Vocabulary via Images — A Heyday!

post updated 1-20-2026

Halfway into the first month of the new year. Hope it’s been happy enough. As for me, I have been exploring Amadine, an art app for doodling around on my iPad, and reading e-books. (Love the George Cross mystery series by Tim Sullivan.) I rarely read a paperback anymore, as that world is fading away. For better or worse, this is the digital age.

It’s for the better as far as teaching vocabulary goes, because with the internet, pictures are more readily available than ever before, greatly expanding the teacher’s toolbox. Digital technology can greatly assist learners with special needs.  Never before has it been so easy to find the perfect picture to convey a concept and build vocabulary. It takes only seconds to search! Granted, some images in cyberspace are AI slop, but that can be interesting, too, and we can use AI-based programs to modify any image as needed for the lesson. 

As a starting point or introduction, pictures are a great word-learning resource for all students. This also applies to learning a second language (posted here by Cárdenas-Hagan). Keep in mind, pictures are not only for children. Studies with older students show that learning, memory, and attention/ interest are boosted by illustrations, with some important caveats (James & Son, 2020; Khafidhoh & Carolina, 2019). Also, for teaching many new concepts, a picture is useful but certainly not sufficient alone. Andy Biemiller has made a study of differentiating between word types and when the types are learned (2024). In recent conversation, he states “my strong suspicion is that verbally-defined word meanings require a lot more effort and instruction than perceptual/procedural/functional meanings.” (January 2026).

There are many ways to use pictures for teaching vocabulary. Learners can sort pictures, find their own illustrations to match a given prompt, generate images with Ai apps, create their own illustrations “ from scratch” in layers, or generate a picture dictionary. Create images with crayons, even! Results of a recent study suggest that drawing images that convey emotional words such as despair, relief, and frustration might promote memory of such abstract words (Tran & Fernandes, 2023). Is there a learning difference when drawing pictures by hand versus drawing on the computer, with an art program? 

This mountain goat caught my eye. I purchased this  photograph at a Big Sky art fair from a local artist (Brooke Kapalka at K3 Photography). The image is intriguing and could illustrate various concepts: A new beginning for this frolicsome fellow — maybe a happy new year. Off with the old, on with the new. It looks like the fur is about to fly. Nothing like a picture to teach concepts. One relevant word is molting, defined as shedding fur, feathers, scales, or skin.  A kind of transformation, almost a metamorphosis. Other words come to mind also: frolic, leap, gambol. More scientifically, mammal, bovidae, nanny goat, billy goat, ruminant. Chew on that.

References:

Bates, J. & Son, J. (2020). English vocabulary learning with simplified pictures. TESL-EJ, 24(3), 1-20. https://tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume24/ej95/ej95a12/ 

Biemiller, A. (2024). Word meaning types acquired before vs. after age 5: implications for education. Front. Psychol. 15:1280568. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1280568

Khafidhoh, K., & Carolina, A. (2019). Using pictures for teaching vocabulary to the junior high school students. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 2(1), 32–38. 

Tran, S. H. N., & Fernandes, M. A. (2023). Drawing enhances memory for emotional words. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 77(4), 296–307. https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000319

Puzzling Plurals and the *Potatoe Incident

Thanks for participating in the Puzzling Plurals survey. In this post, after focusing on potato and other singular nouns that end with the open /o/ sound, I discuss the survey questions. To finish, I provide links to references, articles, and games.

It is evident from the survey results that "we" are perplexed. The English language is  puzzling, and plurals trouble all of us at times. As we know, they can certainly stress former US Vice Presidents--at least, that's the argument I make below.

"Now add one little bit on the end."

Some tricky singular-plural pairs are remnants of Old English, and flow from the Germanic layer of the language. Some are artifacts of Greek and Latin influence. Still others flow from Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, etc.

For example, take potato, a word that apparently traveled from native Haitian, was given a  Spanish spelling, and was adopted into English, from Sp. patata, from Carib (Haiti) batata "sweet potato." (etymology here). Basic English 101 says to make a plural, we add either the inflectional suffix -s or -es to the singular noun, right? But we typically add -es to words that end with hissing sibilant sounds like /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/ and /ch/ -- including wish-wishes, fox-foxes, and bus-buses. Now, potato does not end with a hissing sound, so why would the plural of potato be potato + es? We do not add an -es to pinto or pueblo, yet like potato, they came into English via Spanish. And if the plural is potatoes (and it is), then we should be able to figure out how to spell the singular simply by removing the final -s. Thus, we might deduce that the singular of potatoes is *potatoe. After all, someone (a teacher, or so the story goes) spelled it that way on the cue card for the ill-famed spelling bee. (See the *potatoe incident on YouTube.)

One can kinda-sorta see why Quayle's handler approved the cue card, and why the VP himself went along with it, telling the 12-year-old--who knew the correct spelling--to "add one little bit to the end" of his perfectly spelled potato. After all, there are just too many strange spellings to remember, and we never add -es to a noun that ends in a vowel.

Visual Thesaurus map for genie

But we do! Potato+es, echo+es, torpedo+es, tomato+es, and hero+es testify to it, while piano+s, inferno+s, video+s, rodeo+s and bistro+s refute it. Meanwhile, playing it safe, several sit the fence: ghettos or ghettoes, cargoes or cargos, flamingos or flamingoes, halos or haloes, tornadoes or tornados, etc. English is pickled with puzzles, and just when we find a pattern, the language genie attacks--sometimes we tangle with two genies at once--or genii?

I spell potato, you spell *potatoe? Pity the former Vice President, but pity even more the millions of English learners around the world. In fact, be gentle with all. From the survey results, even well-educated adults who use English with confidence all day fall prey to the unpredictable plural.

Below, I briefly discuss the survey questions. I note the percentage of 271 respondents who voted in favor of each phrase, deciding it was correct. Kudos (but not *kudoes) for resisting the dictionary while responding. Refer to the prior post to see the closed survey with graphed results and related comments.

• (82%) lots of data is correct. The singular is datum. 
• (55%) seven thesauri is correct. Thesauruses is listed in some dictionaries, but it only appears once every 1,356,110 pages, on average, according to Vocabulary.com. The singular is thesaurus. 
• (63%) a single bacterium is correct (like datum). The plural is bacteria. 
• (12%) six skinny mooses is not correct. The plural of moose is moose.
• (38%) one essential criteria is not correct. The singular is criterion; the plural is criteria.
• (26%) five octopuses is correct. Read about octopuses, not *octopi, below.
  
• (85%) four strong oxen is correct (like children, brethren, and extinct shoon, like shoe + -en; see shoe etymology). The singular is ox. 
• (63%) two loaded dice is correct. The singular is die (but dice is becoming more accepted as a singular form). Note the plural mice and lice are not expressed in singular as *mie and *lie.
• (89%) four flying fish is correct, but fishes would also be correct. 
• (71%) a strange phenomenon is correct (like criterion). The plural is phenomena. 
• (77%) some differing hypotheses is correct, ending with es. The singular is hypothesis (like crisis, analysis, thesis, parenthesis). 
• (13%) hundreds of hopping head lie is not correct. The plural is lice and the singular louse (like mouse, but not house and *hice)

English words reflect the spelling patterns of the parent language, but not with consistency. This is when we teach dictionary skills, an important aspect of vocabulary instruction. However, it is worthwhile to memorize the spellings of words we use frequently. Many of these words actually do conform to a plural-forming pattern. In Words and Rules, Stephen Pinker (1999, p. 26) theorized:

"The mind analyzes every stretch of language as some mixture of memorized chunks and rule-governed assemblies."

Rule-governed assemblies include spelling patterns. What are the spelling patterns for tricky plurals? Several experts have attempted to explain them, or list them. So, for your browsing pleasure, explore the following links -- there's even a game.

The Old English Plural by The Oxford Times

Tricky Plurals in English: Bacterias, Bacteriae, Bacteriums? Plurals of Loanwords in English, by Oxford Dictionaries-Oxford University Press (not sure if this will open without a membership). Here is an excerpt, explaining why *octopi is not the plural of octopus:

Tangled up in the coils of the language octopus
 X Sea lions are carnivores and eat fish, squid, octopi, crabs, clams, and lobsters. 
As the above example (taken from a US scientific publication) shows, a little knowledge of Latin and Greek can be a dangerous thing and sometimes leads people into error. The writer clearly knows that some Latin plurals are formed by changing the ‘–us’ ending of a singular noun into ‘-i’ for the plural, as in alumnus -> alumni. However, octopus is ultimately borrowed from a Greek word and not a Latin one, so it’s incorrect to form the plural according to the Latin rules. If you wanted to be ultra-correct and conform to ancient Greek, you’d talk about octopodes, but this is very rare: the Anglicized plural, octopuses, is absolutely fine. 

A Reference to Strange Plurals in English, at pipTALK Forums

Irregular Plurals and Nouns, at the University of Victoria Study Zone

One Fish-Two Fish, a game-like quiz at Sporcle (Try it!)

Minimum, Minima, and Other Irregular Plurals  by Bill Wilson, engineering

Strange Plurals at English Forums.com

Strange Plurals, an open list at Worknik

What is the Plural of Mouse? Quick and Dirty Tips by Grammar Girl


References:

Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Cheers,
Susan

Reading with Your Ears: Assistive Technology, 21st Century Skills, and Vocabulary (Filippini & Morey)

Dr. Alexis Filippini is the executive director at Mission Learning Center and a literacy consultant (website). She is passionate about literacy, especially among students who do not fit the "mainstream" mold. She has taught English Language Learners and students with learning disabilities in 1:1 and small group contexts, and conducted research on early reading and vocabulary acquisition. The ideas in this post were first inspired by hearing her husband Ben Foss use text-to-speech for work and play.  

Anne-Marie Becker Morey is the founder of Bay Tree Learning. Anne-Marie is a certified educational therapist with a masters degree in special education from San Francisco State University. She is certified by the Association for Educational Therapists and received specialized training in educational therapy from the University of California Santa Cruz. She has trained extensively in research-based literacy methods, including Lindamood-Bell® and Orton-Gillingham. Anne-Marie is a member of the Association of Educational Therapists, the Council for Exceptional Children, and the International Dyslexia Association.

In my last post, Phonemes and Morphemes for All, I wrote about vocabulary instruction for students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), such as dyslexia, that impact print processing. Today, Anne-Marie and I want to elaborate on my previous hints about using technology to support robust, Vocabulogic-style literacy instruction for these learners. To discuss assistive technology (AT) today, we must consider that we live in an entirely different context than twenty, ten, even five years ago. In the era of "new literacies," many of our students (and most of us!) use computers, phones, smart boards, e-readers, etc. to access information on a regular basis.

New literacies or 21st century information and communication skills are “the ability to use technology to develop 21st century content knowledge and skills in support of 21st century teaching and learning.” In the context of vocabulary, everyday technology offers multi-modal instructional opportunities to hit the major vocabulary principles (e.g., Blachowicz & Fisher’s big four: be active, personalized, immersive, and build multiple sources of knowledge through multiple exposures; 2000). This high-tech plus Vocabulogic-style instruction can capture the hearts and minds of children so much better than copying definitions – but the best part is, it’s more effective, particularly for learners who thrive with accommodations!

For example, learners with SLD may have receptive and expressive language that is far stronger than their encoding and decoding skills and therefore require additional support (accommodations) to access new or old literacies. We commonly focus on remedial support but overlook Assistive Technology (AT) and alternate text formats. AT is any technology that can “increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with disabilities” (Individuals with Disabilities Act Amendments, 2004). Alternative text formats are typically audio that is either a “natural” human voice or a synthesized voice (obviously braille as well, although less relevant to this conversation). These formats are available through commercial avenues, such as audible.com, or disability-specific avenues, such as bookshare.org, learningally.org, or the National Library Service. Simple software can turn any computer or gadget into a talking device to read aloud, as well.

Effective use of technology to circumvent encoding or decoding is like using a wheelchair to confidently roll up a ramp and into a neighborhood public school, rather than being denied access. While the current reauthorization of IDEA requires consideration of AT for children with individualized educational plans (Blackhurst, 2005), “consideration” is often limited to checking a box. This lack of consideration may be due in part to uncertainty about how, when, and what to teach with these tools. One of the questions I am asked most often by teachers is when to introduce accommodations, and when and how to adjust the remediation-accommodation balance (illustration below; Edyburn, 2006) for learners with print-related disabilities. (We could also learn a lot from work on augmentative and assistive technology use among individuals with significant communication needs, e.g., Soto & Zangari, 2009, but that is for another conversation).

(click to enlarge; right-click to download

Research in academic technology, new literacies, and AT is “fragmented” and “inconclusive” (Fitzgerald, Kourey, & Mitchem, 2008, p. 215) due to rapid changes in technology, perceived barriers to implementation, and assumptions about the very nature of literacy. Nevertheless, we have an obligation to open every door we can to support our students in accessing meaningful text independently. There is no other route; we know the importance of exposure to text for vocabulary growth.

Assistive Technology (AT) in the Vocabulary-Focused Classroom

A number of tools are available to support children with SLD in accessing grade level content, such as text-to-speech software and devices and “books on tape” (usually digital files, now), and simple low-tech options such as pencil grips. Many common AT tools for literacy like speech-recognition software and spell checkers come pre-packaged with common software (e.g., Microsoft; McKenna & Walpole, 2007). To be effective tools for increasing learning and independence, however, all technology must rest on thoughtful, evidence-based teaching.

Let’s look at some examples of using speech synthesis or audio books as a route into vocabulary learning. By turning on the text-to-speech feature in plain old Microsoft Word, a student can hear text read aloud. For example, if she opened Dr. Mohler's packet of engaging activities as a Word document, and went to the prefix activity, she could first listen to the directions, then click through each prefix and its definition and hear it read as she chooses its function. (See Dr. Mohler's post.)

This means that rather than being bogged down by decoding: 1) She is building skills and confidence by working independently; 2) She is receiving multiple exposures to morphology, meaning, and word analysis. Far more than she would be in the same amount of time. 3) Odds are that she is more on task, because she is not avoiding work that seems impossibly difficult. This improves the classroom climate for all students, as the teacher focuses on teaching literacy rather than redirecting challenging behavior.

Vocabulary Development for English Language Learners (Cárdenas-Hagan)

Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is a Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist and a Certified Academic Language Therapist with a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction. She is the Director of Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas and works with the Texas Institute for Measurement Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston. Dr. Cárdenas-Hagan is the author of Esperanza (HOPE), a Spanish language program designed to assist students who struggle with learning to read. Her research interests include the development of early reading assessments for Spanish-speaking students in addition to the development of reading interventions for bilingual students. She is the Co-Founder of Brownsville READS!, a nonprofit organization to promote literacy. Elsa currently serves as a board member of the International Dyslexia Association.

Demographics

Did you know that according to the United States Census Bureau (2010) there are over 11 million English as second language students in our schools? This student population represents more than 400 native languages spoken in the home. However, 80% of English language learners report Spanish as their first language. As educators, we must be prepared to meet the challenges of teaching this diverse population of students.

Research

Fortunately, we now have some important research findings regarding effective literacy instruction for English language learners. One major resource is The National Literacy Panel Report on Language Minority Children and Youth (August and Shanahan, 2006). This report was funded by the US Department of Education and provides evidence on teaching reading and writing to language minority students. It also defines the gaps in the available research. This report explains that vocabulary is an area where English language learners lag behind their English-speaking peers. The report also describes the body of evidence for vocabulary knowledge as a predictor of reading comprehension. Therefore it is essential to implement evidence-based strategies for teaching vocabulary to English language learners.

STRATEGIES FOR INSTRUCTION

Word Selection

Vocabulary words must be carefully selected. Beck, MeKeown and Kucan (2002) discuss three tiers of words. Tier 1 words are described as common, basic, every day words. Tier 2 words are academic words used in texts across multiple contexts. Tier 3 words are academic words that are discipline specific and very narrow in their usage. Examples of tiered words may be as follows:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
boy	chatter	photosynthesis
table	marvelous	phoneme
chair	precious	cerebellum

Polysemous Words with Multiple Meanings
Tier 1 words are basic, common words. We might think our students know them, but these words often have multiple meanings. English language learners may need to consider the varied meanings of common words. For example, think of the word run. How many meanings can you generate for this word? Listed below are eight definitions of the word run, used as a verb.

Definition	Example
To go or to move.	I can run an errand.
To take part in a race.	Jim will run in this weekend's marathon.
To be a candidate.	Mario will run for president of the club.
To flow.	The Rio Grande River runs through his property.
To extend or continue.	Run the add through the weekend.
To operate.	Patricia will run the governor's campaign.
To total.	You can run the tab.
To recur persistently.	He runs on end about his new car.

Further examples of basic words with multiple meanings include bat, sport, and light. Instructors can discuss these words with their students. Students might explore the multiple ways these words are used.

Explicit Instruction: Six Steps

We can teach English language learners word learning strategies. These strategies can become routines that not only increase vocabulary knowledge but also help to develop metalinguistic awareness. English language learners benefit from studying academic Tier 2 words, which occur across many contexts. These words must be explicitly taught. Steps for explicit vocabulary instruction as described by August and Shanahan (2006) include the following:

1. Say and write the word.
2. Provide a definition with familiar terms.
3. Discuss what is known about the word.
4. Provide examples and non-examples.
5. Create sentences with the word.
6. Engage in extended discussions with the word. 

With these steps, we can build a routine for our English language learners. Here are  examples that utilize the six steps, for teaching the academic word chatter.

1. Say and write the word:

One new word from our textbook today is the word chatter.
Let me write the word for you: chatter
Say the word after me: chatter.
Remember the word is chatter. It is not the word shatter.
Do you hear and see the differences between these two words?

2. Provide a definition with familiar terms:

One definition of the word chatter is to talk very quickly or rapidly (but usually not with an angry tone).

3. Discuss what is known about the word:

(click to expand, right-click to download)

Have you ever heard someone chatter? Give me an example of this. We know that people can chatter or speak rapidly, but did you know that chatter can also mean to click your teeth repeatedly? Your teeth can chatter. Let’s make our teeth chatter.

4. Provide examples and non-examples:

People can chatter with one another. Our teeth can chatter when we are cold. A glass light bulb cannot chatter, but it can break, or shatter. A table cannot chatter, but people can sit around the table and chatter.  Let’s discuss some pictures of this.

5. Create a sentence with the word chatter (or a form of the word):

• The girls were chattering, so the teacher asked them to please quiet down.
• My teeth were chattering when we were standing outside in the cold weather.

6. Engage in extended discussions with the word:

• Can a dog chatter? Why or why not?
• Can a teenager chatter? Why or why not?
• Can a table chatter? Why or why not?

Bilingual Glossaries

(click to expand, right-click to download)

The use of bilingual glossaries can help English language learners reinforce their word learning. One example adapted from August and Carlo (2005) is below. Students complete the glossary with the teacher's help, and refer to it when speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Morphological Awareness

Another word learning strategy for English language learners includes introducing the similarities among native language and English word parts. Students will not only build thousands of new English words, they can also make the connections for meaning across languages. Examples are listed below.

Spanish	Meaning	English	Meaning
Prefixes pre-	antes	pre-	before, in front of
re-	otra vez	re-	back, backward, again
in-	no	in-	not (also means 'in')
Roots
gram	peso	gram	to write or draw; a unit of weight
vis	ver	vis	to see
kilo	milo	kilo	thousand
Suffixes
-osis	enfermedad	-osis	disease, condition
-itis	inflamación	-itis	inflammation
-or	alguien que	-or	one who

Lastly, the use of cognates can be helpful for English language learners to expand their vocabulary knowledge. However, instructors must be aware that many false cognates exist. That is, some words are spelled and written in the same manner but have different meanings across languages. Some examples are listed below.

True Cognates Spanish	English
taxi	taxi
hospital	hospital
profesor	professor
inteligente	intelligent
explorar	explore
False Cognates (meaning)
pie (foot)	pie (a dessert)
largo (long)	large (big)
arena (sand)	arena (stadium)
carpeta (folder)	carpet (floor covering)
idioma (language)	idiom (figurative expression)

Colorín Colorado (www.colorincolorado.org) provides a list of Spanish and English cognates which can be helpful for instructors of English language learners.

In summary, English language learners benefit from explicit vocabulary instruction. It is necessary to provide them with multiple opportunities to use their recently acquired English vocabulary words. The use of word learning strategies which develop into routines can help English language learners to develop metalinguistic awareness for building word knowledge.

References:

Concept Sorts and Vocabulary Learning (Bear)

This post is courtesy of Dr. Donald R. Bear. Donald is a professor and the director of the E. L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy in the Department of Educational Specialties at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is author of numerous articles and books, including Words Their Way, Words Their Way with English Learners, and Vocabulary Their Way. Donald began his career as a teacher and still enjoys working with schoolchildren of all ages. He is interested in literacy and language across a culturally diverse population.

Thanks, Susan, for your gracious invitation to share ideas. My post is about concept sorts, an activity in which students sort words or pictures into conceptual categories. Concept sorts are valued as a way to organize ideas, support interaction and discussion, document activity, and assess thinking and basic word and vocabulary knowledge (Neuman, & Dwyer, 2009; Templeton, et al., 2008).

In the following examples, I share three word study activities, and then I suggest fundamental steps in developing concept sorts. Vocabulogic already provides a tremendous collection of activities and resources that are concept sorts in their own ways! I am glad to contribute to the discussion.

The Osani Game, Figurative Expressions of Roundness

My students and I found this game in a greeting card with a photograph of 20 children sitting feet-to-feet in a circle (see www.connectingdotz.com). Enchanting! According to the literature, Ehé children from central Africa play the Osani game by calling out a figurative expression of roundness. Two expressions of roundess given were the cycle of the moon, and the circle of family. One person is left in the circle when everyone else can no longer think of a figurative expression of roundness. In this game, the last child left was said to “live a long and prosperous life.” Ahh, the wonders of a winning vocabulary!

Click to enlarge / download.

In a class I taught, we brainstormed a few more examples and then split into small groups and reported back. I’m interested in what would happen with your students. Our brainstorming is documented in the chart to the right (click to enlarge or download).

The Osani Circle Game reminds me of the ways vocabulary and thinking intertwine. Concept sorts are all around us, as in the ways we put our groceries away, and they are integral to learning and thinking. We sort in our personal collections and we sort at our jobs. For good and bad, we are always sorting; for examples see Things Organized Neatly.

In our teaching, how can we ensure that there is sufficient intensity and frequency of exposure for concept and vocabulary learning? Concept sorts promote verbal expression and thinking. Teachers need myriad ways to promote frequent and engaging activities.

Picture and Object Concept Sorts

Emergent and beginning readers will need pictures or objects for their concept sorts. By design, picture concept sorts do not require reading or a common oral language; we find that the pictures support students as they talk about their sorts with their classmates (Helman, et al., 2012). Karen Carpenter (2010), a former student now at Coker College, studies how kindergarten students sort pictures conceptually for vocabulary learning. In a delayed recall task, students who sorted learned twice as many new words as students in the comparison group who only listened to stories on the topic (Carpenter, 2010). Tops and Bottoms was one of the read-aloud books that was followed with concept sorting (Stevens, 1995). The rich storybook language of this book provided the foundation for the students to contrast concepts such as harvest/plant and yank/toss as well as launch a scientific observation into how to classify the parts of a plant.


Carpenter, like Jamie Oliver who brought cooking to the classroom, found that students were unfamiliar with many of the vegetables or parts of plants. In Tops and Bottoms, a rabbit tricks a bear into thinking that he wants the tops of a vegetable when he should choose the bottoms (carrots), and the bottoms when he should choose tops (lettuce). Students were shown how to sort pictures by their parts (roots, flowers, stems, trees, branches). The sort included some of the same vocabulary as Tops and Bottoms; see the photo. Teachers demonstrated the sorts, and then students sorted and discussed their sorts with classmates on their own. Together, sorting and story sharing make for a richer experience than a read aloud alone.

Concept Sorts in the Content Areas

Concept sorts are an active way to examine key vocabulary in particular areas of study, and to introduce and organize concepts and examples. The initial sort is a base for adding other words to the sort. The sorts are created on a sorting template and students sort the words or pictures and discuss the categories. Concept sorts encourage hierarchical thinking with the most basic categories representing Power I level words (Flanigan, et al., 2011).

Here are the basic directions in creating a content, concept sort: a.) Choose the key concepts and vocabulary from the chapter. These words are often the bolded words. In textbooks, key concepts are often displayed hierarchically in webs, overviews, and maps. b) Think of two or three ways words can be sorted. The fundamental contrast is one of “those that fit and those that do not” (Bear, et al., 2012). c) Create a sorting grid; 8” x 3” sorts with 24 words are common, though the sort in Figure 3 has 12 rows. d) Prepare the sorting schedule.

Recently, I developed a concept sort for a diverse group of fifth graders, diverse in languages and special services. Students who at first could not read the words, were more comfortable saying and reading the words after sorting and talking about the key vocabulary. The fifth graders were beginning to study the Pre-Revolutionary War in American History. Some words were conceptually related to British/American distinction, so this presented three columns: words related to British, American, or Other. This Other column is for words that don’t fit or that are part of another concept.

When we sorted together students were able to hear the words, and they practiced the sort with a partner and discussed the sort in a small group. The table below shows how the words looked on a sorting template with the underlined words British and American, serving as Power Level I words, the words used as categories for sorting.

In this sort, the idea of representation comes up often. We talked about what represent means, and brainstormed related words. We also took representation apart. By taking off suffixes and prefixes, we made the meaning connections among word parts (re-, present). A beginning transitional reader with severe reading difficulties could not read this word, but was able to talk about the concept, and by the end of this lesson had made a strong start in recognizing represent and related words even though these words were quite difficult for him to read.

Students need numerous opportunities to sort and discuss the categories of the sorts. Sorting repeatedly and with support increases the intensity of exposure to new words and concepts. Predictably, student engagement can increase when there are disagreements in sorting. In this sort, there was some disagreement whether or not loyalists is a British or American term.

Pre-Revolutionary War Concept Sort
Three ways to sort the concepts below: 1) places, people, concepts; 2) British contrasted to Americans; 3) open sort
British American Britain no taxes without representation against revolution America Governed by king for revolution Colonist Parliament	Prime minister King George III Virginia elected officials loyalists New York no representation liberty representation “Join or die”	13 colonies pro taxation ruled by king self-government against taxation against being ruled by king monarchy freedom colonists Patrick Henry

(Editorial note: For more on developing an understanding of abstract concepts, including concepts pertaining to Pre-Revolutionary War, see post by Kathleen Lord.)

Sorting and Assessment

Sorts provide formative assessments of reading, vocabulary, and concept knowledge. In order to assess students’ ability to read the words, you may begin by having students read the words aloud when they sort. Students also identify difficult words to read or understand. If students have difficulty reading more than half of the words then consider other ways to support the concept sort- with pictures, and partner sorting.

The ways students sort and describe their sorting is a way to learn what students know about a topic. Do they get the sort? In open sorts, do they develop sorts that are on target? Can they contribute other examples? In what ways do they reflect on the rationale for their sorts? How do these reflections change over the course of the unit of study?

Procedures for Concept Sorts

These principles of sorting are central to establishing sorting routines in the classroom.

1. Demonstrate sorts; establish sorting categories, model the sort, and have students practice. On another day, repeat the demonstration and have students sort and check with you to observe.
2. Model the process of sorting repeatedly until you are confident that students know how to sort, talk about their sorts, and have a repertoire of a few basic word study routines and activities, like how to record sorts in a vocabulary or word study notebook, and then to look for examples in word hunts.
3. Develop a 4- or 5-day routine for sorting and schedule independent and small group activities for the week.
4. Move to e-sorts whenever possible. Students do enjoy interactive white board speed sorts.
5. Extend sorts with vocabulary activities that include charting, and looking deeply at a few words. Etymological references online can be an important resource. We list several (Bear, et al., 2012).
6. Vocabulary notebooks have areas tabbed for content areas in science, social studies, readings in English, and mathematics with symbols, terms, and equations. These areas can become electronic areas and include games like Concentration or board games.
7. Have students write reflections in which they answer the question: Why did you sort the way you did?

This is where I log off and wish you a month of sorting and thinking with your students. Maybe you will play the Osani game and brainstorm examples of roundness with your students.

With best regards,

Donald 

Selected References

• Bear, D. R., Helman, L., & Woessner, L. (2009). Word study assessment and instruction with English learners in a second grade classroom: Bending with students’ growth. In J. Coppola and E. V. Primas (Eds.) One classroom, many learners: Best literacy practices for today’s multilingual classrooms (pp. 11-40). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
• Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., & Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 5th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Bear, D. R., Smith, R. (2009). The literacy development of English learners: What do we know about each student’s literacy development? In Helman, L. A. (Ed.) Literacy development and instruction of English learners (pp. 87 - 116). New York: Guilford Press.
• Capenter, K. (November, 2010). The Relationships among Concept Sorts, Storybook Reading, Language-Based Print Awareness, and Language Proficiency in the Vocabulary Learning of Diverse Kindergarten Children. Doctoral dissertation, University of Nevada, Reno.
• Caravolas, M. (2006). Learning to spell in different languages: How orthographic variables might affect early literacy. In R. M. Joshi & P. G. Aaron (Eds.), Handbook of orthography and literacy (pp. 497-511). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Flanigan, K., Hayes, T., Templeton, S., Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Johnston, F. (2011). Words their way with struggling readers, 4 – 12. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
• Helman, L. A. (2005). Using literacy assessment results to improve teaching for English-language learners. The Reading Teacher, 58, 668-677.
• Helman, L. A., Bear, D. R., Templeton, S., Invernizzi, M. & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way with English learners: Word study for phonics, vocabulary and spelling instruction, 2nd edition. Boston; Allyn & Bacon.
• Henderson, E. H. (1981). Learning to read and spell: The child’s knowledge of words. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois Press.
• Invernizzi, M. & Hayes, L. (2004). Developmental-spelling research: A systematic imperative. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, 216-228.
• Neuman, S. B., & Dwyer, J. (2009). Missing in action: Vocabulary instruction in pre-k. The Reading Teacher, 62(5), 384-392.
• Stevens, J. (1995). Tops and bottoms. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
• Templeton, S., Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Johnston, F. (2009). Vocabulary their way. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

The Descriptive Suffix -ish

This post builds on a few other entries that address a specific affix, including The Slippery Suffix -er and The Popular Prefix in-. The lesson suggestions in this post may be modified to apply to grades 3-12, depending on the student. Perhaps we might even apply some ideas to first or second grade.

Words ending with the suffix -ish are often adjectives, but this suffix has several senses. The suffix -ish is flexibly used with a base word to denote 'somewhat, somewhat prone to, or somewhat like a.' For example, we have ticklish, reddish-blue, stylish, childish, boyish, a waspish tongue, a foolish old woman, a coldish wind.

Then we have Spanish, Irish, Scottish, Finnish, Danish, etc. These words are also typically used as adjectives (but not in "We just ate a danish for breakfast."). However, now the suffix creates a different sense. Does Scottish mean 'somewhat like a Scot?'  No, typically it implies that someone or something hails from Scotland. An exception is, "I wore a skirt that looked rather Scottish." Doubtless, we could think of additional exceptions.

However, words like astonish, admonish, tarnish, polish, varnish, and establish are not adjectives; they are typically used as verbs (but polish and varnish are also nouns). Is this even the same suffix? According to David Crystal, it is not. In the comments of his marvelous post On -ish, he states: "This ish [in verbs like tarnish] has a completely different etymology. It's from a French (and ultimately Latin) suffix expressing the beginning of an action."

I suspect this use of -ish, to create a verb, is largely extinct in English, if it ever existed. Perhaps it is found only in verbs that passed into English via French. Do folks today freely create new verbs with -ish, as in nourish and languish? Must I reverbish this post?

To be sure, we also find words like fish, dish, wish, swish, etc. What's going on with this set of words? Do they even contain the suffix -ish? No. There is no meaning in the string of letters in these cases; it is not a morpheme in these words, not an indivisible unit of meaning. Instead, these words comprise a phonogram family.

Read: Read the delightful children's book ish, by Peter Reynolds to the class. A frustrated young artist is encouraged by his little sister, for his sketch may not look exactly like a vase, but it is vase-ish. Visit Book Chatter to meet the author and set up an account to read the book for free, online.

Invent: Encourage students to invent a new -ish word. Perhaps they might name a new group of people, possibly new worlds: "This is the planet Bend, where we speak Bendish."

Detect: Have students play word detective, searching through magazines and newspapers for words ending with the adjective-forming suffix -ish, clipping the words and placing them on a bulletin board. This could be a homework activity. As students read books, have them stay alert for this suffix. They could write their finds on index cards and add them to the class chart.

Write: Eventually, encourage students to use this suffix more frequently in their writing. Why not try writing a poem? As I recall, even my second graders, back in my teaching days, enjoyed limericks.

To some, this blog is just fairish,
While others, this Sunday site cherish.
Fine thinkers resound
On topics profound.
Scholastically extraordinaire-ish!

Play: One way to engage students in critical thinking is to play "Will the Real Suffix Please Stand Up!" After teaching children the adjective-forming suffix -ish, say a word in context. Students stand up and shout the word if it contains the suffix and is an adjective. If not, they remain seated. Then, they write the word in the appropriate column of a two-column chart, as shown below, and they underline the base word. Notice that the base word in mulish is not as transparent as in the other words. Discussion should include the idea that spellers have to drop the final e in mule before adding a suffix that begins with a vowel, as in mule + -ish >>> mulish.

     Will the Real Suffix Please Stand Up!

(Teacher says)	Suffix -ish	No suffix
greenish   They found a greenish rock.	greenish
darkish  Wear the darkish sweater.	darkish
radish   I bit into a crisp, red radish.		radish
fish   See the fish fly!		fish
mulish   The dog is stubborn and mulish.	mulish

Sort: More verbally proficient students might sort words into three groups: adjectives that end in the suffix -ish, verbs that end in -ish, and Other. Let partners collaborate during the sorting activity. Encourage discussion and prompt students to provide a rationale for their categorization.

To generate a list of words to sort, visit either More Words or Word Searcher. Links to both search tools are given in the footer of Vocabulogic, in the middle column under Morphology and Etymology. When I ran the search for words of any length containing the letter string ish (not necessarily the suffix) at More Words, I found more than 1,600 words (view the complete list here, sorted by length). Here is a sampling:

Words ending in ish	Words ending in ish
accomplish piggish admonish amateurish angelfish anguish tarnish apish archerfish aspish astonish babyish bitterish blackfish blackish blandish bleakish blemish blimpish blindfish blockish blondish bluish boarfish boggish bonefish bookish boorish perish ravish toyish sheepish squarish wolfish	codfish coldish coltish punish coolish publish coquettish countryish cowfish coyish crankish crawfish crayfish danish darkish deafish dealfish demolish depolish dervish devilfish devilish disrelish distinguish dogfish doggish dollish dudish dullish dumpish impish owlish relish purplish

That's all for now. Time for dinner! I have become a bit peckish!

How to Read Aloud to Children to Optimize Vocabulary Growth

One established way to promote vocabulary is by reading aloud to children. Educators, including librarians and parents, are encouraged to read to children at every age, beginning in infancy. Children's books often contain rich and savory vocabulary. As shown on the chart, Hayes and Ahrens (1988) examined the words used in varied types of content. They found that, compared to the recorded conversations of college students, children's books contained nearly twice as many rare or infrequently used words. The vocabulary used in children's books also far exceeded that of television programs.

Click to enlarge chart.

What should we read to children?
This varies by age and child, but strive for variety: Read fiction and nonfiction, prose and poetry, news articles, etc. Select materials that offer some unknown words and/or concepts. Younger children tend to benefit from narrative storybooks with a fairly predictable story grammar (e.g., "Once upon a time" or something similar). It is also beneficial to read nonfiction in early childhood, including books about dinosaurs or types of locomotives, for example. Select captivating children's books that contain rich vocabulary (see Where the Wild Words Are by Lucy Hart Paulson).

Also, when selecting books, bear in mind that children come to school with vastly different prior experiences with stories, based largely on the culture and language of the home. This question was explored in a previous Vocabulogic survey. Visit Twiigs Poll  to view the closed survey: "Collectively Shared Cultural Literacy and the Movie Industry."

How often and for how long should we read to children?
Read to children every day, if possible. For how long? That varies by the attention span of the child, the interest level of the child, and the competing priorities of the day. Perhaps we should strive for a minimum of 15 minutes each day. Does that sound reasonable?

Can children learn a new word from only one exposure to it?
Yes, children can learn a new word through only one exposure to it as a process called “fast mapping” takes place (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). Children mentally "map" the new word to a superficial and context-specific understanding. Fast mapping does not result in depth of knowledge, but learning does occur, and in a natural manner, through conversations or storybook reading, for example. If the child does not hear the word again within a reasonable time, it is probably forgotten. 

Do children learn words if the book is only read once?

Yes, reading a story only once to children results in word learning. This is good! However, the effect size tends to be small, the knowledge less robust, and the words are more quickly forgotten. In addition, children do not tend to learn the words well enough to produce them themselves via writing or speaking (see Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011). Word knowledge is typically receptive, not productive.

How can we improve the likelihood that, by reading aloud to children, words will be learned more deeply and remembered longer? 
Even though researchers are still debating how children learn words from read-alouds, and they take different theoretical positions, they tend to agree on three big ideas:

1) In general, reading aloud to children results in more lasting vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week. However, this varies by grade level. Repeating the same story four times has resulted in a larger effect size in kindergarten, compared to second grade (Biemiller & Boote, 2006).

2) In general, reading aloud to children results in deeper and more lasting vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week AND we directly teach the meaning of targeted words by paraphrasing them or briefly defining them at point of use in the text.

Note: Read the entire story without stopping, the first time, to better ensure enjoyment and to avoid disrupting the train of thought or losing track of the main ideas of the story. During subsequent readings, stop to briefly explain or paraphrase target words. 

3) In general, reading aloud to children results in deeper, more lasting, and more productive vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week AND we directly but briefly teach target words at point of use in the text AND we follow this with interactive word study (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011.)

Should we preteach a few words BEFORE we read the text to the class? 
Depending on the student's background knowledge, we may need to preteach one or two key words. Often, an understanding of a specific concept is required if the listener is to understand the piece. For example, in a kindergarten lesson, Biemiller and Boote (2006) taught circus before reading Clifford at the Circus. Preteaching key concepts is a practice that applies to every grade level and every subject area (see post by Joan Sedita).

How might we quickly teach word meanings DURING the read-aloud?
There are a number of ways to directly teach word meanings while in the midst of reading to children. Perhaps the simplest is through the use of paraphrasing. When reading aloud at any grade level, teachers paraphrase a word to ensure students understand it. This takes only a moment. For example: “Once upon a time a lass (a girl) lived with her grandmother in a cottage (a small house)." After paraphrasing, reread the sentence, but without the scaffold: "Once upon a time a lass lived with her grandmother in a cottage."

How might we help children interact with target words AFTER the read-aloud, to develop depth of knowledge and productive use of the words? What does interactive, responsive, engaging word study look like?
In follow-up lessons after the story has been read at least once, provide ways for children to engage with the word in contexts other than the story.  Help them create semantic connections and build networks of related words and concepts. For example, if children are taught the concept stubborn to augment the rather simple vocabulary in Green Eggs and Ham, they could discuss how stubborn plays out in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Thus, they learn another application of the word, with a slightly different nuance. To prompt productive vocabulary, have children say and/or write the word. Encourage discussion and debate as children engage in word sorting activities with partners. Furthermore, have children juxtapose two learned words against each other. For example, after children have learned drenched and stubborn, ask them to use both words in the same sentence. Have them compare shades of meaning: Which word is wetter: drenched, damp, wet, watery, waterlogged, saturated, dripping, soaking, sopping? How is drenched similar to and different from damp? Tell a friend about a time you got drenched. Also, depending on the grade level, include morphology in the lesson if the word contains common prefixes, base words, or suffixes. Again, depending on the grade level, develop figurative knowledge: Could a rose be drenched in sunshine? How could a rock be stubborn?

There is a growing body of research showing the promising effects of elaborative, interactive word study, built around repeatedly reading a story aloud in primary grades (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011). This research has also been applied to Response to Intervention models of instruction in primary grades (see post by Michael Coyne.) Furthermore, this method of instruction has been found to be effective with English Language Learners in kindergarten (Silverman, 2007). However, by spending so much time interacting with words in responsive and meaningful ways, there is only time to explore about 3-5 words per day.

On the other hand, there is another body of research showing the effects of teaching more words per day during storybook reading (about 7-10 words per day, 3 or 4 days a week). This method teaches words fairly superficially, spending less time interacting with each word, with the goal of developing greater breadth of knowledge (e.g., Biemiller & Boote, 2006). This goal will be discussed in more depth in the next post.

References:

Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 (1), 44-62.

Carey, S. & Bartlett, E. (1978). Acquiring a single new word. Proceedings of the Stanford Child Language Conference, 15, 17-29. (Republished in Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 15, 17-29.)

Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., Loftus, S., Zipoli, R., Ruby, M., Crevecoeur, Y. & Kapp, S. (2010). Direct and extended vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: Investigating transfer effects. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3, 93-120.

Hayes, D. P., & Ahrens, M. G. (1988). Vocabulary simplification for children: A special case of 'motherese'? Journal of Child Language, 15, 395-410.

McKeown, M.  & Beck, I. (2011, April). Two approaches to vocabulary instruction for kindergarteners: Comparing effects on comprehension. (Poster talk at American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.)

Silverman, R. (2007.) Vocabulary development of English-language and English-only learners in kindergarten. Elementary School Journal, 107(4), 365-383.

Multiple Meanings: Theory, Research and Teaching Tips

Learning about the multiple meanings of words (e.g., to find -- a find) is included in the new and widely adopted Common Core Standards for English Language Arts. For example, the excerpt below was lifted from the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language. This anchor standard is identical for Grades K-5  and 6-12 and applies also to ELLs (English Language Learners).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

By implication, the standard requires students to consider context even as they consider the degree and type of relationship between the basic known word and the new meaning. In each example below, the relationship between the two meanings is fairly transparent, clear, obvious. These linguistic types are called morphological conversions and/or zero-derivations because a new word is formed without adding any affixes, converting the word's grammatical function and creating a related meaning that is conceptually very similar to the first meaning.

Semantically Transparent Morphological Conversions
Word	Used as noun	Used as verb (or adjective)
button	Find the gold button.	Please button your jacket.
work	We like our work.	We work hard.
water	Don't drink the water.	I water the plants.
green	Let's picnic on the green.	Paint the bench green.

Teachers might help children see that in many cases the relationship between the two meanings is fairly obvious and semantically transparent, as in the examples above (Kiparsky, 1982).

However, in many other cases there is only a weak semantic relationship, or no semantic relationship at all. For example, the two meanings of bear are completely unrelated (e.g., I see a bear.  Can the table bear that load?). These are homonyms or homographs, with distinctly different meanings/ For grade school purposes, these are sometimes called "multiple-meaning words" (and see footnote on homographs versus homophones).

Here, the two meanings of house are related, yet not fully transparent. We may house our things in places other than a house. This illustrates some of the confusion conversions might create, especially for language learners, who tend to translate fairly literally at first. 

Likewise, consider the statement, "I will hammer the nail." The literal and linear interpretation is that I will use a hammer to hammer. However, because we could use a shoe or a rock to pound that nail, the related meanings of hammer are not quite transparent.

As students advance in their language skills, they need to become competent at examining the context to decide whether the meaning of the conversion is closely related to the meaning they already know--assuming they already know the word! The teacher's role is not only to teach children about this language phenomenon, but also to help them develop confidence in their ability to infer the meaning of a conversion. This requires us to help readers attend closely to context. It also means helping students identify the grammatical function of a word. 

In one pertinent study, Carlo et al. (2004) taught fifth graders about how English words work. Topics included learning about polysemy (multiple-meaning words), learning the structure of morphologically complex words and understanding the nature of academic language. On the polysemy post test, the ELL group made significant improvement compared to their pretest scores, yet despite this gain they did not match the progress of students who spoke native English.  However, both groups -- ELLs and native English speakers -- made significant gains over the control group, who did not receive the intervention. It is beneficial to teach students about how words work, including how multiple meanings work. The surprise bonus finding? The students enjoyed the lessons!

Two teaching suggestions:  Show students the Grammar Rock Video about verbs (lyrics here). One minute into the film, the video shows how nouns become verbs, a process sometimes referred to as "verbing." Stephen Fry discussed this  in his podcast, shown in a prior post.

Also, students might work with a partner to sort multiple-meaning words, given with context, by levels of semantic transparency. Provide a continuum, as shown below. We could decide that the verb brush is not fully transparent because one can brush with items other than a brush: We can brush the crumbs off a table with a napkin and brush down a jacket with a hand, etc.  Likewise, one need not use a whistle to whistle. Interestingly, there is transparency between a metal staple and the verb to staple, but not between the metal staple and a food staple, for example. This type of work should help learners become more sophisticated in terms of verbal reasoning and more attuned to context and the ever-shifting nature of English words.

to fight/a fight                            a brush/ to brush                              a train / to train
tiny staple / to staple                 a whistle/ to whistle                        Cinderella's coach / to coach

________________________________________________

+ transparent                      related                                 - not related

Defining terms:

Homographs have distinctly different meanings and are pronounced differently, despite identical spelling. Examples are wound and moped: We wound the clock versus bandage the wound; he moped around versus she has a new moped, etc. (See more examples of "true homographs," provided by ESL expert John Higgins.) 

Sometimes, homographs are confused with homophones, but homophones are words with two or more spellings and two or more meanings, but identical pronunciation. Examples include fair and fare, and also air, heir, and ere. 

Homonyms are words that look and sound alike, but have distinctly different meanings, as with river bank, an investment bank, bank the car into the curve, and bank your earnings, etc. High frequency words tend to be homonyms, and tend to be quite polysemous--some convey dozens of meanings.

Zero-derivations, also called morphological conversions, occur when we transform a source word's grammatical function, but the sense or meaning of the word does not change much at all. Examples: 1) the noun snowplow becomes the verb to snowplow; 2)  the verb to polish becomes the noun polish.

References:

Carlo, M.S., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C.E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., Liveley, T. & White, C.E. (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of ELLs in bilingual and mainstream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, 188-215.

Kiparsky, P. (1982). Word-formation and the lexicon. In F. Ingemann (ed.) Proceedings of the Mid-America Linguistics Conference. Lawrence, KS.

The Morph in Morphology: How Form Facilitates Meaning (Bellomo)

Dr. Tom Bellomo teaches Applied Linguistics to a graduate cohort of reading educators at Stetson University; additionally, he teaches developmental reading and writing at Daytona State College. Morphological analysis is an integral part of the reading program for his college preparatory students, and he has developed a streamlined, informal curriculum to communicate essentials requisite for practical usage. He previously taught English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to non-native speakers of English, and obtained positive (quantified) results using morphological analysis among the adult L2 population (Bellomo, 2009b). Contact: bellomt@daytonastate.edu

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in language. English morphemes include prefixes, suffixes, roots and monomorphemic base words. In the word pianist, which is clearly derived from piano, the suffix –ist carries intrinsic meaning as it conveys the idea of ‘a specialist or player of the piano.’ Morphological analysis (MA) in vocabulary acquisition capitalizes on morpheme knowledge to derive the overall meaning of words, particularly among those that are Graeco/Latin (classical) in origin, which are often morphologically complex in nature. As a vocabulary acquisition strategy, MA can assist in unlocking the meaning of newly encountered words, especially when aided by context (White, Power, & White 1989); also, it can serve as a mnemonic when learning families of words built around the same word parts.

In reading, recognizing these meaning units is facilitated by the visual clues afforded by the morpheme. In fact, the root morph literally means form. Venezky (1967) said it well, “Orthography is not merely a letter-to-sound system riddled with imperfections, but, instead, a more complex and more regular relationship wherein phoneme and morpheme share leading roles” (p. 77). The following illustration will demonstrate how the visual form of a particular morpheme can better assist word recognition than the morpheme’s phonological composition. Were the English writing system to reflect a purely phonetic sound/symbol relationship, the words induce, reduction, and educate might be written respectively as [ĭn dōōs’], [rē duk’ shun], and [ĕj’ yōō kāt]. However, the root duc, which means ‘to lead,’ would not be apparent either aurally or orthographically since it is spoken, and consequently would be written, as dōōs, duk, and jyōōk. Moreover, in the word educate the morpheme jyōōk would be spread among three separate syllables. Yet a visual clue demonstrating a semantic connection among the words is evident due to the stable form of the morpheme duc—regardless of its pronunciation.

When children learn to read, they are taught to decode the grapheme-phoneme correspondence of print. Phoneme by phoneme a word gets encoded until aurally it is recognized—providing that the word has been heard and is known by the readers. However, if a reader had never heard a particular word before, or heard it but did not know the meaning of it, being able to pronounce the word would seldom assist in understanding its meaning. In contrast, readers seeing a new word may recognize one or more parts within it—either from other words with the same morpheme(s) or from direct instruction in roots and affixes—and infer meaning from this newly encountered word. Since stress patterns through affixation often change a morpheme’s pronunciation (note duc in reduce and reduction), visual assistance will often be more reliable than aural assistance. As the reader proceeds through the grades, the reading material becomes less contrived and words become increasingly morphologically complex. Hence, the ability to recognize morphemes and derive meaning from polysyllabic words will become increasingly invaluable as readers progress through the grades (Carlisle, 2003).

Word Frequency

Studies in word frequency demonstrated that higher frequency words are recognized more easily than words of lower frequency (Nation, 2001). However, recognition does not necessarily translate into comprehension. An early study by Howards (1964) directly challenged the long-held assumption that frequently occurring words were automatically easy words. For example, in my own perusal of the word run (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 1983), there were 83 separate entries for this item. Though one may know the word’s primary meaning (the action verb), it is evident that the subtle nuances of this word complicate its full comprehension. Frequency tabulations seldom factor in a semantic count; that is, a word’s frequency is tabulated irrespective of its variant meanings. Howards, therefore, disparaged reliance upon word lists and readability formulas for use in evaluating reading material, noting that frequency of occurrence does not guarantee word comprehension for the reader.

It may be more efficacious to teach longer words and words from the sciences than it is to teach little “easy” words, since polysyllabic words can be attacked with word structure skills, and since such words are typically one-meaning words. Rarely does one find a scientific word or even a polysyllabic word which has more than one meaning attached to it, whereas we have seen that the so-called “easy” words, monosyllabic words, normally have dozens of meanings attached to them. (p. 381)

In contrasting their composition, high frequency words are predominately Germanic in origin, monosyllabic, and polysemous (having multiple meanings). Low frequency words, however, are predominately classical in origin, polysyllabic, and singular in meaning. Just and Carpenter (1987) remarked:

It is interesting to note that [the] unpredictability of a derived word’s meaning from its structural constituents is much more common among frequent words than among infrequent words (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Thus, a reader’s structural analysis of a new word he encounters is more likely to be correct if the word is an infrequent one. This is fortunate, because it is precisely an infrequent word that a fluent reader is likely not to know. (p.125)

Conclusion

Morphological analysis is viable as both a vocabulary acquisition strategy to retain the meaning of directly instructed words and as a tool to unlock the meaning of newly encounter words (word attack strategy). However, instruction will be profitable to the extent that the inclusion of critical criteria sets the foundation of any such program (Bellomo, 2009a). Briefly, these criteria comprise the following…

Stable form:
a) Teach morphemes that are visually identical in each of the target words. (Note how the morpheme dict remains unchanged in the following words: benediction, dictate, malediction, predict.)

b) Introduce the specific word part as it is spelled in English, not its classical origin. (The morpheme malus is normally seen as mal; often these three letters alone are retained across a broad spectrum of words: malefactor, malignant, malfeasance, malcontent.)

Semantic Transparency:
Words taught should exhibit a clear parts-to-whole relationship, i.e., the morpheme’s meaning is to be evident and offer a semantic clue in each of the target words. (The meaning of ject is ‘to throw.’ That sense is conveyed in each of the following words: eject, reject, interject, projectile, trajectory.)

Ubiquity:
Morphemes taught are to be found in a minimum of five words from the same family, not mere derivations that change only the part of speech, as from produce (verb) to productive (adjective). Consider duc: abduct, aqueduct, deduction, ductile, induce, seduce, etc. (Note: there are reasons for the variations duce/duct, yet for pragmatic purposes helpful to the college preparatory student, teaching and recognizing the first three letters of this morpheme would suffice.)

Eventually, the most adept reader will learn to recognize words that contain the meaningful morpheme despite shifts in phonology and/or orthography, but initial forays into morphology might follow the critical criteria described above. To read more about these nontransparent shifting patterns, click here.

References

Bellomo, T. S. (2009a, April). Morphological analysis and vocabulary acquisition: Critical criteria. Reading Matrix, 9(1), 44-56. (pdf available online, here)

Bellomo, T. S. (2009b, December). Morphological analysis as a vocabulary strategy for L1 and L2 college preparatory students. TESL-EJ 13(3), 27pp. (pdf available online, here)

Carlisle, J. F. (2003). Morphology matters in learning to read: A commentary. Reading Psychology, 24, 291-322.

Howards, M. (1964). How easy are ‘easy’ words? Journal of Experimental Education, 32(4), 377-382.

Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1987). The psychology of reading language comprehension. Newton, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Nagy, W. E., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19(3), 304-330.

Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: University Press.

Venezky, R. L. (1967, Spring). English orthography: Its graphical structure and its relation to sound. Reading Research Quarterly, 2(3), 75-105.

White, T. G., Power, M. A., & White, S. (1989). Morphological analysis: Implications for teaching and understanding vocabulary growth. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(3), 283-304.