Vocabulary Development: Morphographemic Approaches

Susan Easterbrooks

Georgia State University

(Join Together Grant: Topical Team 2.2 Activity)

Word meanings are expanded, modified, and changed routinely by affixing single and multiple morphemes to the front or end of a root word.

The word “antidisestablishmentarianism” derives from the word “establish” and is modified by two prefixes (anti-, dis-) and four suffixes (-ment, -ary, -an, -ism). (We complicate this even further with a spelling rule requiring us to change the y in –ary.)

What is a morpho-grapheme?

Based on morphemes (word parts):• Root words- dog, car, at, on, just

• Bound morphemes (affixes)• Prefixes (un, re, dis)

• Suffixes (ly, ment, s, ness)

Students learn word meanings by first writing parts of words (graphemes) and then by analyzing their meaning.

Word parts are called “parts of speech”, although that is misleading. They are categories of base words.

Unpack Your Adjectives, Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here, Conjunction Unpack Your Adjectives, Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here, Conjunction Junction, Interjections, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, Verb: That's What's Happening, A Junction, Interjections, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, Verb: That's What's Happening, A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing, Busy Prepositions, The Tale of Mr. MortonNoun is a Person, Place or Thing, Busy Prepositions, The Tale of Mr. Morton

http://www.klise.com/learn/grammar/pos.htm

Examples of affixes attached to root/base words

Ease• Eased

• Easy

• Easier

• Easiness

• Easement

• Disease

• Uneasy

Teach• Teaches

• Teacher

• Teaching

• Reteach

• Preteach

• Unteach

Morphographemic instruction requires the use of SEE prefix and suffix signs.

Similar to “structural analysis”

Structural Analysis- • The process of identifying words by dividing them into morphemes or small

meaningful units. Instruction in structural analysis generally focuses on breaking words into syllables, then identifying their base word and affixes. An affix is something you affix to a base word, as in a prefix or suffix. ALSO FOCUSES ON traditional SYLLABICATION activities. The syllable is the unit of instruction we are interested in. Sound-based.

Morphographemics- • The relationship between a meaningful unit (or morpheme) and the print unit (or

grapheme) that represents it. Morphographemic analysis- • The process of teaching a child to use structural analysis then to go beyond

basic structural analysis to a higher level of understanding of the Latin or Greek roots of words. Focuses on the meaning of affixes and root words. The morpheme is the unit of instruction we are interested in. Meaning-based.

How are these two alike? How are they different?

Structural analysis includes phonics rules and structural rules.

Example phonics rules

• Break words into their consonant and vowel patterns. For example, ro/bot is made up of the VC/CVC pattern. When you see a word with VCV (obo) that is surrounded by other letters, divide between the first vowel and the consonant to its right.

• When a two consonants occurs in a word, we usually divide between them as in rab/bit or win/dow. We do not divide two consonants when they form a digraph as in no/where.

• When le is at the end of a word and it is preceded by a consonant, divide the word before the preceding consonant as in ap/ple, or ta/ble.

Example syllabication (structural) rules

• Divide between two roots in a compound word as in any/body, or cup/cake.

• Divide between roots and suffixes as in pay/ment or govern/ment.

• Divide between prefixes and roots as in un/happy or im/mature.

• Divide between verb and verb inflections such as walk/ing.

• Sound out words first. Just because they have a verb ending does not necessarily mean they have more than one syllable as in jumped

Morphographemic analysis is effective with deaf students because:

The patterns of letters are visually mediated and are thus available to the deaf student. You see and sign them, not necessarily say them.

Morphographic correspondence in English is more stable and therefore more reliable than graphophonemic correspondence.

Ability to apply syntactic knowledge to decoding text is highly correlated with comprehension performance of good readers who are deaf (Kelly, 1995).

Skilled readers who are deaf pay attention to form features of English text more so than poor readers.

Strong evidence exists for the role of a large vocabulary in reading proficiency, and manipulation of morphological forms is critical to development of more advanced vocabulary.

Spellings derived from morphographemic analysis are more stable than spelling from phonic analysis.

13 Rules for Teaching Morphographs

1. Embed decoding of the target (e.g., ambi) into meaningful print to ensure comprehension.

2. Teach students to decode unknown vocabulary in the context of known grammar and vocabulary. You want to give them as many context cues a possible.

3. Teach morphographemes by visually highlighting the changes they make to base or root words or to other morphographs (e.g., happy versus unhappy).

4. Teach basic verb inflections (-ing, -er, -s, etc.)

5. Next, teach prefixes, suffixes, and compound words.

6. Next, teach Latin roots for numbers as they are most easy to demonstrate visually.

They also are among the Latin prefixes/roots that will allow you to demonstrate the largest number of derived words.

For example, "turb" means "to agitate" and gives us such words as "perturbed" or "turbulence", but "uni" means "one" and gives us a much longer list (e.g., universe, universal, university, unicycle, unity, unite, unicorn, union, unison, unit, uniform, united, unitary, unisex, unicelluar).

7. Next, teach base word meanings such as -turb and -script. Some base words cannot stand alone.

8. To teach Latin and Greek affixes and roots, focus on recognition of the meaning of a root or affix as in:

• How many feet does this creature have?• unipod• biped• tripod• quadruped• hexapod• octopod• centipede• millepede

9. Teach within the context of created sentence groups.

For example, when teaching the meaning of "unicycle" (assuming that the child knows that "uni" means "one“), tell a story where the root "cycle" clearly appears elsewhere in the passage.

(When I was little, I had a tricycle. My parents bought me a bicycle when I was six years old. One day, when I am brave enough, I want to learn to ride a unicycle. What does unicycle mean?)

10. Teach all possible derived forms of a word to show the possible ways an affix can change the meaning and grammatical category, helping students examine all the different words that can be derived from one base. This is a teacher-directed activity.

e.g., scrip/scrib (to write)

nouns verbs adjectives

scripture scribe (d, ing) scribed description describe scribbledmanuscript inscribe prescribedprescription prescribescriber scribblescriptinscription

11. Next, have students brainstorm as many words as possible with a given affix or root (e.g., cycle, bicycle, unicycle, cyclical). This is a student-directed activity. The teacher might give students passages in books that have the root.

graph= write

graphic, grapheme, autograph, telegraph, biography, calligraphy

cent= 10 or middle

cent, central, centrifugal, centimeter, century

12. Source: Paul, P. (1998). Literacy and deafness. Boston: Allyn & BaconPaul recommends a table of combing charts after students have a lot of experience with word parts. Which words in the columns can be combined with which prefixes in the rows?

Table of Combing Partsgon ton cycl gam angl ped/pod enni/annu (angle) (pitch) (wheel) (marriage) (angle) (foot)

(year)

mono (1) X

bi, di (2)

tri (3) oct (8) X

dec (10)

poly (many)

13- Have student use the Table of Combining Parts to complete the following matching exercises

Activity A

1. Monotonous

2. Monocycle

3. Monogamy

4. Polygamy

5. Bigonial

6. Bicycle

7. Bigamist

___a. having two angles

___b. having only one spouse

___c. marrying several persons

___d. a person who has two spouses at the same time

___e. always the same

___f. one-wheeled vehicle

___g. two-wheeled vehicle

Activity B

1. biannual2. quadricycle3. biangular4. tricycle5. trigamist6. triangle7. triennial

Activity C

1. monopod2. biped3. decapod4. hexapod5. tripod6. octopus7. quadruped

___a. three-angled figure___b. every third year___c. three-wheeled vehicle___d. having two angles___e. person having three wives at once___f. happens twice a year___g. four-wheeled vehicle

___a. a horse___b. three-legged stand___c. has eight feet (tentacles)___d. a person___e. an insect with six legs___f. having one foot___g. lobster or crayfish with 10 legs

Teaching Tips

Remember to use visual and context cues as often as possible.

Include advance organizers where possible.

Supplement with higher-level comprehension

strategies (e.g., what to expect from certain kinds of books, activation of prior knowledge, etc).

Use visual organizers to help students apply new words.

Identify word

Meaning 1 Meaning 2

Verb endings

PrefixesSuffixes

Verb endings

Prefixes Suffixes

-s -ed

Incorporate work into stories, such as this example.

In this story, Sir Cumference must make a round table. With the support of his wife, Lady Di, and son, Radius, he successfully measures the table.

The diameter of the table measures exactly as tall as Lady Di, and the radius is exactly as tall as their son.

It is a cute and clever story and excellent for introducing morphographemic work.

Concepts you can develop in this story• Circum= around, about, on all sides, surrounding

• Circumnavigate

• Circumscribe

• Circumfuse

• Circumambulate

• Circumspection

• Circumvent

• Circumstantial

• Circumlocution

• Circumnavigate

Other Resources

http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/KSD/MA/resources/greek_and_latin_roots/transition.html (list of Greek and Latin roots and affixes)

Orton-Gillingham Institute

http://www.strugglingreaders.com/html/GA122.htm