Promoting Morphological Awareness in Children With Language Needs

Abstract

Recent research has acknowledged the importance of morphological awareness, beyond phonological awareness, to literacy achievement in both reading and writing for children, adolescents, and adults. Morphological awareness is the ability to recognize, reflect on, and manipulate the sublexical structure of words-the roots, prefixes, and suffixes. In this paper, we examine the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS/ELA) to identify explicit gradespecific morphological awareness standards. We then discuss the standards-by-grade within the framework of learning morphology type and morphological aspects, for example, semantic, syntactic, and productive properties. Finally, we discuss the role of speech-language pathologists in collaboration with classroom teachers to support students with speech-language impairment and ELLs to achieve standards in the area of morphology.

Using Morphological Awareness Instruction to Improve Written Language Skills

“…This tutorial has provided examples of strategies and activities to increase students' awareness of the morphological structure of the English language, particularly within the written form. Professionals also should keep in mind that their work in morphological awareness ties directly to student expectations as listed in the Common Core State Standards (see Gabig & Zaretsky, 2013, for specific information). By integrating morphological awareness instruction into the services they provide, clinical scientists and other educators will be providing their students with a strong tool to aid written language skills.…”

“…English is a morphophonemic language, and word spellings reflect morphological structure as well as phonological structure. Current standards for students across most states reflect this; the Common Core State Standards provide many benchmarks related to the morphological structure of the English language (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010; Gabig & Zaretsky, 2013).…”

Assessing Affix Knowledge Using Both Pseudoword and Real-Word Measures

“…, the contribution of morphological skills to language and literacy development is an area of emerging focus and understanding (e.g., Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010;Gabig & Zaretsky, 2013;Goodwin & Ahn, 2010;Jarmulowicz & Taran;. Students' awareness of the morphological components of words has been documented to develop through the elementary-and middleschool years (Berninger, Abbott, Nagy, & Carlisle, 2010;Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006).…”

“…The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS/ELA) reference acquisition of awareness and knowledge of morphological elements throughout education, beginning in early elementary school (Gabig & Zaretsky, 2013;National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Several of the reading and vocabulary strands of the CCSS/ELA standards for midelementary students directly address the need for students both to engage in the process of word analysis and to acquire knowledge of common prefixes, suffixes, and roots.…”

From the Editor

“…Development along the knowledge-to-awareness continuum is a theme addressed by Gabig and Zaretsky (2013) in their lead article to this issue. They point out that morphological knowledge, as well as awareness, is an implied, and sometimes explicit, component of many of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010) across the full range of grades from K through 12.…”