Teaching and Learning Morphology: A Reflection on Generative Vocabulary Instruction

Abstract

Students' knowledge of morphology can play a critical role in vocabulary development, and by extension, reading comprehension and student writing. This reflection describes the nature of this knowledge and how it may be developed through the examination of generative vocabulary knowledge and the role of the spelling system in developing this knowledge. In addition, it explores morphological development and the significant insights and understandings that students should attain: the basic nature of word formation processes, the spelling-meaning connection, the generativity of morphology: roots and affixes, etymology and morphology, and the role of morphological knowledge in learning other languages.

Morphology Matters, but What Do Teacher Candidates Know About It?

“…Morphemic analysis, a process in which multisyllabic words are broken down into small morpheme parts (i.e., affixes and root words), is a method that has been particularly successful for teaching older readers how to analyze morphologically complex words (Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010; Hendrix & Griffin, 2017; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2007; Pacheco & Goodwin, 2013; Reed, 2008; Templeton, 2012). In fact, researchers have highlighted the success of teaching common and discipline-specific prefixes and suffixes in the context of content area classrooms (e.g., science, social studies) for vocabulary learning (Deshler, Palincsar, Biancarosa, & Nair, 2007; Flanigan, Templeton, & Hayes, 2012; Henry, 1993).…”

“…Although less specific, in CEC’s (2015) initial preparation standards, “beginning special education professionals understand and use general and specialized content knowledge for teaching across curricular content areas to individualize learning for individuals with exceptionalities” (p. 3). With language and language structure central to any discipline taught in the English language (Templeton, 2012), specialized content knowledge is likely to include an understanding of how to use morphology to support vocabulary learning and comprehension in a given subject matter. For example, in a science, knowledge of Greek root words and affixes is needed to access the language of science (e.g., ecology, ecosystem).…”

Creating Culturally Supportive Settings That Foster Literacy Development: Guidance for SLPs

“…SLPs can use teacher-generated vocabulary lists to identify the most frequently occurring morphemes embedded within essential vocabulary words (Zoski et al, 2018). For beginning instruction and ease of learning, it is recommended to choose morphemes that occur frequently in a corpus of target vocabulary words that maintain consistency in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning across the target words (e.g., Cunningham, 1998;Templeton, 2012;Nellenbach et al, 2015;Zoski et al, 2018).…”

Stages, Phases, Repertoires, and Waves: Learning to Spell and Read Words

“…▪Knowledge of the developmental relations among spelling, reading, and vocabulary helps teachers make the appropriate developmental decision when younger learners occasionally spell correctly, or are attempting to spell, words that reflect more advanced spelling features. For example, the student who writes “My older sister totaly agruvates me!” will benefit from the following: ▪Investigating some syllable juncture spelling patterns—when to double when adding suffixes, as in totally ; but ▪Not all syllable juncture patterns—the doubled consonants in aggravate that signal an assimilated prefix (although the teacher may provide the correct spelling) ▪The teacher possibly mentioning assimilated prefixes, as part of vocabulary instruction—but again, expecting correct spelling to follow is not well advised ▪As they are exploring syllable juncture patterns through focused contrasts in words such as button , happy versus bacon , lazy to develop the spelling generalization about whether or not to double consonants at syllable junctures, students may also learn the following: ▪The generative vocabulary meaning patterns in Greek and Latin roots in words such as transcription , barometric , and autobiographical ▪How these meaning patterns form the majority of general academic and domain‐specific vocabulary and lay the foundation for learning the correct spellings of longer, more morphologically complex words a bit later in an instructional sequence (Templeton, 2011, 2012) ▪Some alternative theorists observed that instruction in etymology should also include pointing out relations among words such as sign , signal , and signature (Devonshire & Fluck, 2010). Although etymology indeed explains the origin of these relations—the Latin root signum —most of the research community as well as stage theory refer to these meaningful relations as part of derivational morphology.…”