Morphology instructional model transcript

Elaine Stanley:

In our morphology lessons, we're introducing morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in words, as opposed to in our phonics lessons when we introduce phonemes, the smallest units of sound in words, and also graphemes, the letters that are used to represent them.

This is our instructional model for morphology. Our morphology lessons are similar to the phonics lessons with just a few differences. Both lessons incorporate explicit instruction, so we're working from the smallest units of language and then building up to the word and the sentence level for both reading and spelling. Both lessons also include that gradual release of responsibility process, the ‘I do, We do, You do’ structure in the lesson – teacher modelling, then guided practice, then independent practice for the students.

The difference with our morphology lessons is that when we introduce each new morpheme, and teach it explicitly, we focus on its meaning as well as its spelling and also the sounds that it might make. We think about how the addition of the morpheme can alter the meaning of words that it's added to.

We begin each lesson with a review of previously learned morphemes, and then their application to word and sentence reading and spelling.

Really, you've got two choices around the review. Some people like to do a full morphology review at the beginning of each morphology lesson, and other teachers choose to include some of their morphology review slides in their daily phonics reviews as well, just to split it up over the week or over time. That's completely up to you, which way you like to organise that.

Then when you've done your review, in whichever way you choose to do it, we follow through the lesson with your explicit teach, so you introduce a new morpheme, and in the early years from Foundation to Year 2, we're really introducing suffixes and prefixes that can be added to words students can read and spell. You introduce your new morpheme and what it means, and then how it's applied at that word and sentence level.

Our lessons also incorporate a check for understanding, so that the teacher can really assess the students’ learning through the lesson and make sure they've understood and can apply what they've just learned before the teacher makes decisions about whether students are able to go on to doing independent practice, and also if there's a group that they would like to work with to provide extra support.

Here is a link to our morphology instructional model.

https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/morphology-instructional-model/

We can illustrate how knowledge of morphology really helps us determine the meaning of words with a couple of examples. Kerrie's going to be my able helper again today. Kerrie, this is a word that's really familiar to most of us. How would you describe the meaning of this word?

Kerrie Shanahan:

I would say that it's a person who reports or tells us about an event that's happened, usually in the news.

Elaine Stanley:

Most people would just think of that or a similar definition when they see that word, but we don't necessarily think about the morphemes that are in this word that contribute to its meaning.

If we think about the morphemes in this word, we've got the prefix re-, which means ‘back’ or ‘again’. Then, in this case, we've got a Latin root, which again, students don't learn in the very early stages, but through primary school they do. ‘Port’ is a Latin root that means ‘to carry’. Then we've got the suffix -er, which means a person who, or thing that, does something.

If we are using the morphemes to work out the meaning of this word, we always start at the end of the word when you're using the morphemes. So then, we've got a person who carries, and in this example, it's carrying information back. Morphemes really help us to work out that meaning and once students have that understanding, they apply that knowledge.

We'll do one more. What's this word, Kerrie, and how would you describe it?

Kerrie Shanahan:

In terms of a blood transfusion, it's when a patient is given blood from another person to help them medically.

Elaine Stanley:

If, again, we think about the morphemes in this word and how they would help us to unpack its meaning, we've got the trans- prefix, which means ‘across’ or ‘through’. Then we've got another Latin root this time – we're just doing this for our level of understanding – that's ‘fuse’, which means ‘to pour’. Then we've got the suffix -ion, which means state of, or result of an action. If we start again at the end of the word, we can use the morphemes to help us work out the meaning. It's the result of pouring something, in this case, blood through the veins. So, it just shows how those morphemes really contribute to that meaning of the word, but we don't always think about those as adults if we haven't learned in that way.

When you introduce morphology to students, you're enabling them to do that work, to pull apart words into their meaningful parts and also to create words using their meaningful parts. Once you have that morphological knowledge, what you're doing is increasing the number and complexity of words that they're able to work with and understand and know for reading and spelling.

Through explicit instruction, we would learn the meaning of each individual morpheme first. We've got a few examples there. We've got un-, re-, and -able. Once you've learned the meaning of the morpheme, so in this case, we've got those three, we could add them to a word like ‘do’. Then you see all of these words at the other end of that conveyor belt, all those words you're able to make at the other end. It really gives you a large range of words you're able to construct with all of those morphemes and adding them to base words. Even if you've never seen or used some of those words before that are at the end, the product of putting those parts together, you will still understand the meaning because you understand the morphemes and you'll also know how to spell them if you know the morphemes well. So, morphology really contributes to reading and spelling.

As students develop morphological awareness, their reading and writing vocabulary increases and there's a direct link between morphological awareness and vocabulary development, as you can see illustrated here. Morphological awareness assists students with reading comprehension because it increases the number and complexity of words they're able to understand when they're reading, which really helps assist with the development of overall comprehension as well.

This becomes especially important as students move up through the school, even through the primary years, because they start to really come in contact with those subject-specific words, such as in maths or science or history, which are really made up of some of these prefixes, suffixes and roots. So, it really helps them understand those new and complex words they come in contact with.

Morphological awareness also helps students with their writing composition because students are more inclined to use a larger range of words in their writing if they're really confident about being able to spell them. Also, it helps them use words really appropriately in the right places when they understand the meaning really well.

In the early years, morphological knowledge can help eliminate some of the common spelling errors, such as these ones you can see here on the screen. Once students have that morphological knowledge, they won't make those common errors like using a t on the end of ‘jumped’. If they were just using sounds, they might hear /j/, /u/, /m/, /p/, /t/, and use that t, but once they've got that morphological awareness, they'll know if it's something that's already happened, like someone's already jumped, it's going to be -ed on the end and that's the standard spelling for the past tense.

Similarly, with ‘bricks’, they might be able to hear that /x/ on the end, but when they've got that morphological awareness, they know, ‘Okay, it's the base word “brick”, and then I'm showing more than one brick. So, I'm going to add the -s suffix on the end.’

With ‘station’, they get to know those standard spellings for the suffixes or prefixes. So, they know /shun/ is likely to be -tion or -sion, and you won't get these just based on sound.

These are the suffixes in purple and the prefixes in green that we introduce in our F to 2 Literacy Hub progression. They're shown there in the order that we introduce them in. We begin again by learning the meaning of each morpheme explicitly and how then it can be added to words we're able to read and spell.