The Implications of Adolescents' Academic Word Knowledge for Achievement and Instruction.

The purpose of the current study was to determine relationships between orthographic and morphological awareness of academic words and achievement across content areas. Participants (n = 256), diverse seventh and eighth graders, took three word knowledge measures; two standardized achievement measures were used as outcomes. Orthographic awareness of academic words explained variance in achievement, beyond overall breadth of vocabulary knowledge, with significant changes in R2 ranging from 0.02 to 0.08. Morphological awareness of academic words explained variance in achievement, beyond overall breadth of vocabulary knowledge, with significant changes in R2 ranging from 0.06 to 0.16.