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Morpheme

ManiaNILD Canada Spring Conference

April 22,23 2016

Toronto, ON

Diane VandeMeent, CET

By the end of the hour you will

understand:

� the importance of teaching morphology for reading, spelling, and vocabulary

� Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek and French influences on morphemes

� Three things to (never) say to your students

� How to teach morphology to students of different ages …using Structured Word Inquiry (Word Matrix, Word Sums)

The Chaos

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Structured Word InquirySWI -- helps break down the idea that ‘English is just

crazy, you will have to memorize that word”

Richard Venezky“Orthography is not meant to represent sound but

meaning”

Carol Chomsky“..can’t pronounce a word until you see how it is

interacting with the affix, then sound it out” Pg. 298

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David Crystal“There is no question that if you’ve learned Latin, it

will help your English Spelling. The English system is

really highly orderly highly consistent, highly predictable”

Gina Cooke“ All stories are made of words…but all words have

a story.”

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Vocabulary

�Morpheme – smallest meaningful unit of language

�Morphology – the study of meaningful parts of words and how they are combined

Morphemes

� “When a student first learns to read, phonemic awareness becomes all important as the young brain tries to match letters to sounds. But by grade 3, morphological awareness begins to surpass phonemic awareness in the development of decoding skills.”

(Singson, Mahony, and Mann, 2000)

Beyond the WordLyn Anderson blog

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Miraculous Morphemes Kelly Literacy WorldWide

.

Linguistics is a science, and orthography should be taught that way.

Morphemes

Free

�Content

� Function

Bound

� Prefixes

� Bound Roots

� Suffixes

� Inflectional

� Derivational

Inflectional Morphemes

� Show possession

� Number

� Tense

� Comparison

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Derivational Morphemes

�Morphemes are added to other

morphemes and a new word is derived

- Philosopher (n)

- Philosophize (v)

- Philosophical (adj)

�Often changes part of speech or grammatical class

Derivational suffixes

�Noun Suffix – ment, -ness-age

�Adjective Suffix –-ive, -al, -ous, -ic

� Verb Suffix – ate, - ize, -ify

�Adverb Suffix -ly

Layers of Language

Greek

Latin

Anglo Saxon

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Make words with these word

parts:

- re - ex

- graphic - able

- geo - logy

- earth - port

- tract - quake

- bio - worm

Anglo Saxon: quake, earthquake, earthworm

Latin: export, report, extract

Greek: geographic, biology, biographic

Anglo-Saxon Layer

�Oldest layer of English

� Includes:

- Compound words

- Prefixes / Prepositions

- Suffixes

- Non-phonetic Words

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Latin Layer

o Language of scholars, nobles, high class

o Use of the schwa

o Root is stressed and easy to sound out

o Prefixes such as re, sub, dis, per

o Suffixes change the parts of speech

o Vocabulary of science, math, social studies

Greek Layer

� Modern scientific and mathematical terms

� Combined with other morphemes of equal importance

� Unique spelling patterns

- ph/f and ch/k

- y as long or short i

Homonyms

�Write

�Wright

WHY are they spelled differently?

� Right

� rite

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The job of non syllabic ‘e’

� Please

�Grudge

�Create

� Ladle

� dense

� Judgement

� Snooze

� Vague

� Teethe

� sauce

Engage Students in

Morpheme DISCOVERY

� Discover Morpheme meanings

� Use www.neilkramsden.co.uk/spelling/searcher

- instruct

- instruction

- construct

- construction

- reconstruct

- structure

- struct mean ____to build ________

� Teach students to think linguistically

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Engage students in Morpheme

Discovery

� Teach derivational family members together in spelling and vocabulary

Which is correct?

Persperation or perspiraton

Plesure or pleasure

Electrisity or electricity

Comprable or comparable

� Instruction should be more effective if lessons coordinate context, semantics,

morphology, orthography and phonology because that appears to be what the mind does to make sense of written language (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughan, & Vermeulen, 2003). The mind also considers syntax, including the morphosyntacticproperties of words (e.g.,

words that end with the suffix -ness tend to be abstract nouns--concepts,

feelings, ideas--as in happiness, sadness, peacefulness, thankfulness).

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More…engaging students in

Morpheme Discovery

� When a student questions why the ‘g’ is in sign, investigate! Use Structured Word Inquiry instead of lists!

(wordworkskingston.com)

� Changing the grammatical role of a word

- Add prefixes and suffixes onto a word and determining the new part of speech

More strategies to Develop

Morphology

� Use www.Etymonline.com

� Use dictionaries and reference aids

� Use information about word parts (morphemes)

� Use Context cues to derive meaning

� WORDS from Marcia Henry

� Use word searcher on line

� Collaborative ‘word web’ creations

Engage Students In

Morpheme Discovery

� Post a root of the week

� Utilize word walls and word maps

friend

unfriendlyFriendless

friendshipbefriend

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References

� Speech to Print by Louisa Moats

�Words by Marcia Henry

�Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills by Suzanne Carreker and Judith Birsch

� Solving Language Difficulties by AmeySteer, Caroline Peck, and Linda Kahn

References

� Sounds of Meaning by Kristin Barbour, Kathy

Keafer, Rachel Velez

� www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/searcher/ (Word searcher,suffix checker, mini matrix-

maker, word microscope and more)

� IDA fact sheet, http:eida.org/fact-sheets/

� Learning By Design, Jan Wasowicz

� Real Spelling, videos on youtube

� Gina Cooke

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References

� Literacyworldwide.org

� Real Spellers – www.realspelling.org

�WordWorks Literacy Centre –www.wordwordskingston.com

� LEX –www.linguisteducatorexchange.com

�Online Etymology Dictionary –www.etymonline.com