Creating Word Wizards Through Morphology by Ruthie Swibel
One of the greatest misconceptions about structured literacy is that it is all about phonics. We have become hooked on the idea that teaching letter-sound correspondences is all there is. Science tells a more complex story, reflecting the many components that make up the process of learning to read. In previous posts, we have covered various critical elements of reading, such as orthographic mapping and vocabulary. There is still more to review. Skilled readers take for granted a host of things that happen without conscious effort.
Today, we will conquer morphology. We need our students to be “morphologically aware” – but what does that mean? Morphological awareness is an understanding that words can be broken into meaningful parts. A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that carries meaning. Think: prefixes, suffixes, and root words. You may be disinterested in this topic, but after engaging with this blog, you will see it is impossible to dispute the superpower of morphology. And for those of you who suffered through Latin conjugation drills in high schools, you can revel in your morphological superiority, because 50% of all words in English come from Latin, so knowing Latin is a huge boost to your vocabulary and spelling. For all of you STEM fans, knowing Greek is a huge help, as many technical, specialized words in math and science come from Greek.
But why do we really need to care about morphology? No, it isn’t just for the thrill of grooming the next generation of spelling bee champions. Our kids need morphological awareness to be able to comprehend what they read, especially after 5th grade. Researchers have found that a 5th grade student’s knowledge of morphology is a better indicator of reading comprehension than his or her vocabulary.” (Kieffer et al, 2007). English is a morphophonemic system (sorry for the hyper-technical phrase – no way around it), which means English spelling relies as much on morphemes (the parts of a word that have meaning) as it does on phonemes (the smallest units of sound in a word).
Research shows that students need to learn at least 2,000 to 3,000 words per year. And no, we aren’t going to be making sky-high stacks of vocabulary words on index cards for kids to memorize. Even with the best, evidence-based vocabulary instruction, you can teach between 300-500 new words per year. So what happens to the remaining 1,700- 2,500 words? Answer: you guessed it—morphology! By teaching students about affixes—prefixes and suffixes, and the meaning of root words, you are empowering students to unlock the meaning of hundreds, even thousands of unknown words. Through instruction in morphology, you are giving students a strategy to access the meaning of unknown words by themselves. They use their understanding of affixes and roots as they read to help figure out the meaning of unknown words.
Consider the root word claim/clam, which means to declare, call, or cry out. Knowing this root will help your students decode and understand these sentences,
“ The clamor of the bell announced the end of the school day.”
“ In a loud voice, the referee proclaimed (bonus, pro is a prefix that means for or forward and ed is a suffix indicating past tense) our team the winner.”
There are 9 prefixes that make up 75% of prefixed words (anti-, de-, dis-, en-, fore-, in-, inter-, mid-, mis-). In other words, you can cover a lot of ground by teaching those 9 prefixes! Check out the word deconstruction. It has four morphemes de+con+struct+ion. De- is a prefix that means “off or from”, con- is a prefix meaning “with” or “together.” Struct is a root word that comes from Latin and means “to build,” and -ion is a suffix that means “result of a process.” Deconstruction is the process of breaking something down into smaller parts. Having a working knowledge of roots, prefixes, and suffixes gives students a very good chance of being able to figure this word out in context. Once students are in 5th grade they will encounter more morphologically complex text; equip them with morphological awareness and they will be able to independently work their way through dense, high-level text.