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

Abstract

In addition to addressing essential curriculum, today's content-area teachers are encouraged to emphasize literacy skills that are tailored to their respective disciplines (Houseal, Gillis, Helmsing, & Hutchison, 2016) as a means of developing students' abilities to read, write, and speak as disciplinary apprentices (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). Word learning is a fundamental component of this new emphasis. Word learning is critical as adolescents are expected to "grow their vocabularies through a mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading" and "determine word meanings, appreciate the nuances of words, and steadily expand their repertoire of words and phrases" (National Governors Association Center & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010, "Regular Practice With Complex Texts" section, para. 2). A promising word learning approach that can be tailored to any content area is morphological instruction

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

“…After the students have finished the sorting activity, SLPs can collect data on the accuracy of correctly sorted morphemes, examine observed spelling and sound patterns, and discuss their connection to the meanings of the words. 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).…”

Enhancing Technical Vocabulary Through Morphological Analysis Instruction For Biology-majored Students

“…Identifying and selecting morphemes are necessary for effective instruction. Zoski, Nellenbach and Erickson [13] emphasized the need for vocabulary selection before instructing morphemic analysis to the target students; the content should include both discipline-specific words and general academic words related to science, also, the vocabularies should be linked to the core concepts of the curriculum so that students will encounter complex words during class lessons promoting high-utility science morpheme. Fang [4] addressed an additional challenge which is the frequent use of nominalization of technical vocabulary that transforms an adjective or verb into a noun.…”

“…For example, the verb amplify can be transformed into a noun by adding the suffix -ication, resulting in amplification. This affixation may confuse students because suffixes like -ication do not provide any meaning-based information [13]. However, Bowers, Kirby, Deacon, [6] believe that these challenges can be addressed and solved through calculated, well-planned instruction.…”

“…For instance, phagocytosis has 5 syllables, 12 letters, and three morphemes (pronounced as pha-go-cy-to-sis). This strategy helps struggling adolescent readers to decode complex words [12], however, this approach is less effective for students in accessing spelling patterns or the meaning of a word [13]. The fact that syllabic-based approach focuses on the correct utterance of each phoneme in a syllable of a word, it is only effective to students at an early age with reading difficulties [14].…”

Η Πορεία Κατάκτησης Και Εκμάθησης Της Μορφολογικής Διαδικασίας Της Σύνθεσης Στην Ελληνική Γλώσσα Από Μαθητές Πρωτοβάθμιας Και Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης

“…για διδακτική μορφολογική παρέμβαση με τη χρήση του humor. Για προτεινόμενες στρατηγικές που καλλιεργούν τη γνώση για τη μορφολογία σε συνδυασμό με το λεξιλόγιο ή ανεξάρτητα από αυτό βλ Ebbers & Denton (2008)· Goodwin, Cho, & Nichols (2016)· Zoski et al (2018…”