Reciprocal effects of morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading: A cross-lagged panel analysis in Chinese

•We examined the reciprocity among morphological awareness, vocabulary, and reading.•Only unidirectional longitudinal relationships emerged around one year later.•Morphological awareness facilitated later word reading.•Word reading facilitated later vocabulary knowledge. There are strong correspondences among syllable, morpheme, and orthographic representations in Chinese. For this reason, bidirectional relationships have been hypothesized among morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading from an early age. Our study examined the reciprocity of these skills among Hong Kong Chinese primary school children. Data were collected from 160 first graders at two time points and were analyzed using a cross-lagged panel design with the three skills modeled simultaneously. No reciprocal pathways were demonstrated in the model; instead, unidirectional relationships emerged. Morphological awareness facilitated later word reading, and word reading facilitated later vocabulary knowledge. Results are discussed in relation to a developmental account of learning to read in Chinese.