Morphology demonstration: Adding -s suffix for plural nouns transcript

Elaine Stanley:

Our first morphology concept we introduce is the -s suffix added to a base word to show more than one of something or the plural noun. We introduce the -s suffix in Phase 6 of our Literacy Hub progression, and we'll just put the link to that here for you.

https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/literacy-hub-phonics-progression/

We would teach the morphology lesson in the phase in which it appears, after all the letter–sound correspondences and phonics concepts have been taught in that phase.

You can see here students are learning about open and closed syllables in one-syllable words. Once that's been taught in the phase, then we would do our morphology lesson.

This is our lesson structure. This is our slide set for our lesson. You can see it's much shorter than our phonics lessons. There are not as many steps in the morphology lessons. We introduce the morpheme first, then we apply for reading and spelling at the word level and then the sentence level.

We’re going to go through the whole lesson for this one with you. Kerrie's going to help me and we'll just put the link here for this lesson slide set and also the worksheet that accompanies the lesson.

Slides: https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/morphology-lesson-slides-s-suffix-for-plural-nouns/

Worksheet: https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/morphology-lesson-student-worksheet-s-suffix-for-plural-nouns/

Here's what the worksheet looks like. This one's different. The worksheet to match the morphology lesson is different in that students follow along with parts of the lesson as the lesson's happening, whereas in our phonics lessons, they do the worksheet at the end.

Now, just to demonstrate today, because you don't have to use the worksheet, we will do it on the whiteboard for you.

Before learning about prefixes and suffixes, students need to have an understanding of the different word types they can be added to. In particular, in the early stages, they need to know the difference between nouns and verbs.

What we would do first is do some warm-up activities. We would give them the definition of what a noun is and what a verb is. Give them some examples and we'll work them out together. Then what we might do is call out a word and students do a particular action if it's a noun, or the same if it's a verb. I might say, ‘Hand on head if it's a noun, hands on your knees if it's a verb.’ I might say ‘apple’. They identify it's a noun. ‘Jump’. They identify it's a verb. You need to have that clear first.

Also, once you start teaching morphology, there is some vocabulary you need to unpack with students. Before I introduce this lesson, I would make sure we unpack the term suffix. We tell students this is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a word that can change the meaning of the word, and also what a base word is. It's a word that carries meaning on its own.

Then we would introduce the lesson. ‘Today we are learning to add an -s suffix to a base word, to show a plural, “more than one”. And we'll know we've been successful if we can add an -s suffix to a base word and also explain the meaning of the word when the -s suffix is added.’

I would introduce the lesson by saying, ‘When we add an -s suffix to a noun, we change the meaning of the word to mean plural or “more than one”. If I say “dog”, I'm talking about one dog. But if I add the -s suffix on the end and make “dogs”, then I know I'm talking about more than one dog.’

Here we've got four dogs to illustrate that.

Then I would introduce the top part of the worksheet and students can follow along. I would say, ‘Our suffix today is /s/ [-s], which means plural or “more than one”.’ And then students join in. They're following on their worksheet.

Teacher:

What's the suffix?

Student:

/s/ [-s].

Teacher:

What does it mean?

Student:

Plural, ‘more than one’.

Elaine Stanley:

Because this is an ‘I do’ slide, I'm going to add an -s suffix to these words and explain what they mean. My first word is /h/-/a/-/t/, hat. If I add the -s suffix, I make ‘hats’. Now I know I'm talking about more than one hat. And my sentence might be, ‘I have two favourite hats at home’. Then we would do the same with ‘pig’ and ‘lock’.

It's important in this first stage to make sure you're only making plural nouns, because if you say ‘locks’, it could actually make a verb like ‘he locks the door’. You just have to be really conscious you're only teaching the plural noun. But we do return back to the -s suffix in a later phase and show that it can also be a continuous verb as well, but we come back to that later. We're only doing plural nouns in this lesson.

Then students would join in.

Teacher:

We're going to read some words now and add an -s suffix to show the plural or ‘more than one’. Let's read our first word together.

Teacher and student:

/p/-/a/-/n/, pan.

Teacher:

Okay. Can you add the suffix?

Student:

Pans.

Teacher:

All right. You might have lots of pans in your kitchen cupboard at home that Mum and Dad use in cooking.

Elaine Stanley:

And we would write it in and add the suffix. We'll do it for the next one.

Teacher:

Kerrie, let's read our next word.

Student:

/c/, /u/, /p/, cup.

Teacher:

Can you write your base word on your whiteboard?

Elaine Stanley:

We would do this for each one.

Teacher:

And then I want you to add the suffix to show me more than one cup. Okay. Can you chin it when you're ready?

All right. We've got ‘cups’. Could you tell me a sentence with ‘cups’?

Student:

The dirty cups were on the bench.

Teacher:

Yes. Okay. How many cups are you imagining?

Student:

Oh, about 10 usually in my house.

Teacher:

Yes, someone needs to do the washing up.

Elaine Stanley:

Then you would repeat the same with ‘frog’. You might have two frogs jumped in the water when they add the suffix. Then we're going to decode some sentences. Imagine we've already decoded the sentence. We've shown that in an earlier webinar how we do the decoding. But imagine we've done that.

We've got ‘My hats are on the pegs’. Then, because this is an ‘I do’ slide, I would talk to students about which words can I see that have the -s suffix added and what does it mean? It means ‘more than one hat’, ‘more than one peg’. I might say, ‘I'm imagining my two favourite hats that I've talked about before on two pegs near my front door.’

Then we would decode together. We've got, ‘The dogs are on the logs’. And then I might do that level of questioning again to get students to unpack it.

Teacher:

Kerrie, there are two words in this sentence that show the plural. What are they?

Student:

‘Dogs’ and ‘logs’.

Teacher:

And how do we know there's more than one dog and more than one log?

Student:

An -s suffix has been added to both words.

Teacher:

Great. And how many dogs and how many logs are you thinking there are?

Student:

Four dogs on three different logs.

Teacher:

Wow, okay. Lots of dogs.

Elaine Stanley:

Then we move on to our sentence dictation.

Teacher:

We're going to write a sentence together now. Our sentence is, ‘The ants hid in the bins’. Can you say it with me?

Teacher and student:

The ants hid in the bins.

Elaine Stanley:

All right. Kerrie's going to write that, but what we would do in class is break that down one word at a time. When we've got a base word with the suffix added, we would write the base word first. I would ask students to write ‘ant’ and then add the suffix to show more than one ant. When we get to ‘bin’, they would think about the sounds in ‘bin’. Write that word, then they'd add the suffix to show more than one.

Teacher:

Can you chin your board? Beautiful. How do we know there's more than one ant and more than one bin?

Student:

Because I added the suffix -s to the end of those words.

Teacher:

And what are you imagining? How many ants? How many bins?

Student:

Millions of ants and three big messy bins.

Elaine Stanley:

Right. Okay, beautiful. We do have a words and sentences document with lots of examples of words and also some sentences that you can use for your morphology lessons as well. We'll just put the link here for you. There are some ideas there of things you can use.

https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/decodable-words-and-sentences/

At this point in the lesson, we introduced the -s suffix slide that students will see from now on every time we do a morphology review. We learn a question/answer response that we do backwards and forwards. And we're going to say that whenever we see this slide.

At this point I'm going to teach students what we would say.

Teacher:

I'm going to ask, ‘What is the suffix?’ And you say, ‘/s/ [-s].’

Teacher:

What's the suffix?

Student:

/s/ [-s].

Teacher:

Now I'll ask what it means. And you say, ‘Plural, more than one.’

Teacher:

What does it mean?

Student:

Plural, more than one.

Teacher:

Okay. I am going to give you a word. Your word is dog. Add the suffix.

Student:

Dogs.

Teacher:

And now I'll say, ‘What does it mean?’ And you say, ‘More than one dog.’

What does it mean?

Student:

More than one dog.

Elaine Stanley:

That's the process every time we see that slide now and review. We'll just put the link here to our review slides.

https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/morphology-review-slides/

Then for the end of the lesson we do our check for understanding. Students would have a couple of words like these ones. They write the base word on their whiteboard and then I would say, ‘Can you add the suffix to show me more than one bat?’ And they would do it and chin it. And the same with ‘hands’.

That would be the end of our first adding -s suffix lesson.

Now this slide's going to appear. This is for our review. Whenever we do our review, this slide's going to appear. Students would get used to saying the responses every time. Again, let's do it to demonstrate.

Teacher:

Kerrie, what's the suffix?

Student:

/s/ [-s].

Teacher:

What does it mean?

Student:

Plural, more than one.

Teacher:

Your word is dog. Add the suffix.

Student:

Dogs.

Teacher:

What does it mean?

Student:

More than one dog.

Elaine Stanley:

Once students learn that this can also be a present simple verb, I would say then:

Teacher:

It means more than one?

Student:

Yes, but it can also mean something that can be done.

Teacher:

Oh, okay. Your word is sit. Add the suffix.

Student:

Sits.

Teacher:

What does that mean?

Student:

Someone sits.

Elaine Stanley:

They get to know the other meaning. And students love the backwards and forwards.

You may also like in your review to add some extra slides with the different types of words, nouns or verbs. Then you choose a different one each time. I might say:

Teacher:

Today your word is hat. Add the suffix.

Student:

Hats.

Teacher:

What does it mean?

Student:

More than one hat.

Teacher:

Now your word is hop. Add the suffix.

Student:

Hops.

Teacher:

What does that mean?

Student:

Someone hops.

Elaine Stanley:

Great. We're applying those different meanings in our review.