COR - The Components of Reading - Part 4 - Morphology

MORPHOLOGY

Continuing our series on COR Instruction, where we highlight the activities explored in the HOT ROD activity books (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables), this month’s topic is Morphology.

One of the main features of HOT ROD books is a focus on providing decoding practice within a meaningful context, utilizing key vocabulary and other concepts that can also be used to address COR skills like morphological awareness.

While phonemes represent the smallest units of sound, morphemes represent the smallest units of meaning. English is a morphophonemic language, which means that the phonemes and the morphological structure work together to affect how words are pronounced.

In her chapter on “Morphology for Reading, Spelling, and Vocabulary,” in Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (Third Edition), Louisa Moats talks about the power of morphological awareness for building vocabulary. The ability to recognize morphemes enhances a student's ability to make reasonable inferences about a word's meaning in context. That recognition and understanding help to “anchor a word in memory.” In addition, we remember words best when we understand their relationship to other words. 

It's never too early to start teaching morphology. Children as young as kindergarten benefit from learning basic suffixes such as -s, -ed, and -ing. Many older students working on a Scope and Sequence that starts with closed syllables (short vowel sounds) can handle word sums like the one below from the Gods and Gifts Activity Book: 50+ Activities and Games for Decoding, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Speech. The word matrix examples in this blog were all created using the Mini-Matrix Maker at www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix.

About the Word Matrix 

The Word Matrix is a concept explored by Peter Bowers in Teaching How the Written Word Works: Using Morphological Problem-Solving to Develop Students’ Language Skills & Engagement with the Written Word. This is how word sums work:

1. A Word Matrix helps us explore word structure by organizing elements like prefixes, base elements, and suffixes into columns. 

2. Prefixes are in the left column. Base elements are in the middle column. Suffixes are in the right columns.

3. A Word Sum is created by using one element from one column at a time to construct a word. You do not have to use an element from every column, but do not skip over columns.

4. Students create words using the Word Sums and then use those words to complete a variety of activities. 

In the example above from the Gods and Gifts Activity Book, students work with basic syllable types. Etymology is also an important part of the Morphological Problem-Solving process. For that reason, the activity book also explores the etymology of Prometheus, Epimetheus, & Pandora, main characters in the Greek Creation Myth. More advanced students (those working beyond closed syllable types) study the origin of these names and the meanings of those Greek combining forms. Students who are not ready to tackle reading those words still benefit from the discussion of those names. One of the strategies that makes the HOT ROD books unique is the emphasis on Pair and Share reading. A rich background context is read by a reading partner, allowing struggling readers to build world knowledge even as they learn basic decoding skills.

The example for SPECT above is from Level 3 and The Raven Remix Activity Book, which also explores the etymology of Pluto, the name of Edgar Allan Poe's infamous feline from his short story "The Black Cat."

The Hank the Tank Activity Book includes morphology games and activities for re, tract, and -ing, as well as information about the etymology of the word bear, but it does not include any Word Sums. For that reason, I have made a digital activity available for free on Boom TM Cards HERE, exploring word sums for TRACT. 

Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE.  

References:

Bowers, P. (2009). Teaching how the written word works: Using morphological problem-solving to develop students’ language skills & engagement with the written word. Ontario, Canada: Peter Bowers

Eggleston, R. L., Marks, R. A., Sun, X., Yu, L., Zhang, K., Nickerson, N., Hu, X., Caruso, V., & Kovelman, I. (2024). Lexical morphology as a source of risk and resilience for learning to read with dyslexia: An fNIRS investigation. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/23814764000300140072

Farrell, L.M., & Cushen-Whte, N.  (2018). Structured literacy instruction. In J.R. Birsh & S. Carreker (Eds.) Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th ed., pp. 35-72). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Moats, L.C. (2020). Speech to print: Language Essentials for Teachers. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Ramsden, N. Mini-Matrix Maker -https://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/

Using Narratives to Teach Morphology through Structured Word Inquiry

Structured Word Inquiry is a process used to engage learners in the scientific investigation of word parts and their morphology, etymology, and phonology. It looks at how those elements work together for both meaning and spelling, as well as how they are connected to other words.

The basic idea behind SWI is that English is a highly structured language when you understand the history of words and their underlying meaning. For instance, SWI treats homophones like to, too, two as terms that have important spelling variations to help signal meaning. Rather than being irregular, the word two makes sense when looking at related words like twin and twice. 

Peter Bowers Ph.D. is the founder of WordWorks Literacy Centre in Ontario. He coined the phrase Structured Word Inquiry (SWI). For more information about SWI, watch his  TedX Youth Talk entitled "Make Spelling Joyful Through Scientific Inquiry." He gives tips for "cultivating curiosity" for spelling in students by focusing more on meaning and less on sound.  It's 18 minutes long, and he recommends it as an introduction to the big picture of SWI.

Peter's 2009 book - Teaching How the Written Word Works: Using Morphological Problem-Solving to Develop Students' Language Skills & Engagement with the Written Word may be found HERE. I used his book as a reference when I was creating my SWI activities for my activity books. Peter is giving several workshops this fall, and many of them are online. Check out Peter Bowers Workshops.  You may also want to check out his latest Newsletter with tons of great information including a link to a free chapter of the children's book Is English Nuts.

In my most recent set of narrative-based interventions found in my Gods and Gifts Activity Book, I expanded the section on morphology to include activities for Structured Word Inquiry. My HOT ROD Decodable Books and the accompanying activity books focus on using narratives to improve decoding, reading comprehension, writing, and speech. One of the ways I do that is by looking at the underlying building blocks of language, like morphology. 

Teaching morphology using Structured Word Inquiry and word sums was a natural addition. The mini-matrix above uses the base element spect - "to see, look, observe." I created it using Neil Ramsden's Mini Matrix-Maker, found at https://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/. It is fun to note that my decodable book Gods and Gifts, Three Greek Myths Retold, is based on Greek Mythology, so exploring Latin and Greek influences was a fun addition.

Although I previously included activities for morphology and base elements in my award-winning Hank the Tank Activity Book, I did not include specific Structured Word Inquiry activities. Therefore, I recently created a free supplemental activity for students online using Boom Cards. You can sign up for a free Boom  Card membership at https://wow.boomlearning.com  

Created with Mini Matrix Maker, at www.neilramsden.co.un/spelling/matrix

To preview my FREE SWI activity for tract, go HERE. If you explore the word matrix activity, you will better understand how you might apply SWI and word sums to words your students encounter in stories. For a small fee, I also have a matching game based on tract HERE.  To explore all 15 of the online games connected to Hank the Tank, see the Hank the Tank Bundle. Many activities are free, including digital digraph flash cards and Sount Tracks. That resource has moveable letter pieces for tracking sound changes in words and non-words.

Watch for my next Activity Book coming this fall, which is based on The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. The decodable book will be available in paperback and hardcover on October 15 and is available for pre-order now as an ebook on Amazon. If you order the book, please leave a review!

Sign up for my newsletter HERE and receive a free copy of my first decodable book, No Gift for Man. Don't miss any of the fun-filled activities coming up for A Year of AWE: Authentic Writing Experiences. The September writing activity is Museum Fun.