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With this activity, I would set up either a classroom or online based escape room where students will solve morphology related puzzles to "unlock" their next clue.

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Pirates & Prefixes- Escape Room for Morphology by The Cincy Speechie

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This link provides a step by step breakdown of how we can teach morphology within our classroom. The authors provide detailed explanations and a variety of applications throughout the article.

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In this post, we offer a simple Morphology Lesson Planning Template that provides a systematic approach to integrating morphology instruction into your classroom.

When you consider vocabulary instruction, probably the first thing that comes to mind is teaching specific words - ideally, lots of high-utility academic words. However, dedicated time for explicit morphology instruction is an often overlooked superhero of a well-rounded approach to teaching vocabulary.

Let's Start with a Morphology Definition

So, what is the definition of morphology, anyway?

In a nutshell, morphology is the study of the smallest meaningful parts-morphemes-of words.

And the way these parts (morphemes) come together to create words that connect to each other (word networks) and will show up throughout written English is also a part of studying morphemes or morphology.
morphology morph - ology
Right away, you likely notice the familiar suffix (word ending) -ology, which means the study of something . But, the study of what?

Well, to figure that out, we consider the base of the word morph - (from Greek), which refers to the form or structure of something. In this case, we form or structure of . . . words.
Morph- (form or structure) + -ology (study of) = the study of form and structure of words
So, morphology is the study of the form or structure of words. Of course, studying morphology means looking at word parts-affixes, roots, bases-that show up across the English language. This means that studying morphology also makes it easier to see the relationships between words.

So, What Does Morphology Instruction Look Like?

When we provide morphology instruction, we engage students in an exploration of the meaningful parts of words in ways that can later be leveraged to unlock the meaning of the unfamiliar words they encounter. Understanding the pieces of words that make up the morphological catalog of the English language also sets students up to build words and better communicate their ideas.

In our recent book (co-authored with Katie Egan Cunningham), we describe morphology instruction as helping students become "word detectives" by teaching them how to look INSIDE words for clues to their meanings.

For instance, if students learn that the suffix -ology means the study of something , they'll be able to use that clue to help them infer the meaning of lots of other words. For example,

musicology

mythology

oceanology

toxicology

biology

zoology

criminology

That's the power of morph-ology. But, studying morphology is more than just memorizing some word parts and their meanings. Learning the meanings of the morphological building blocks of language-and how they come together and pull apart to change the meanings of words-strengthens our skills for

1. Figuring out. Using morphology to figure out unfamiliar words increases a reader's ability to teach themselves new words in context. This is important because there are far too many words for students to learn than we can explicitly teach! Not to mention that vocabulary knowledge (or the lack thereof) is a major impediment to comprehension.

2. Connecting to word networks. Being able to connect words to larger word networks is important because understanding the relationships between words not only helps us remember the new word but also helps us use words more precisely when we speak or write. And when we read, the stronger our word connections and the larger the network is between related words-such as discouraged and discontent -the more we understand the nuances of what we read.

As you can see, morphology can play an important role in deepening students' understanding of language while empowering them to make informed inferences about the meanings of unknown words.

The Basics of Morphology: A Few Definitions

As you know, morphemes are the smallest meaningful chunks of language, but morphemes do come in a few different forms. Here are a few.

Bases - These are words that can always stand on their own, so they are called free morphemes . They don't need to be combined with any other chunks to form a word. But, they can be added onto with prefixes and suffixes: heat, re+ heat, re+ heat+ ing to form new words.

Greek and Latin Roots - Different from simple base words that can always stand on their own, Greek and Latin roots are word parts that have consistent meaning across words but are usually not able to stand on their own.

Free Morpheme Root - Act (to do something) because it can stand alone.

Bound Morpheme Root - Aud - (having to do with sound) because it cannot stand alone.

Affixes - These are word parts that are attached (or affixed) to roots or bases to change the meaning of a word. Affixes are bound morphemes. They need to be connected to other word parts to be meaningful. Affixes come in two forms:

Prefixes - Just as the name suggests (pre- means before) are parts of words that are attached (or affixed) to the beginning of the word.

Suffixes - The word suffix is derived from Latin words meaning subordinate and fasten. Suffixes are fastened to the end of the word.

These examples are pretty easy because the roots are all morphemes that can stand on their own (music, myth, ocean, toxic). These are called free morphemes.

Geo - refers to earth, ground, or land

Bio - refers to life

Acheo - means ancient

So in the word replanted , the prefix re- means again, the root plant means well plant, and the suffix -ed means that the replanting happened in the past.

Teaching Morphology: The WHAT and the HOW

If you're curious about how to infuse morphology lessons into your teaching toolkit, you're certainly not alone. Leveraging the meaningful parts of words to understand new words is top of mind for a lot of literacy educators these days.

In Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom (both the book and the online class), Shift 3 is all about effective vocabulary instruction. In that Shift, we spend a lot of time on morphology as one of the ways students can learn to make informed inferences about the meanings of the unfamiliar words they encounter in their independent reading. So, we will offer some general guidance here.

The WHAT of Morphology Instruction - Considering Morpheme Frequency: A Multi-Year Morphology Plan

Probably the most frequent question we get from teachers about morphology instruction is, "Which morphemes should I teach and in what order?"

Of course, there are endless possibilities for answering this question, and it's important to note that there definitely isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer. So, don't let worrying over choosing the perfect set of morphemes keep you from digging into morphology instruction.

On the other hand, if you'd like to see one suggested path for morphology instruction across the grades, we have put together a sample morphology plan-a scope and sequence for morphology instruction across grades-that does just that. You can download our Multi-Year Morphology Plan here .

This plan was designed by analyzing several lists of common, high-leverage morphemes and thoughtfully considering how they might be placed across the grades. For each morpheme, we offer example words that range from simpler to more complex.

This plan does not include every morpheme, and in fact, it includes just 20 per grade. But equipped with these dozens of morphemes, children will be able to unlock the meanings of countless words.

We have organized the morphology plan into four sets of words:

Set 1: Grades 3 and Below

Set 2: Grades 3-4

Set 3: Grades 4-5+

Set 4: Other Useful Morphemes

These lists - paired with our Planning Template for Explicit Morphology Instruction - are designed to give you a simple starting place for teaching morphology. Of course, there are many other ways that morpheme instruction might be divided across the grades - this is not THE plan; this is just A plan. But we can start here as we think about the word prediction. If we think about the three morphemes in prediction ( pre-, dict-, -tion ), the prefix pre- is on the third row of this plan, which means that it is one of the most commonly occurring prefixes and a viable candidate for a morphology lesson.

Pretty simple, huh? Unless you have other reasons for teaching certain morphemes, such as introducing certain words in a content area-such as bio- in biology, biologist, biohazard, biosphere -choosing morphemes for explicit morphology instruction is usually a matter of considering the highest-frequency (most useful) morphemes. But, whether you use the morpheme lists in our Multi-Year Morphology Plan or another list, once you know WHAT morpheme you want to teach-in this case, pre- - you can turn your attention to the HOW.

The How of Morphology Instruction - 5 Simple Steps for Teaching Morphology to Improve Literacy: A Morphology Lesson Template

Here's the good news - morphology instruction doesn't need to be fancy, time-consuming, or laborious. Following this simple, 5-step procedure, you'll be able to keep morphology instruction simple, predictable, and engaging without having to buy anything or rob a huge chunk of instructional time from somewhere else in your schedule.

You can find this Lesson Plan for Explicit Morphology Instruction for free. This tool provides a step-by-step approach to help students explore words from the inside out, using morphemes to uncover the clues to meaning hidden within a word.

1. It shows up a lot in English. In fact, it is among the ten most frequently occurring prefixes in English,

2. It is relatively easy to teach because it can be added to so many bases familiar to children to form new words with new meanings due to the addition of the prefix.

So, here is the five-step process from our lesson plan, using the prefix pre- as the example morpheme to illustrate the steps.

Step 1: Identify the morpheme, its meaning, and where it shows up in words.

Sample Language: Today, we are going to experiment with the prefix -pre, which means "before." Let's see how pre- changes the meanings of base words.

Step 2: Provide examples of words with pre-. Think aloud as you use the words parts to define it.

Step 3: Offer some non-examples of the pre- in words where it doesn't mean before.
preacher, preen, pretzel, pretty

Step 4: Let students work in pairs or small groups to apply the new prefix to a list of bases to figure out their meanings. They can even use the new word in a sentence.
set, fix, cut, test, form, heat, term, date, caution, pay, pack, exist, judge, view

Step 5: Ask students to fill in cloze sentences that have blanks for words from Step 2.
To make sure the movie would be okay for her little sister to watch, she decided to ________ it. He wore safety gloves as a _______ when he worked with the lathe. The recipe for the cake said to _________ the oven to 350 degrees.
Explicit Morphology Instruction vs. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

You may be wondering, "So, what's the difference between morphology instruction and other explicit vocabulary instruction?

Great question! It is easy to get confused. While they are both important components of a multi-dimensional plan for teaching vocabulary, your explicit vocabulary instruction is different from your explicit morphology instruction.

Explicit vocabulary instruction focuses on a specific word ( i.e., prediction ) and includes kid-friendly definitions, taking a close look at the orthography and phonology of the word, using the word in context, and comparing the word to other words (synonyms, antonyms, etc.). Explicit vocabulary instruction may also include exploring the morphology of the specific word ( pre-, dict-, -tion ), as well as other forms of the word when different morphemes are attached ( predicted, predicting, predictions, etc .).

Explicit morphology lessons, on the other hand, differ from explicit word-focused vocabulary instruction because, rather than focusing on a specific word ( prediction ), they focus on a specific morpheme, such as the prefix pre- . Morphology lessons help students to understand the meaning and function that a particular morpheme plays when combined with other word parts so that they can use that understanding to figure out word meanings and better comprehend.

If you visit our downloads page, you might notice we offer lesson planning templates for both types of explicit instruction for developing students' word power.

A Word of Caution About Morphology Instruction

Children will find this work empowering, especially as they discover opportunities to apply their knowledge of morphemes to unfamiliar words they encounter in the context of what they read. And it can be really exciting to see the power of this brain-friendly instruction as you see students apply what you have taught successfully.

However, it is also possible to get carried away. In fact, we have growing concerns about all kinds of "overdoing" going on in the field of literacy when it comes to centering explicit skills instruction these days.

So, to help you strike the right balance between "underdoing" and "overdoing," here are three things to keep in mind:

1. Keep it short and sweet. Explicit morphology lessons shouldn't drag on. Offer a little explanation, a little practice with the morpheme, and then a little bit of application in context. That's enough.

2. Keep it engaging. There are a lot of morphology worksheets and workbooks out there, but filling students' time with less-than-engaging morphology practice is not the point. Equipping students with more word power tools is. So, use morphemes to play with, explore, and increase awareness of words.

3. Keep it meaningful. The point of morphology instruction, of course, is to help students better understand words they encounter in reading and conversation. So, please don't eliminate interactions with books to have more time to teach morphology! Rather, encourage students to notice the morphemes they've learned as they show up in the books they are reading and then to practice trying to use their morphological knowledge to comprehend.

Now you know a lot more than just the definition of morphology! By using these ideas to embrace or refresh your morphology instruction, you'll take your students on a journey that will elevate their word power on the way to deeper comprehension.

The Lesson Planning Template we've shared in this blog post, in combination with the Multi-Year Morphology Plan, will help you make learning to read easier for your students. As a part of a plan multi-layered instructional model for teaching vocabulary-including both explicit and implicit approaches-morphology instruction promises to help students explore (and understand) the building blocks of meaningful language from the inside out.

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Developing Word Power: How to Teach Morphology - The Six Shifts

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Jan and Kari Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, accomplished authors, speakers, and consultants, bring a wealth of experience to the field of early childhood education. With deep roots in the teaching profession, they share a profound commitment to supporting both students and teachers in the foundational stages of reading and writing development.

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With this activity, students will combine creativity and learning by using LEGO blocks to build "word towers" Each color or size of LEGO represents a different part of a word (root, prefix, suffix). Students can build and deconstruct words, linking them to their meanings and discussing how the parts work together.

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This link provides educators with five different resources to help in teaching morphology in middle grades. It even covers different types of interventions and how to improve overall literacy with those students.

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By Sarah Schwartz - November 28, 2023 3 min read

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As students are expected to read more challenging texts, the academic language they contain can be daunting. But a certain type of vocabulary instruction could help students break tricky words down into meaningful parts-and make parsing them less intimidating.

This type of instruction, called morphology, teaches students about common prefixes, suffixes, and root words that they can use to read, spell, and understand complex words.

Take the word "intramuscular" as an example. The prefix "intra" means within, conveying that something "intramuscular" takes place within a muscle.

In attempts to provide more of a roadmap, some researchers and organizations have created practical resources for educators. See below for five guides.

Intensive Intervention Practice Guide: Explicit Morphology Instruction to Improve Overall Literacy Skills in Secondary Students

Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9

Morphing Into Adolescents: Active Word Learning for English-Language Learners and Their Classmates in Middle School

Using Morphological Strategies to Help Adolescents Decode, Spell, and Comprehend Big Words in Science

What Should Morphology Instruction Look Like?

Sarah Schwartz is a reporter for Education Week who covers curriculum and instruction.

Maya Riser-Kositsky, Librarian and Data Specialist contributed to this article.

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Morphology Instruction: 5 Resources for Educators

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Morphology instruction can help students break down complex words into meaningful parts-and make parsing them less intimidating.

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For this activity, students will create a comic strip using words with different prefixes and suffixes. Their characters can embody these words in action, helping students visualize how changing a word part can change its meaning.

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How to Support ELL Students Through Morphology Instruction

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How to Support ELL Students Through Morphology Instruction

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When teaching morphology, it may become either more difficult for ELL students or it will make the process of them understanding a word easier. But, this link provides educators with different methods to teach morphology to these students to encourage their success.

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Supporting Middle School English Language Learners Through Morphology Instruction

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Teaching multilingual students about Greek and Latin roots in words can help them systematically build their knowledge of English.

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As teachers, we have the opportunity to make learning fun for our students. For instance, we can turn morphology into a mystery by having students play "Word Detective". We can provide our students with a list of words where the root is hidden. Students must "investigate" and figure out the original word by deconstructing it, then present their findings to the class.

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This is a MEGA Packet full of morphology resources!

Included in this packet: 192 pages
Pgs. 4-5 Learning Goals and Rubric
Pg. 6 What is morphology
Pg. 7 Data Graph
Pgs. 8-10 Prefix, Root, Suffix Posters
Pgs. 11-12 Common Prefixes List (20)
Pgs. 13-14 Common Suffixes List (20)
Pgs. 15-18 Latin Root List (60)
Pgs. 19-20 Greek Root List (26)
Pgs. 21 Graphic Organizers
Pgs. 22-42 Prefix Graphic Organizers
Pgs. 43-129 Root Graphic Organizers
Pgs. 130-150 Suffix Graphic Organizer
Pg. 151 Activities
Pgs. 152-153 Making Meaning from Prefixes
Pgs. 154-155 Making Meaning from Suffixes
Pgs. 156-157 Making Words with Prefixes
Pgs. 158-159 Making Words with Suffixes
Pg. 160-161 Vocabulary in Context
Pg. 162 Word Cards
Pg. 163-176 Prefix, Root, and Suffix Word Cards
Pg. 177-179 Word Mat and Worksheet
Pg. 180-190 Answer Keys

This is a progressive product. More activities will be added.

Please ask any questions prior to purchasing.

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Word Detectives: Using prefixes, suffixes, and roots

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This is a MEGA Packet full of morphology resources! Included in this packet: 192 pages Pgs. 4-5 Learning Goals and Rubric Pg. 6 What is morphology Pg. 7 Data Graph Pgs. 8-10 Prefix, Root, Suffix Posters Pgs. 11-12 Common Prefixes List (20) Pgs. 13-14 Common Suffixes List (20...

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A Sample Morphology Lesson | Emily Gibbons | The Literacy Nest

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For this activity, students will start with a base word (ex. "help") and they will take turns adding prefixes or suffixes to create new words. Each student must explain how the new word changes in meaning. For example, "help" becomes "helper", then "unhelpful", and so on.

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Morphology: From the Ohio Department of Education

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Morphology: From the Ohio Department of Education

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This link comes directly from the ODE and offers resources for teaching morphology to middle and high school students. It begins with the importance of morphology and then also provides numerous activities and tools for morphology application in the classroom.

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Download the Course Companion document before starting this course. You can use the Companion Document to take notes on your learning, address reflection prompts, and as an easy way to retrieve course resources.

Course Objectives:
Participants will be able to...

Explain the meaning of morphology and its importance for adolescent literacy

Incorporate some common strategies for morphology instruction into their classroom

Consider This Scenario

Connection Point

In your Course Companion Document, consider these questions:

Can you relate to this scenario? In what ways are your challenges in literacy instruction similar or different?

Mr. Stevens has been working with his 9th grade history class on learning about different systems of government that have emerged over the last few centuries. One of the things he noticed is that many of his students struggle to understand the texts he has had them read, especially when they contain complex words that are unique to the study of history and government. He has tried explicit vocabulary instruction including word introduction, providing student-friendly definitions, giving examples and non-examples and checking for student understanding. This helped him to teach a number of tier 3 words. However, students are still struggling to fluently read texts and comprehend what they read.

Morphology, the study of word forms, could help Mr. Stevens to more consistently support his students.

What is Morphology?

Morphology is the study of word forms, including the rules by which words are formed. Direct instruction in morphology involves explicitly teaching students the meanings of word parts - roots, prefixes, and suffixes - and clarifying how this knowledge can be used to derive word meanings.

Prefixes are the morphemes that come at the beginning of different types of words. The un- in undo, uncover, unearth is a prefix.

Suffixes are the morphemes that come at the end of different types of words. The -er in painter, singer, worker is a suffix.

Roots are the basis of a word and usually carry meaning

Figure 1. MORPHOLOGY

This video by Diana Townsend explains how morphology can support students' understanding of academic vocabulary and content. There is a place in your Course Companion to take notes on the video.

Why Teach Morphology?

What are some strategies to teach morphology in an adolescent classroom? This video by Dr. Dianna Townsend provides a deeper overview of morphology along with some strategies for incorporating it into instruction. There is a place in your Course Companion to take notes on the video.

Keep in mind as you take this learning back to your classroom, coaching, or the professional learning you develop, that students need to:

Develop independent word-learning strategies

Learn from explicit, engaging exposures in multiple contexts

Practice and personalize word meanings multiple times

Build word consciousness

Participate in rich classroom instruction

Knowledge Check

Take this brief quiz to text your knowledge. Click the square button to expand the quiz.

Resources

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the following resources for teaching morphology:

NCTE provides a List of morphemes that are common across content areas

Have students use word webs, like this example provided by Literacy How, to help them understand the interconnections among words.

Have students build a word matrix for a morpheme or combine word parts from an existing matrix to generate multimorphemic words. This interactive site allows you to build your own matrices.

You can use these strategies to teach morphology to students:

Have students compare the meanings of the words generated through word building activities and explain how the prefixes, roots and suffixes contribute to the word meanings.

Have students keep track of common morphemes in a vocabulary notebook.

If you are using an explicit vocabulary routine, consider ways to incorporate a study of word morphology into the routine.

Course Reflection

In your Morphology Course Companion document, answer the following questions:

1. Reflect on your learning. What are two or three things that you learned during the course that helped you to better understand the importance of morphology in literacy instruction?

2. What else to you need to learn before you can fully implement morphology into your instruction?

3. What are two or three action steps that you can take to start implementing morphology into your work?

To Learn More

If you want learn more, please see the following resource:

Ohio Literacy Academy 2019: Word Smarts- Using Morphology Bases & Affixes to Develop Vocabulary Skills presented by William Van Cleave (video; handout)

Feedback:

Please take a moment to fill out this feedback form. We will use your feedback to improve this and other courses.

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Download the Course Companion document before starting this course. You can use the Companion Document to take notes on your learning, address reflection prompts, and as an easy way to retrieve course resources. Participants will be able to...

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The students will create a word family book where they list a root word and then illustrate it with as many related words as possible, breaking down the affixes and providing definitions.

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This video provides us with detailed instruction on how to set up a morphology wall in our classroom.