A graphomorphemic approach to identifying and selecting a set of high utility, stable affixes common to the technical vocabulary of science

Abstract

Adolescents often learn science vocabulary through reading. This vocabulary is frequently characterized by multisyllabic words derived from Greek and Latin roots. While most adolescents have acquired the decoding skills to read these multisyllabic words, many students, particularly those with disabilities, cannot engage in independent word learning because they lack the skills to decode these multisyllabic words. Graphomorphemic elements of words, including affixes, support effective decoding and can eventually support word learning. This article describes an approach used to identify the most frequently occurring, stable affixes within science words so that they could be used in "big word" decoding instruction. To illustrate the approach, a subset of high frequency science words and a list of high utility, stable affixes are provided.

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

“…This collaboration with students includes those who need our services and have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). For example, Myers and Eisenman (2005) suggest students in high school should be involved in the development of their own IEP. The IEP planning session can be used as a context for discussion of goals, student strengths, and needs for improvement, and the dialogue should include linguistic and background experiences and needs or issues from a cultural perspective.…”

Using Morphological Strategies to Help Adolescents Decode, Spell, and Comprehend Big Words in Science

“…To select morphemes for instruction, teachers can generate lists of essential vocabulary that are linked to the core concepts of the curriculum. There are also accessible lists of essential science vocabulary in books (e.g., Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2016; Fry, 2004; Kress & Fry, 2016) and research articles (e.g., Coxhead & Hirsch, 2007; Nellenbach, Zoski, Diamond, & Erickson, 2015) that science teachers may find particularly useful when identifying essential vocabulary to target for instruction.…”

“…SLPs can also combine these morphemes with others from larger corpora to maximize the likelihood that students will encounter morphemes with enough frequency to begin to recognize, with automaticity, spelling patterns that support decoding and understanding of novel words. For example, SLPs might refer to the corpus of 830 frequently occurring science words the authors (Nellenbach et al, 2015) generated from a variety of textbooks, standards, and reference lists to guide their work in providing this type of morphologically driven word instruction.…”

“…For beginning instruction, SLPs should choose morphemes that occur frequently in a corpus of target vocabulary words and also maintain consistency in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning across the target words (e.g., Cunningham, 1998; Templeton, 2012; see Nellenbach et al, 2015, for a review). Appendices A and B detail the high-utility prefixes and suffixes from one corpus of science words (Nellenbach et al, 2015). These morphemes do not align with every specific grade level or curriculum, but they do offer an important cross-reference SLPs that can use in selecting and prioritizing the morphemes to highlight.…”

“… Note. These affixes were compiled from a list of high-frequency science words (see Nellenbach et al, 2015) and have been selected as priority for beginning instruction because they were highly transparent and consistent across this list of words. Definitions compiled with reference to www.freedictionary.com and macroevolution.net …”