Open the Floodgates with Morphosyntactic Awareness

Action! Language is wrapped around action. A single word -- a verb -- can stand alone as a complete sentence: "Go!"  

In what ways does vocabulary knowledge depend on understanding the basic functions of verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs? How does morphological knowledge intersect with knowledge of syntax, grammatical function, or word class? How does vocabulary knowledge, morphological knowledge, and syntactic knowledge support reading comprehension?

In an earlier post I discussed the morphophonemic characteristics of English words, applied to learning to read (see Thunder & Lightning). Today, I discuss another important aspect of literacy: the morphosyntactic nature of English words. Morphosyntactic knowledge has to do with morphology (word formation) and syntax. English words are morphosyntactic because their morphemes -bases, roots, affixes- convey meaning (that's the morph part) while the suffixes in particular convey grammatical information (the syntax part). The final suffix in a word usually conveys whether the word is classified as noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.  For a well-known example, most words ending in the suffix -ly are adverbs, as in quietly, sweetly, loudly...but that is only the beginning. Let's really open wide those metalinguistic floodgates, with the goal of improved comprehension. 💦

VERBS

Latin roots or bases are often verbs. The root COGN denotes the verb 'to know' as in recognize, cognition, incognito, etc.  RUPT conveys 'to burst or break' in words like rupture, eruption, interrupt, corrupt. Likewise, CRED denotes 'to trust, believe' as in credibility, credit, incredulous, etc. 

Psst...The root CRED and its morphological derivatives illustrate the cover of the upcoming 3rd edition of Vocabulary Through Morphemes (Ebbers, in press with Silvereye Learning Resources, who also holds limited copies of the Teacher's Edition).

NOUNS - especially abstract nouns:

When we affix the derivational suffix –ion to the end of a root or word, it generally becomes a noun, as seen when the verb act becomes the noun action. Words that end with the suffix –ion are often abstract nouns; they represent ideas, concepts, feelings, or a process. They are not usually concrete concepts, not easy to see or touch or illustrate. Examples: The root TRACT means ‘to pull’ and it becomes an abstract noun with the suffix -ion: traction, detraction, contraction (an exception is tractor, a concrete noun). Similarly, the root FRACT means ‘to break’ as in the abstract nouns fraction, infraction, refraction. 

Morphological awareness (MA) helps us understand this transformation, at least at an intuitive level, if not with metalinguistic clarity. As we grow in MA, we begin to somewhat subconsciously realize that the invented word *taction would probably be a noun, something to do with the state or quality of showing tact, especially if we had some context to help: An effective diplomat must demonstrate *taction and discretion. 

On the other hand, if MA is not advancing, we may not grasp the noun-forming function of the suffix –ion. This is problematic for vocabulary development and for comprehension. Limited understanding of derivational-suffix morphology is evident in poor readers and writers as described in recent reviews of the literature (Levesque & Deacon; 2022; Liu, Groen, & Cain, 2024). Understanding the role of the suffix is key to understanding language. This becomes even more essential when reading informational texts, because derivational suffixes are ubiquitous to academic words. 

There are more than a dozen derivational suffixes and they all provide information about the word class, helping us decipher the syntactic property of the word. For example, words that end with –ize / -ise tend to be verbs, as in verbalize, fantasize, and exercise. Words that end with –ism tend to be abstract nouns, as in feudalism, pacifism, and capitalism. Words that end with –ive tend to be adjectives, as in creative, expansive, assertive, imaginative... 

The morphophonemic aspects of English words help us learn to read and spell, as discussed in Edview360. However,  morphosyntactic aspects help us understand the word and connect it with other concepts into meaningful sentences and passages. This is where the rubber hits the road for advancing beyond simple into complex texts (Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018).

Helping  students develop morphological awareness, including morphosyntactic awareness, is an important aspect of literacy, as discussed quite a bit more thoroughly in the three papers referenced below. 

Check back again next month! Stay tuned for some thoughts on helping students develop word consciousness or word sensitivity,  drawn from correspondence with the ever-curious Andy Biemiller.

Cheers,

Susan

REFERENCES:

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100618772271 

Levesque, K., & Deacon, S. (2022). Clarifying links to literacy: How does morphological awareness support children’s word reading development? Applied Psycholinguistics, 43(3), 921–943. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/applied-psycholinguistics/article/clarifying-links-to-literacy-how-does-morphological-awareness-support-childrens-word-reading-development/8BA65B23729527F2C3377E7AAF1CC0F9 

Liu, Y., Groen, M. A., & Cain, K. (2024). The association between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Educational Research Review.

A Little Word Play

Hello out there. Here’s an idea for those few extra moments in the classroom. It’s a quick verbal exercise for elementary and secondary grades. Engage free thinking to seek connections across words. Generate streams of morphological word families. Morphological reasoning is a Metalinguistic Activity.

Pandemic. Epidemic. Hyperglutaminemic. Endemic.  

What’s the common element across these words? What is —emic all about in these words? What is -emic telling us? Something pertaining to health, a medical term.

 

Perhaps that line of reasoning leads to another morphological stream, for pan.

Pandemic, pandemonium, panacea, panoramic. What’s common? What is pan telling us? As a Greek word-forming element, pan means ‘all’ — in simplistic terms. Look here at Etymonline. Or go here.

And what about that naughty Pandora? How does she fit in? Or how about Pangaea?

Free thinking exercises take only moments in the classroom. Use that free minute to good effect. Make it quick and meta-interesting! Cogitate. Bring word relationships up to the surface of the mind. Stir up the waters. Take a dive, make a quick splash.  It need not be a full lesson in morphology or vocabulary. A little bit of word streaming goes a long way in terms of word consciousness and metalinguistic awareness.

We want kids to make connections when they encounter an unknown word on the street. Or — fingers crossed — in a book.

Even younger students can get into the act.  Make it a fun physical game. Perhaps begin with the timely word thank and toss a nerf ball to a child, who might respond with “Thanksgiving.” 

What else comes to mind?  Someone might shout  “thankful” —  tossing the ball to another. The game goes on. 

Or try snow. Snowflake. Snowstorm. What else?

If someone shouts out a word that perhaps doesn’t seem to exist, that’s cool. Reward for creativity! Make it a word in your classroom. Example:

Zuri, feeling metaphorical, says “snowbites!”  When prompted, she explains, “It’s when, like, when icy snowflakes blow in the wind. It feels like little bites or bee stings on my face.” (Yup. That’s a real deal.)

Owen responds to Zuri with a more concrete notion. He says, “Snowbites could mean eating snow, like when my little brother took a bite yesterday!” (Leaving aside the pros and cons of eating snow.)

Could Zuri’s word have two meanings? Sure, why not! That’s polysemy. It’s a common occurrence in language.

No wrong answers. Only associations. Only the fun of finding relationships, making connections.

Need help thinking of words? Check out the many morphology websites online. Some are listed in the Vocabulogic blog footer. Or start at Reading Rockets. They’ve posted a handy list of affixes and roots / morphemes. 

Looking ahead, think of words connected with seasonal festivities. For one holiday idea, go to Vocabulary.com’s Wordshop. Check out the word play in Happy versus Merry.

Bye for now. Best Wishes and Peace on Earth to all.

PS. After 20 years in print and two editions, my morphology curriculum Vocabulary Through Morphemes is no longer available, except a few copies at Amazon. Maybe this type of blog post will help fill the gap. Or contact me if you want to buy it directly from me in some format.  smebbers@gmail.com  

Update: Silvereye Learning Resources will be publishing a new 3rd edition of Vocabulary Through Morphemes. More to come on that in future months.

PPS. Happy news. My publisher Voyager Sopris just produced a second edition of my interactive beginner reading series, 28 Power Readers and 37 Supercharged Readers.  Sixty-five books, in color! The Supercharged Readers series in particular has a greater focus on morphology, including five new advanced books with multiple chapters.

Mindful Zen of Morphology, revisited

We strolled the San Francisco wharf, stopping at the National Historic Park Maritime Museum and checking out the ships on the Hyde Street Pier. Near Aquatic Park we approached this refreshingly pungent tree.

Click the tree image. It will grow.

BIG ★ BIGGER  ★ BIGGEST

According to the Common Core State Standards, children in kindergarten and first grade must learn how common inflectional suffixes like -s, -ed, -ing, -er and -est create various forms of the same word, as with grow, grows, growing, and big, bigger, biggest.

But inflections are only the beginning. The inflectional suffix -er in greener and brighter is not the same as the derivational suffix -er in painter and preacher. (See The Slippery Suffix -er.)

By third grade, students need to be working with derived words, particularly those countless English words formed by adding a derivational suffix. (Read about suffixes.)

TREE ★ TREELET

Finding a semantic overlap  between tree and treelet is a matter of morphological problem solving (Anglin, 1993). This involves knowledge of prefixes and suffixes, and a readiness to seek similarities in form and meaning across words. It also involves analogy: "I know what  a piglet is, so I can guess what a treelet is." The ability to problem solve via analogies or morphemes is facilitated by knowledge of similar words: booklet, owlet, piglet, eaglet, and applet, a small computer application.

Eventually, if students are shown how to explore morphological connections and taught common prefixes and suffixes, they become more apt to seek that satisfying "ah-ha" moment, when word meanings click into place. It's often quite rewarding, like the snap of a puzzle piece. This moment is more likely to happen when students are reading, rather than listening.

BRIG ★ BRIGANTINE

Photographed at San Francisco National Maritime Museum

Along our walk we visited this fabulous -- and free -- museum. Of course, I began to wonder about these two words, given their close proximity on the display. My first thought was that the root brig might mean "ship"...

...but in addition to brig and brigantine, we have brigadier and brigade. Are they all part of the same family of words? (So then I thought the root meant either "ship" or 'to fight').

Asking the question is important. Coming up with an answer is secondary to asking the question. Are students asking the question? Are teachers modeling this habit of thought?

So!

In kindergarten, analyze words like big, bigger, and biggest (inflections).
Also analyze tip, tipping, and tipped (inflections).

By first grade, birdhouse, doghouse, and -- not quite the same pattern -- tree house (These are compound words, but notice a tree does not live in a tree house, unlike the birdhouse and doghouse examples. Also, a tree house is an open compound, rather than closed.)

Explore how meanings change in words derived from a known base: pig-piglet, owl-owlet, and tree-treelet.

Into middle school and beyond, address more complex derivations: brig, brigantine, brigand, brigadier, brigandage, etc. The word brig is perhaps a clip, a shortened form of brigantine. However, brig has developed a unique meaning over the years. By the way, according to Online Etymology Dictionary, the root does mean "to fight" (Middle English via Italian).

According to seminal research by Jeremy Anglin (1993), inferring word meaning via morphological reasoning predicts vocabulary growth. Anglin tested children in grades 1, 3, and 5, finding a sharp increase in word knowledge between grades 3 and 5. He suggested that this steep increase is largely due to increased awareness of the process of suffixation, in particular, the process of creating new words by adding derivational suffixes. Those students who were more skilled in this type of "morphological problem solving" performed comparatively better on the vocabulary test.

While root words (words that have no prefix or suffix attached, like shoe, rope, tree) accounted for the most words known by the average first grade student, derived words accounted for the most words known by a typical fifth grader.

The chart is from Anglin's monograph. His test included treelet, among other words. I added some color and the other forms of tree as examples only, providing an instance of each of the five types of words he included in the test: root words, inflected words, derived words, literal compounds, idioms.

In the years since Anglin's monograph, the relationship between linguistic insight and literacy has become a fairly hot topic in research circles. Not surprisingly, Berninger et al. (2010) found a similar linear relationship between vocabulary knowledge and morphological insight, in large part confirming Anglin's findings.

Promising research by Bauman et al. (2007) suggests that vocabulary increases as a result of a combined instructional focus that includes four components: 1) creating a language-rich learning environment, 2) providing explicit word instruction, 3) teaching word-learning strategies (including inferring meaning via morphological problem solving), and 4) fostering word consciousness. This line of inquiry is based on theories advanced by Graves (2006).  See the MCVIP post, where a large team of researchers describe even newer findings.

The more our vocabulary grows, the more we are able to make connections when practicing The Mindful Zen of Morphology. The more we make connections, the more our vocabulary grows.

References:

Anglin, J.M. (1993). Vocabulary development: A morphological analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58(10), v-165. 

Baumann, J.F., Ware, D., & Edwards, E.C. (2007). “Bumping into spicy, tasty words that catch your tongue:” A formative experiment on vocabulary instruction. The Reading Teacher, 61(2), 108-122.

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010). Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39(2), 141-163.

Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning and instruction. New York: Teachers College Press.
 
Nagy, W.E. (2007). Metalinguistic awareness and the vocabulary-comprehension connection. In R.K. Wagner, A.E Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension (pp. 52-77). New York: Guilford Press. 

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"Sequestration" and the Complexity of Word Knowledge

Sequestration is upon us. Specific budget cuts will be announced, and for each nonexempt federal program, this will be carried out by some kind of Edward Sequester Hands. The incisions will be felt most by the unemployed and the furloughed, and I expect they won't be happy about it. In fact, the tune might go something like this:

It's sequestered we are, and sequestered we stay,
Till the debt is defrayed with the taxes we pay.
But we know it will take till the Reckoning Day.
The future's furloughed till the Reckoning Day.
The devil to pay till the Reckoning Day!

The sequester. Will it work? Hope so, but only time will tell. One positive outcome is already certain: Americans have been expanding their vocabulary. According to Google Trends constrained to the USA, interested folks have been "googling" definitions of sequestration and sequester, as the chart below shows (100 is peak search volume).

So, the nation is learning this word. However, in "Letting Sequester Fester" -- published in Word Routes  only 12 days ago -- linguist Ben Zimmer is a tad cautious:

"A bigger problem is that most people still don't know what sequester means; as Time's Katy Steinmetz noted, a poll in The Hill indicated that 25 percent of voters said that they didn't know what sequester referred to, while almost 40 percent guessed the wrong answer." (See poll results).

Ben's concern is well founded, at least in my case. Who knew sequestration had anything to do with spending? I did not, until recently. Prior to 2012,  the main context I had for sequester derived from movies like Runaway Jury and high profile court cases, where jurors are sequestered in hotel rooms lest they become tainted, bribed, biased.

In addition to the courtroom context, I may have happened upon sequester in a few other places. In the sports column for the Seattle Times:

"Outside of Daytona, teams are rarely sequestered at one track for five days"

In literature I may have run across Phillpotts (1920):

"Time rings his rounds and forgets not this sequestered hollow."

That's a beautiful line, and even memorable, but still I did not associate sequester with the economy. So how did I learn about fiscal sequestration? The same way we learn many words -- from a variety of context, supported by an accessible definition. Yes, I am among the "googlers" mentioned above. Now I know this other meaning of sequestration. I also know sequester, used as a verb, to sequester, and also as a noun, the sequester (the verb was only recently converted into a noun, through a process described in a prior post).

So what?

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

My own processing -- or learning -- of this word rather neatly flows with the five aspects of word complexity discussed in a chapter by vocabulary experts William Nagy and Judith Scott (2000). The five aspects that describe the complexity of word knowledge often overlap. All five aspects may not apply to every word.  According to the scholars, educators need to consider the following when teaching any given word:

1) Incrementality: As I have personally experienced with sequester, we do not immediately gain full understanding of a word meaning, but instead, we gradually and incrementally refine our knowledge, through various encounters with the concept, in varied context. As long as I only encountered sequester in the context of a jury, my grasp was limited. Teaching implications: Revisit words over time, in varied genres, applications, and uses. Provide for distributed practice. Avoid "vocabulary cramming" for a test.

2) Polysemy: Many words have more than one meaning, as we have seen with sequester. The most commonly used meaning is the one we are most likely to know. Teaching implications: Help students attend to context to grasp meaning. Explicitly teach multiple meanings. Teach dictionary use. Teach the metalinguistic notion that word meanings are flexible, and apt to change.

3. Multidimensionality: Words are learned along various dimensions. These dimensions may overlap.  Teaching implications: Help students pronounce the word, read it, spell it, use it correctly in terms of grammar and syntax.  Teach the conceptual meaning and its associations with other words, including morphological relationships, discussed below. Help students attend to collocations -- the words the target word "hangs out" with, including the little-noticed words: "in" sequestration, for one example. Discuss style and register. Sequestration is more formal than budget cuts and likely to be used in academic discourse. To develop a formal register within a discipline, try some of the "Accountable Talk" strategies discussed by Dr. Zygouris-Coe in a prior post.

Visual Thesaurus

4. Interrelatedness: Knowing one meaning actually implies that we know other related meanings. That should be more than evident with sequestration.  Teaching implications: Students are unlikely to understand budget sequestration unless they already understand the simple concepts of save and keep, and more abstract concepts, like reduce, withhold, percentage, budget, etc. Build on prior learning, and convey word relationships (synonyms, antonyms, derivations, conceptual or thematic clusters, etc.). Help students learn to use a dictionary and thesaurus, to further deepen their understanding.

5. Heterogenity: Words vary in complexity, and so do word learners. The content word sequestration is more complex than the content term budget cuts, and far more complex than the function word within. Teaching implications: Provide differentiated instruction, depending on the word, and depending on the learner.

MORPHOLOGICAL REASONING

Learning about how words are formed with roots and affixes is part of developing metalinguistic insight, and as such, it promotes both vocabulary and comprehension. Because vocabulary growth hinges on an understanding of word structure, Nagy and Scott (2000) claim the following, in the same chapter discussed above:

 "It is hard to overstate the importance of morphology in vocabulary growth" (p. 275)

With sequester, older students could explore the family of words that flow from the Latin root, which means something like, 'to place in safe keeping' (see Robertson).  Partners could discuss the semantic overlap across these morphologically related words and analyze the word structure to see how the different suffixes and prefixes, smacked onto the root, modify the meaning and/or grammatical word class (noun, verb, adjective, or adverb).

sequester     sequestration     sequestrator     sequestrate     sequestral   

sequestrant     sequestrable      unsequestrable     unsequestered 

Sequestrate words in isolated study lists? Not sound practice. Provide some context and a student-friendly definition. Explore morphological families of words.

Work together with a peer, practicing how to pronounce difficult words. Like sequestration. Now that's a tricky one. A tongue twister. Gain confidence and competence. Then use the word in formal, academic discourse.

I've been sequestered in my office long enough. Best wishes, until next time.


References:
Nagy, W. E., & Scott, J. A. (2000). Vocabulary processes. In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research: Volume II (pp. 269–284). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Getting "In" to Prefixes

Greetings! This month, I wrote a guest post titled Getting "in" to Prefixes for Visual Thesaurus/Vocabulary.com.  If interested, see link below.

But first, stay a while and browse. Scroll down for a few posts, dig into the archives (see links above), read an entry from a guest author (see links in sidebar), or explore the dozens of websites listed at the bottom of the page.

Getting "in" to Prefixes may seem familiar, because I have expanded upon an older post. The extended article includes a discussion of academic words beginning with the prefix in-, (e.g., inflammable, incandescent, and invaluable), an interactive sorting activity (download the page and freely distribute), and pertinent Common Core State Standards for English / Language Arts.

Enjoy!

Two Brief Podcasts on Vocabulary Instruction

Something new this time! This is a special treat, just in time for the holidays!

It is my pleasure to share a few thoughtful yet brief podcasts on vocabulary, from The Voice of Literacy (dot) org. I have listened to each podcast below and have read manuscripts written by each expert. Drs. Neuman and McCutchen discuss their specific line of research, with practical applications for pedagogy.

Each interview at The Voice of Literacy (and there are many more) runs for about 10 -15 minutes. 

Turn up the volume and enjoy!
 

Door # 1) Dr. Betsy Baker interviews Dr. Susan Neuman, on the topic of helping young children learn words and organize newly learned words into conceptual categories. This should help children learn, remember, and retrieve the words. Some elements of the podcast relate to developing word consciousness, prioritizing vocabulary instruction as a vital literacy element, and elevating the daily vocabulary used by teachers in the classroom. Go directly to the Voice of Literacy website for the podcast; just click the link below.

Using categories to teach vocabulary to preschoolers, an interview with Dr. Susan Neuman

Door #2)  Dr. Betsy Baker interviews Dr. Deb McCutchen on the topic of developing morphological awareness, both in the home and at school. Dr. McCutchen suggests several ways that parents and teachers might promote morphological awareness. For example, help learners notice similarity in form and meaning across morphologically related words, as in joy, joyous, joyously, enjoy, enjoyable, and, for a little fun with cognates, Joyeux Noël. The long-term goal is that students will independently infer the meaning of unknown words. Go directly to the Voice of Literacy website for the podcast; just click the link below.

Using morphological analysis to infer word meanings, an interview with Dr. Deborah McCutchen

PS.  Since you asked  ;- )

Here's a sneak peek at my new children's book, coming soon from Rowe Publishing and Design. Jamie's Journey has been six years in the making--the idea came to me before I started graduate school. What fun to watch illustrator Cory Godbey bring the book to life. Woot!

References:

Baker, E. A. & McCutchen, D. (2011, October 3). Using morphological analysis to infer word meanings. Voice of Literacy. Podcast retrieved from http://voiceofliteracy.org. 


Baker, E. A. & Neuman, S. (2011, September 5). Using categories to teach vocabulary to preschoolers. Voice of Literacy. Podcast retrieved from http://voiceofliteracy.org.

More Than the Sum of Their Parts (Templeton)

Our thanks to Dr. Shane Templeton for contributing this post.  A former classroom teacher at the primary and secondary levels, Shane’s research has focused on developmental word knowledge in elementary, middle, and high school students. He has published in a number of research and practitioner journals, and is co-author of Vocabulary Their Way and Words Their Way. His other books include Teaching the Integrated Language Arts and Children's Literacy: Contexts for Meaningful Learning. With Kristin Gehsmann at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Shane is writing Teaching Reading and Writing, K-8: The Developmental Approach, to be published by Allyn & Bacon in January, 2013. Since 1987, Shane has been a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. He is an educational consultant for The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary and wrote the foreword to the recently-published Curious George’s Dictionary. Visit his website.

I’m delighted to be invited to contribute to this blog – thanks, Susan! What I’d like to play further with here is a phenomenon just about all of us have experienced – what it signals and where it may take us and our students:

Let’s say the students are catching on to the role of Greek and Latin word roots and how they combine with affixes when, inevitably, a word comes up that does not seem to mean the sum of its parts. The word circumspect, for example, comprises the two Latin roots circum ('around') and spect ('look') – when combined, we have the literal meaning of 'look around,' and how does that fit in a sentence such as “Being a new student at Forks High School, Bella behaved in a very circumspect manner the first few days”? Does that mean she 'looked around' a lot?

Well, actually, yes: We share with students the definition of circumspect – "you are cautious in what you say and do and do not take risks” (Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary) and then we “think aloud” about how this meaning might have evolved: “Before you jump into a new situation, you are going to look around a lot, trying to read the people and the situation you’re in – you’re cautious, you’re not taking risks – you’re behaving in a circumspect manner.” We might continue by inviting students to talk about how and when Bella behaved in a circumspect way in the Twilight series – and when she did not!

The linguist Donald Ayers made the following observation:

“When you find a word which is capable of analysis but which means something quite different from the sum of its parts, plug in your curiosity and try to determine how its present sense developed.” 

That’s easy for linguists to say, of course, because they’re nothing if not curious about words, but in reality so many of our students are not. For them, we will want to model this way of thinking about how words work; it is, of course, an important part of developing word consciousness. When we plug in our curiosity and model how the present sense of a word may have developed from an earlier literal sense, we are helping our students develop a sensitivity that extends beyond the particular word we’re talking about at the time. We’re scaffolding for our students “a whole new level and habit of thinking about words in general” (Templeton et al., 2010).

Their dawning realization that words not appearing to mean the sum of their parts provides students a portal to the next level of word consciousness – a more systematic exploration of where words come from – their etymologies. Etymon in Greek refers to the 'true sense of a word,' and this original "true sense” – most often a fairly concrete concept – is one aspect of etymology; another is the word’s historical development since its birth, including its cognates across different languages. With a few resources as our foundation (please see the list, below), we may share “etymological narratives” about words with our students. We begin with engaging words, words that represent our students’ experiences and background knowledge and concepts. For example, students are intrigued with the etymology of decimate – what in the world does it have to do with 'ten', the Latin root (dec) it contains? Readers of this blog know at least one of the several variations of this story, but at heart, the literal meaning is 'to kill every tenth' – the fate of Roman soldiers who had mutinied and from whose ranks every tenth was chosen by lot to be executed.

Less gruesome but of equal interest, the names of domains of study carry the essence of their enterprise: Science literally means 'to know' (related words are discipline and conscience, 'knowing with' oneself). Music comes from the Muses, mythological Greek daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over the arts and sciences (museum; musicians and writers hearing the voice of the Muse). Trigonometry comes from the Classical Greek three-sided musical instrument, the trigon.

Click to enlarge, download.

Greek and Latin roots came in turn from earlier roots. Indo-European, or IE, is an ancient reconstructed language, hypothesized to be the "Mother Tongue" to English and a host of other languages. The image of the tree shows languages that flow from Indo-European. (Permission granted to post on Vocabulogic, from Ben Slade, linguist, who modified the original image, primary source not found.)

I’d like to give a shout-out to the “original” Bringing Words to Life, one title in a two-volume set published in 1989 by Sandra Robinson (Teachers College Press) addressing how to teach about Indo-European to elementary-age students. These two volumes provide 1) the background for teaching how words have grown from the Indo-European language as well as 2) integrated lessons that support and involve students’ developing understanding of etymology. Sandra and her colleagues were addressing what we have in the last few years been referring to as “word consciousness” – how a sense of where words began and how their meanings evolved as they traveled through, eventually, over half of the world’s languages, moving from an original “literal” sense and taking on more metaphorical tones. Examples that Sandra and her colleagues share include the root BHEL which meant 'to swell' almost 8,000 years ago in the Indo-European language. From this root we get, in English, balloon, ball, bowl, boulder, billow, bold; from DHREU meaning 'to fall' we get drip, drop, dreary, drowsy. Beginning with these more literal examples, students will be primed for more metaphorical excursions: The IE root KERD meant 'heart;' in addition to its referring to 'the organ' and 'a kindly disposition' (someone has a kind heart), it has also come to refer to a creed, a belief that is felt in the heart, and courage, a boldness felt in the heart – from coeur, the French word for 'heart', which also evolved from the earlier KERD. Vowels and consonants change, meaning changes subtly and significantly, but the core meaning of IE roots live on in words today.

As Robinson has demonstrated, and as we know from research in the development of morphological knowledge, we can lay the groundwork for this type of sensitivity to words in the elementary grades. We should, of course, begin systematically teaching about word formation processes that include Greek and Latin word roots in third and fourth grade, and we can also begin to tell our etymological narratives at those levels. And when we don’t know, we model what to do – pulling one of our favorite word history resources off of the shelf or going to one of our favorite websites. Of course, even when we do know, we often encourage the students to go check it out.

Explore the related perspectives of several of the individuals who have contributed to this blog, including Marcia Henry, Pete Bowers, and of course Susan Ebbers (I love Susan’s Mindful Zen of Morphology which she shared last year). Here is a sampling of some of the related work my colleagues and I have done in this area and a handful of some of our most-often-consulted resources:

Read about this book

Appendix of Indo-European Roots, American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

Ayto, John. (1990). Dictionary of word origins. New York: Arcade.

Claiborne, Robert. (1989). The roots of English: A reader’s handbook of word origins. New York: Times Books.

Shipley, Joseph. (1984). The origins of English words. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (As we note in Vocabulary Their Way, we believe Shipley’s book is the ultimate source for truly dedicated wordsmiths!)

Templeton, S., Bear, D. R., Johnston, F., & Invernizzi, M. (2010). Vocabulary Their Way: Word study for middle and secondary students. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Templeton, S., Johnston, F., Bear, D., & Invernizzi, M. (2009). Word sorts for derivational relations spellers (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Making Words Stick: A Phonics-Plus Approach to Word Study

Unless they consider meaning, children are prone to forget the words they decoded last week--or indeed, only yesterday. As described further below, we must go beyond phonics to make words memorable. We might help children consider several aspects of a word:

Phonology: The sounds that make up the word. For example, cat has three sounds,  /k/  /a/  /t/ and catch has three sounds, /k/  /a/  /ch/, but brush has four sounds,  /b/  /r/  /u/  /sh/.

Orthography: The letters that represent the sounds and the word, how to spell it.

Morphology: The internal structure of words, including knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, roots and base words. This also includes knowledge of compound words like doghouse, swing set, and self-esteem and linguistic blends where words are smashed together, as in brunch and Vocabulogic.

Semantics: Word meaning, and meaning as a function of context, and also conveyed through a definition (a simple definition is best for children).

Syntax: The grammatical function of the word, how to use it in a sentence.

Berninger, Abbot, Nagy, and Carlisle (2010) argue that there are three types of linguistic insight at work in primary grades and that all three are essential for learning to read: phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA) and orthographic awareness (OA). In a longitudinal study that lasted several years, they measured growth in PA, OA, MA, and vocabulary knowledge across children in grades 1-6.  What did they discover? Their study showed that PA growth tends to taper off by the end of third grade for many children, OA continues to grow a bit beyond third grade, and MA grows rapidly from first grade through third grade, and then it continues to grow through sixth grade, at least. In measuring vocabulary growth, Berninger and her colleagues found that upper elementary students who have an understanding of derivational morphology are more likely to develop a larger vocabulary, compared to peers who do not, at least implicitly, understand how suffixes influence part of speech (e.g., words that end with the suffix -ness are usually abstract nouns, as in sadness, happiness, peacefulness).  Learn more about syntax at Derivations and Syntax.

Likewise, in their research with children in England, Bryant, Nunes, and Bindman (1997) determined that phonology is necessary but not sufficient for learning to read; morphology and orthography are also necessary. 

Along these lines, Wolf (2007) uses the acronym POSSM to suggest that if we help children integrate  phonology, orthography, semantics, syntax, and morphology, we make reading and writing more "possible" for students. We teach words in such a way that children integrate information from the various linguistic domains. Thus, the word is more likely to be established in memory.

Implications and Lesson Ideas for Teachers: 
What does this type of integrated word study look like? This blog is filled with ideas (especially see posts by Peter Bowers). Here are some brief examples:

If children try to decode tripod as trip + od, they could be prompted to look for a prefix. If the context includes a picture, the teacher could help the child see the three legs on the tripod. Children need to know the prefix tri- (and they eventually might learn that pod denotes 'foot', as in podiatrist).

If children spell the word dealt d-e-l-t, they may not explicitly realize that dealt "comes from" deal; it is the past tense of deal. This involves morphology and semantics, as well as syntax. Tell children that when they spell dealt, they should make sure it still contains the word deal, and the letters d-e-a-l, even though the vowel sound has shifted, from "long e" in deal to "short e" in dealt. (This within-word spelling applies also to heal--health and steal--stealth, BUT not to feel--felt or keep--kept.)

When teaching children to decode or "sound out" words that contain the er spelling pattern, as in sister and blister, also teach them that -er can be a suffix, and that it denotes 'one who' as in singer, or 'something that' as in toaster, or 'more'  as in faster.  Have children sort words, deciding whether a word contains the prefix -er or simply the meaningless spelling pattern er, as in sister, blister, her and butter. (For more ideas, see The Slippery Suffix -er.)

When teaching children to decode words that contain the "short u sound" as in fun, hug, puff, also teach them the prefix un-, and that it means 'not or opposite' as in unlock etc.  If they cannot read long words, such as unbreakable or unbelievable, deliver the lesson verbally. Also, teachers could read the picture book Fortunately, by Remy Charlip, to introduce the prefix un-. Here is an excerpt:

"Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.

Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.

Fortunately, he borrowed an airplane.

Unfortunately, the motor exploded."

Help children form morphological families. For example, help them brainstorm words that "come from" sun, such as sunny, sunnier, sunshine, suntan, etc. (but NOT sunken). If children are not yet ready to read these words, the lesson is conveyed orally. (Click image to enlarge or download.)


Play "Will the Real Prefix Please Stand Up!" For example, after teaching children  the prefix re-, say a word in context. Students stand up and shout the word if it contains the prefix re-. If not, they remain seated. Then, depending on the grade level and/or the level of literacy, they write the word in the appropriate column of a two-column chart, as shown below. This game can be played with a variety of prefixes and suffixes (e.g., un-, pre-, tri-, -er, -ish, -est, etc.).

     Will the Real Prefix Please Stand Up!

(Teacher says)	Prefix re-	No prefix
Retell. I will retell the story.	retell
Reheat. Did you reheat the soup?	reheat
Read. Let's read a book!		read
Replay. Watch the football replay.	replay
Rested. Six kittens rested on a rug.		rested

Phonology and phonics are not enough to make words "stick" in the mental lexicon. Meaning is needed. Help children examine words in terms of morphology, orthography, and phonology, along with context and semantics. This is especially needful for students who experience reading difficulties.

References:

• Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010).Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 141–163.
• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000).
  Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754).Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 
• Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Bindman, M. (1997). Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 637-649.
• Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New York: Harper

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.

Meta-Analysis of Morphological Intervention Studies (Bowers)

Peter Bowers contributed this post. Pete is a doctoral candidate at Queen's University, Canada and the creator of the WordWorks Literacy Centre. Pete authored a prior post on Vocabulogic.

I am pleased to be invited to use this week’s post to describe our meta-analysis on morphological interventions (Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010) that comes out in the June issue of Review of Educational Research. Vocabulogic emphasizes instruction of morphology among a wide array of vocabulary instruction strategies, so our finding about positive effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary learning is of particular relevance for this blog. Vocabulary, however, was not a special focus of our study. We report on effects for a range of literacy outcomes at the sub-lexical (oral and written features of words), lexical (spelling, reading and vocabulary), and supra-lexical (reading comprehension) levels. Before describing the results, a short refresher on morphology may help.

Morphology: The meaning structure of words

Matrix (Real Spelling dot com)

Morphology is the system by which morphemes combine to construct and represent the meaning of words. For example, the word unhealthy is composed of four morphemes: the prefix un-, the base (also referred to as the root) heal, and the suffixes –th, and –y. Morphemes can also be represented by a word sum (un + heal + th + y → unhealthy). Words with a common base are part of the same morphological family and share a connection in meaning. A matrix like the one shown here represents the underlying structure of unhealthy and other members of the same word family. Read more about morphology and morphological awareness here.

English spelling marks the interrelation of morphology and phonology

English spelling uses consistent spellings of morphemes even when pronunciation shifts (see Venezky 1999, 1967 for this and other spelling principles). Note that the base heal needs a grapheme that can represent both the ‘long e’ of heal and the ‘short e’ of health.

Morphology instruction and research

Morphology provides cues of word meanings, influences grapheme-phoneme correspondences, governs spelling changes due to suffixing and marks the grammatical roles of words. With such a fundamental influence on how spelling represents the meaning and pronunciation of words, it is surprising morphology has not played a larger role in teacher training and instruction (Henry, 2003: Nunes & Bryant, 2006; Moats, 2009).

Morphological instruction may have an intuitive appeal for teachers and researchers, but what does the research evidence show? Does morphological instruction actually bring educational benefits? Are the effects similar for less and more able students? How young can morphology be taught effectively? Are there identifiable methods of instruction that are more effective than others?

To investigate these questions, we conducted a meta-analysis of the existing published morphological interventions. (Meta-analysis is a quantitative technique for combining results across different studies.) We found 22 interventions conducted with children in preschool to grade 8 in languages that use the Roman alphabet (18 in English, 2 in Norwegian, 1 in Danish, 1 in Dutch) with a total 2,652 students.

Instructional strategies

A wide variety of oral and written instructional strategies were used. In production tasks such as a cloze or analogy task, children are taught to produce the appropriate word for a given context (e.g., magic/magician; music/________(musician)). Recognition tasks included selecting or sorting words and identifying morphemes within complex words. Problem-solving was an explicit focus in a number of studies (Baumann et al., 2003; Berninger et al., 2003; Bowers & Kirby, 2009; Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998). The meta-analysis includes a descriptive table of the morphological content and types of tasks used across the 22 studies.

Findings of our meta-analysis

We found positive effects of morphological instruction but those effects were variable, which is not surprising given the range of participants and instructional methods employed. Analyzing the results for sub-sets of students based on age and ability and comparing types of morphological instruction provides a clearer picture of the effects. We found that morphological instruction was:

• More effective with less able students
• Generally more effective in interventions with younger students (Pre-K to Grade 2) than older students (Grade 3 and up)
• Generally more effective when integrated with other aspects of literacy instruction

Download a conference poster with a table of the results showing effect sizes for morphological instruction compared to control groups and compared to alternative treatments for outcomes at every linguistic layer at this link.

Implications

Evidence of greater effects with less able and younger students has important implications for classroom instruction and research. Adams (1990) cautioned against morphological instruction with beginning or less skilled readers. More recently, researchers (e.g., Carlisle & Stone, 2005; Kirk & Gillon, 2009; Lyster, 2002; Tyler, Lewis, Haskill, & Tolbert, 2003) presented evidence challenging that recommendation. Our meta-analysis addresses this debate directly with the finding that young and less able readers gain more from morphological instruction.

“But how do you teach morphology to such young children?” is a common question when I have presented these results at conferences. Perhaps the best response I can provide here is to point to two videos of instruction with young children (Grades 1, 2 and 3) illustrating the kind of morphological content young children can learn and use in the classroom: Video 1 (also available on You Tube) and Video 2 . These young children clearly demonstrate understanding of the internal structures of words and how that system informs the pronunciation and meaning of words.

I hope that this new research evidence and examples of morphological instruction encourages you to consider looking for ways to integrate morphological instruction in your classrooms!

References

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E. M., Olejnik, S., & Kame'enui, E. J. (2003). Vocabulary tricks: Effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth-grade students' ability to derive and infer word meanings. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 447-494.

Berninger, V., Nagy, W., Carlisle, J., Thomson, J., Hoffer, D., Abbott, S., Abbott, R., Richards, T., & Aylward, E. (2003). Effective treatment for dyslexics in grades 4 to 6. In B. Foorman (Ed.), Preventing and remediating reading difficulties: Bringing science to scale (pp. 382–417). Timonium, MD: York Press.

Bowers, P. N. & Kirby, J. R. (2009). Effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23. 515-537.

Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R., & S. H. Deacon. (in press). The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 80.

Carlisle, J. F. & Stone, C. A. (2005). Exploring the role of morphemes in word reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 428-449.

Henry, M.K. (2003). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction. Baltimore, Maryland: Brookes Publishing.

Kirk, C. & Gillon, T. G. (2009). Integrated morphological awareness intervention as a tool for improving literacy. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40, 341-351.

Lyster, S. H. (2002). The effects of morphological versus phonological awareness training in kindergarten on reading development. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15, 261-294.

Moats, L. (2009). Knowledge foundations for teaching reading and spelling. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 22, 379-399.

Nunes, T. & Bryant, P. (2006). Improving literacy by teaching morphemes. London: Routlege.

Tomesen, M., & Aarnoutse, C. (1998). Effects of an instructional programme for deriving word meanings. Educational Studies, 24, 107-128.

Tyler, A. A., Lewis, K. E., Haskill, A., & Tolbert, L. C. (2003). Outcomes of different speech and language goal attack strategies. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 46, 1077-1094.

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

Venezky, R. (1999). The American way of spelling. New York: Guilford Press.

Infer: Make Bricks WITH Straw! (video)

Hirsch (2006) describes a knowledge deficit in rich and poor alike, yet most severe in impoverished conditions. This deficit is troubling because knowledge facilitates comprehension and cognitive processing (Willingham, 2006). The good news? With informational reading materials educators can promote content knowledge and vocabulary simultaneously (earlier post). 

For example, consider the second-grade book pictured left, part of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading curriculum discussed in a prior post. I display a primary text because educational psychologists like Neitzel, Alexander, and Johnson (2008) have demonstrated that young children eagerly absorb new content, manifesting burgeoning interest along with a verbal and academic advantage over peers not comparably enriched by engaging content. By exploring interesting yet readable texts, including digital materials, students can further their facility with decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. They potentially become both word savvy and world savvy even as they develop interest in a specific topic.  

Topic knowledge is essential to inference and inference is essential to comprehension. Readers are almost always required to draw an inference, connecting what they know with what was written to make sense of what was NOT written. Authors omit information, assuming the reader will "get it" but if we have frail or faulty knowledge of the topic we cannot easily infer. We cannot make bricks without straw! (To fully understand that figurative expression prior knowledge was required.)

In the videoTeaching Content Is Teaching Reading, Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist, illustrates the process of inference. Be sure to note the baseball study and the stats on time not dedicated to subject matter inquiry in primary grades. Credit the source as www.danielwillingham.com (video references here.). To further explore the topic, read Willingham's Washington Post blog entry about comprehension strategies. Willingham describes why strategy research is conducted more readily than content knowledge research, thus influencing reading curriculum. 



Morphological note: The word infer contains the prefix in- meaning 'in' plus the Latin root fer meaning 'to bear, to carry.' Thus, to infer is to carry input into one's mental schema and merge it with one's knowledge, perceptions, and experiences, thereby drawing a conclusion. Explore more words with the root fer at this site, included in Vocabulogic's Useful Links (in page footer), labeled Affixes (and some roots).
 
Happy spring!

References:

• Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (2006). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap for American children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Willingham, D. T. (2006, Spring). How knowledge helps: It speeds and strengthens reading comprehension, learning—and thinking. American Educator, 30-37.
• Neitzel, C., Alexander, J. M., & Johnson, K. E. (2008). Children's early interest-based activities in the home and subsequent information contributions and pursuits in kindergarten. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(4), 782-797.