groups’ Accuracy Rate on Each Test	44
Table 6 Correlation Between Reading Score and Other Affix Tests in Three Groups	46
Table 7 Comparisons Between PIT, RWST, and NWST	48
Table 8 Comparisons of Affix Tests in Three RCC Groups	49
Table 9 The Correlation Between the PSIT and Three Affix Tests	51
Table 10 The Correlation Between the PSIT and Three Affix Tests in Three RCC Groups	53

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