Research Symposium

BIO

I am a current freshman at Florida State University from Miami, Florida. I am pursuing a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing and a minor in Child Development. I am hoping to eventually attend graduate school and earn a Doctorate in Nurse Anesthesia Practice in order to become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. My current research interests include Psychology, Biology, and Chemistry.

Project Bound for Reading

Abstract

When examining the structure of words, complex words can be defined as multisyllabic words with instances of letter-sound irregularity. More specifically, these can be divided into two categories: monomorphemic or polymorphemic."Bound-only complex words" is a term that describes polymorphemic complex words that do not include a base word with significant meaning (Dozier, 2025). The primary question of our research investigates whether bound-only complex words have a more significant variance than polymorphemic complex words with a base word when controlling for frequency, transparency, and context diversity. Because recent reading trends display that about 30% of students are at or above proficiency in their reading levels, we hope to gain insight into the main factors that affect reading development (NAEP Reading: Reading Results, 2022). Data was collected from 75 students at a middle school in the southeastern United States across a variety of assessments that examine different skills related to reading. The data will be run through a coding platform to determine what kinds of words are more challenging to students. We expect that bound-only words will have an increased complexity rating due to the lack of a meaningful base word morpheme that provides important context to readers. The findings of this research could be significant in determining what hinders and what methods improve reading development, particularly for older students who typically are not the subject of reading literacy research.

Keywords: Reading, Adolescents, Polymorphemic, Bound Only