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Education Weekly

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For Claudia Margaroli, teaching reading during the coronavirus school shutdowns has looked nothing like what she used to do in the classroom.

Instead of small group work, the 1st grade teacher at Charlotte East Language Academy in Charlotte, N.C., sees all her students in a whole-class Google Meet video chat twice a week.

She tries to answer the questions that students have in their district-issued packets, but keeping more than 30 wiggly 1st graders on task remotely is a challenge. When the video freezes, it's hard to write words on her whiteboard for students to sound out, or decode.

She worries most about her students who were already struggling with foundational reading skills, like phonemic awareness-identifying and manipulating the sounds in spoken words-and phonics, the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters.

"Is this increasing the gap?" Margaroli asked. "Because the kids who are spending the most time on learning right now are kids whose parents are home, who can understand this reading packet in English."

See Also: 9 States Make Adjustments for Early Reading Laws

While remote learning has presented challenges in every subject and grade level, some teachers and researchers say that early reading instruction is especially problematic.

Teaching young students how to read and write often requires hands-on activities, like manipulating letter tiles, or learning how to form their shapes. And before they can sound out words, children rely on read-alouds, interactive play, and conversations to learn vocabulary and build knowledge about the world. They can't read a complex informational text on their own.

Researchers for the Northwest Evaluation Association project that coronavirus closures could lead to much greater learning loss in reading than usually occurs during the traditional "summer slide."

But with the stress and trauma that many students are experiencing during the shutdowns, it's possible that the effects could be even greater, said Emily Solari, a professor of reading education at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and Human Development. And it's hard to say how foundational skills development, specifically, will be affected, she added.

Teaching students how to read words is always critical, she said, because they have to be able to read to succeed in every subject. But this fall, the stakes will be higher.

"Now that we have kids that have lost access to critical face-to-face instruction in reading ... this becomes even more urgent as we bring them back," she said.

Ed Tech 'For Better or Worse'

Researchers say there isn't much information about what kind of remote teaching works best for early reading.

"Educational technology is often looked at with skepticism, but for better or worse in this era when there aren't a lot of other choices ... adaptive ed tech might have a place," said Fumiko Hoeft, a psychology professor at the University of Connecticut.

Hoeft and UConn professor Kenneth Pugh are currently conducting a study to test the effectiveness of GraphoLearn, a foundational skills reading app, in a distance learning environment. Hoeft also plans to use data from the study to "quantify the COVID slide," and see how much it deviates from estimates.

"It's hard to predict, in many ways, what the outcomes will be," she said. It's possible that they might find differences in learning loss by zip code, she said, or even by what distance learning approach different schools used.

Nell K. Duke, a professor of literacy, language, and culture at the University of Michigan's School of Education, has created two instructional videos for reading teachers who are teaching over Zoom: One demonstrating how to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary lessons, and the other showcasing two small group lessons-one in phonics instruction, and one designed to build students' knowledge about food chains.

"Those are all things we would do in a face to face environment in a classroom, and things that we can do-provided we have high-speed internet and devices-in a virtual environment," Duke said.

Some teachers have taken this approach, transferring their lessons almost wholesale from the classroom to the screen.

Brittany Reeves, a 1st grade teacher in Mountain Home, Ark., meets for one-on-one, half-hour Zoom sessions with most of her students once a week. She said she's able to touch on every aspect of a lesson she would have done in the classroom, though in a slightly abbreviated way.

'Crash Course' in Reading for Parents

For students who don't have internet or devices at home, Reeves had to come up with other options. At school, students use beads to represent the individual phonemes, or smallest units of sound, in words. She's explained to parents how to do the activity using whatever small objects they have at home-grains of rice can work, she said.

Giving parents this kind of explicit instruction can be helpful, said Duke. Without parent or teacher support, early elementary students may not get far in paper-and-pencil exercises on their own, Duke said. "I'm not aware of any research showing that young children can be provided with a packet and have that provide a measurable positive impact on their literacy development," she said.

Some reading researchers have started developing resources for this purpose. The Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University put out a series of videos on its YouTube channel, demonstrating foundational skills activities and comprehension lessons that parents can do at home with their children at different grade levels.

Margaroli, the teacher in North Carolina, tries to support parents as they work with their children on the district-provided packets. But she also feels guilty because she can only help those who she's in contact with, and she hasn't been able to consistently reach all of her families.

Coaching parents comes with its own set of challenges, too. While students are with her on Zoom, Margaroli sometimes overhears parents sounding out words incorrectly, using letter names, rather than letter sounds, for example. But she's so grateful that families are devoting time to lessons at all that she hesitates to correct them. "It's difficult to teach the parents during this time as well," Margaroli said. "[It's] a crash course in how to teach reading."

Some states and districts have turned to an older technology: public television.

In New York City, the local public broadcasting channel runs hourlong episodes of Let's Learn NYC!, a supplement to schools' remote learning, every weekday. The lessons, designed for students ages 3-8 and delivered by New York City educators, each include read-alouds and work on foundational reading skills, such as phonemic awareness and phonics.

"We are trying to follow what the science of reading tells us as much as possible, given that these are 12- to 14-minute segments," said Andrew Fletcher, the senior executive director of early literacy at the New York City Department of Education.

Starting in June, Let's Learn NYC! is expanding to two hours each day-one for preschool and and kindergarten students, and the other for grades 1-2. The expanded programming will allow for more differentiation, Fletcher said, but the episodes can't match the individualized attention kids could get in a classroom. "It's still a huge developmental continuum, where we're attempting to meet thousands of children's needs," he said.

Balancing Instruction and Safety

Figuring out where students need support, in foundational skills and content knowledge, will be many schools' top instructional priority when classes are back in session this fall.

"Teachers are really going to have to be masters of data analysis," said Zanovia Curtis, the supervisor of elementary education and federal programs for the West Feliciana Parish Schools in Francisville, La. Her district is planning to start the year with diagnostic assessments administered in person if safety guidelines allow, or online if not.

Curtis hopes that small groups of students could come in for intervention instruction, as broadband access continues to be a barrier to live lessons in their rural community, she said. "There's just a lot of variables in the air that we're trying to hammer down right now," she said.

Such logistical and safety concerns can have a big effect on early reading instruction, said Penny Schwinn, Tennessee's education commissioner. For example: How can teachers deliver phonemic awareness and phonics lessons with masks on?

"In order to learn to read, you actually need to be able to see each other's mouths," she said.

The state is thinking about challenges like this as it develops guidance for next year, Schwinn said.

Earlier this year, before schools closed in response to the pandemic, the Tennessee education department proposed major legislation requiring all K-3 teachers to know about evidence-based reading instruction. The department is still "firmly committed" to these goals, Schwinn said.

In June, the department plans to release a free, digital foundational skills supplement for pre-K-2, for teachers to use as a resource whether classes are in person or online next year. Districts' plans for 2020-21 will include dedicated sections for early literacy development, Schwinn said.

In Arkansas, the state department of education assembled teams of teachers to create an "Academic Playbook" for the beginning of next school year, which includes optional unit plans for essential standards that they weren't able to cover before the shutdowns.

In early grades English/language arts, the current-year teachers developed lessons for the next grade for the 2020-21 school year. For example, 2nd grade teachers created catch-up lessons for 3rd graders in the fall to cover 2nd grade standards they missed in the spring, said Missy Walley, the director of special projects in the Arkansas Department of Education's division of elementary and secondary education.

"Some of the anxiety is 'I'm a 3rd grade teacher and I know my standards, but now you're asking me to teach second grade standards?' " Walley said.

Margaroli, the 1st grade teacher in North Carolina, worries about this: Will she be expected to teach end-of-year kindergarten skills next year?

But she's even more concerned about how social distancing restrictions might affect her teaching.

In her reading classroom, students switch from whole-group lessons to different small groups several times a day, so that they can get more individualized support. Will that kind of movement be allowed next year, she wonders?

She's trying to wrap her mind around that idea that being student-centered might mean putting safety above best practice in the fall. "[It] isn't just about instruction, it's also about wellbeing," she said. "Shifting that focus is hard."

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Early Reading Instruction Takes a Hit During COVID-19

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For Claudia Margaroli, teaching reading during the coronavirus school shutdowns has looked nothing like what she used to do in the classroom. Instead of small group work, the 1st grade teacher at Charlotte East Language Academy in Charlotte, N.C., sees all her students in a whole-class Google Meet video chat twice a week.

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Fluency K-3

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Grades K-1

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Free online resources

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Literacy Daily is a space to connect educators, students, and leaders with the latest news, ideas, tools, strategies, and research in literacy instruction.

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Grades K-12

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Check out more of our selected reading news stories. Each weekday, we gather interesting news headlines about reading and early education. You can also sign up for our daily email service (or a weekly digest), to get the latest reading headlines sent directly to you.

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Check out more of our selected reading news stories. Each weekday, we gather interesting news headlines about reading and early education. You can also sign up for our daily email service (or a weekly digest), to get the latest reading headlines sent directly to you.

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Heggerty Videos K--2

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Grades 1- 2

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Remote Learning - K-2 - Literacy - Daily SEL Journal Writing (1)

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Grades K-2

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A Kindergarten Space

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Remote Learning - K-2 - Literacy - Games and Activities (1)

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Scope and Sequence

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Scope and Sequence

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Scope And Sequence

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Kindergarten

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Second Grade

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Decoadable Stories

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The Spelfabet Truly Amazing Gold Medal this week goes to the Specific Learning Difficulties Association of South Australia (SPELD-SA), for a couple of really fantastic things deserving of more than...

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Read Aloud

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Remote Read Aloud and More

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With widespread school and library closures due to the new coronavirus outbreak, children's authors and publishers are going digital to provide kids with ways to read, draw, engage, and support other children who might need a helping hand. PW is tracking some of the most creative efforts on social media and across the web, and will be updating our list regularly.
Association of American Publishers COVID-19 Resource Page
The Association of American Publishers has created a resource page about ongoing publisher efforts in support of clients and consumers during the outbreak. The site will be regularly updated with new information about publisher programs, fair use policy alterations, and outreach to schools and libraries.
#SCBWIConnects
The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has launched #SCBWIConnects, a weekly notice of free online resources created by published members of the organization. The first edition of the newsletter included 350 listings of digital author events and lessons. Issues are compiled and sent every Monday.
Penguin Random House Virtual Storytime Program
Penguin Random House and Parents Magazine have expedited their launch of a national family reading movement program called Read Together, Be Together. Weekly virtual story times will be hosted by authors and actors. The schedule for weekly events is available at Read Together, Be Together As part of the program, PRH has also donated 750,000 books to the literacy non-profit First Book.
Familius 30-Day Free Trial
Familius has partnered with Vooks to offer a 30-day free trial of Familius read-aloud videos. The publisher is also making teaching guides and other resources available upon request.
School Zone Publishing Activities and Books
School Zone Publishing is offering one month of full access to the company's Anywhere Teacher App when the code ATHOME is used at sign-up prior to March 31. The app provides access to more than 2,000 activities including books, video games, and worksheets for children ages two to eight.

In honor of Children's Book Week, the Children's Book Council has made a 23-page coloring book available in individual pages and as a full download for free. Each page celebrates this year's theme for Children's Book Week, which is Read. Dream. Share. Drawings include works by Jessica Love (r.), Sarah Jung, Marcos Navarro, Katie O'Neill, Greg Pizzoli, and others.
Young Writer's Blueprint
For budding young writers, Children's Book Insideris making its Young Writer's Blueprint writing course available for free. The step-by-step course is the creation of children's and young adult author Alice Kuipers. The course is designed for children ages six to 10 but is also appropriate for teens. An adult must sign up for the course, which can be accessed here.
Bilingual Videos and Content from Cinco Puntos Press
Cinco Puntos Press is sharing bilingual storytelling videos from author Joe Hayes and developing a growing catalog of video resources from other authors published by the press, beginning next week with All Around Us author Xelena Gonzalez, whose video will be a Tai Chi workshop. Current and forthcoming videos are being shared by the press on social media. Cinco Puntos is also offering free teaching guides for early reader books on their website, including activities for kids and reading questions.
Sourcebooks Videos and Online Stories
Sourcebooks has made access to online storytimes free. In addition, P for Pterodactyl author Raj Haldar created a video for Nick Jr. showing kids how to sneeze into their elbows-a video that is receiving renewed interest. DJ Corchin, author of the forthcoming picture book A Thousand No's (Sourcebooks, Aug.) is hosting a daily drawing hour at 10:30 a.m. CT on his Facebook page.
Holiday House Resources for Distance Learning
Holiday House's newly launched resources page offers teaching and reading resources for teachers, parents, librarians and educators. The site includes more than 300 reading guides, activities, storytime kits, flashcards, and more.
Storytimes and Video Guides from PRH Canada/Tundra Books
PRH Canada/Tundra Books is making all guides, event kids, and extras of book content available for [free download]. https://tundrabooks.com/book-extras/ The press is also including activity box kits with books in its e-newsletter, including works on finger puppet-making and kazoo-making. In addition, Tundra authors and illustrators are doing virtual storytimes and singalongs. Among the contributors are Narwhal & Jelly author Ben Clanton and Studio author Emily Arrow.
Reading Apart, Together.
House of Anansi and Groundwood Books is encouraging readers to share with others by reading the same book at the same time. When customers purchase an e-book from the publisher website they can enter the name of a friend in the notes section of their order and that friend will receive a free e-book copy of the same book.
Simon & Schuster Children's Education and Library
Simon & Schuster is making resources available to educators, booksellers, and librarians via their online hub, The Book Pantry Users can use the site to conduct livestreams and post readings of S&S children's titles for students and customers.
HarperCollins Children's Books
HarperCollins Children's Books is making online reading of all its titles available for free to teachers, librarians, and booksellers through May 31.
Scholastic Home Base Virtual Book Fest
Scholastic Books is hosting its first digital book fest on March 20 at 3 p.m. ET, and following it with a second book fest on March 27 at 3 p.m. ET. The Home Base Virtual Book Fest is hosted on the company's Home Base website and features established and debut authors.
Free Titles from Penny Candy
Penny Candy Books is offering free PDFs of two titles to full and part-time educators who email the press. The publishers is also making guides and activities available for free download.
#FreeBookResources
Caryl Hart Children's Books has created the hashtag #FreeBookResources for readers to be able to quickly and easily locate free children's book content on social media.
Scholastic Learn at Home
Scholastic has opened up its extensive library of digital curricular resources for free through a new website, Scholastic Learn at Home. In a statement, the publisher said, "Scholastic Learn at Home allows open access to daily learning journeys divided into four grade spans-Pre-K-K, Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5, and Grades 6-9+, covering ELA, STEM, Science, Social Studies, and Social-Emotional Learning." In addition to general learning materials, the publisher has also created a website for teaching young people about the coronavirus outbreak.
Penguin Random House Open License
PRH is offering a temporary open license to digital content for educators, librarians, and booksellers. The license allows professionals to access and stream videos of story times, read aloud videos, and live readings. Booksellers can also upload and share videos and related media if it uses a PRH title, and educators can integrate PRH title-related content through the site's digital classroom platform.
Lunch Doodle with Mo Willems!
Kennedy Center Education artist-in-residence Mo Willems is leading an afternoon doodling session every day at 1 p.m. ET for the next few weeks, showing readers how to draw his iconic pigeon and piggie, as well as offering a glimpse inside his Massachusetts studio. "Grab some paper and pencils, pens, or crayons," Willems said in a statement to readers. "We are going to doodle together and explore ways of writing and making."

Save the Children has partnered with NoKidHungry, Scholastic, and actors Josh Gad, Amy Adams, and Jennifer Garner to share Instagram videos of storybook readings to raise funds for children who have been affected by school closures.

KidLit TV has created a virtual library available to readers on their site. The virtual library includes tutorials, read-alouds, podcasts and other activities, including reading resources. The multimedia content provider is run by educators and parents and works with more than 600,000 schools.
Draw Every Day with JJK
Hey, Kiddo author and illustrator Jarret J. Krosoczka has taken to YouTube to offer a daily drawing lesson for people of all ages. Krosoczka will record a video every weekday at 2 p.m. ET for the coming weeks.
Harper at Home
HarperCollins Children's Books is using social media to share daily story times, learning materials, and activities with readers. Authors, illustrators, and Harper staff will participate, with social media channels available for different age groups. HarperKids is on Instagram for little readers, the YouTube channel Shelf Stuff is for middle grade readers, the Epic Reads Twitter feed is for teens, and HarperStacks -also on Twitter-has resources for educators, parents, and caregivers.
Ideal Exhibitions at Home
Picture book creator Hervé Tullet's colorful and interactive Ideal Exhibitions have been shown worldwide in museums and galleries, but with those spaces closing around the world, Tullet is inviting teachers and children to participate in creating a version of his exhibitions from home and encouraging them to share. More information is available at lexpoideale.com/en/ or by e-mailing info@expoideale.com.
Peter Reynolds Daily Live Stream
Peter Reynolds, author of The Dot and many other works for young readers, was winding down his tour for his new picture book BE YOU! when the new coronavirus outbreak caused him to cancel in-person appearances for some of his last events. Now, Reynolds is taking to Facebook daily to do a daily read-aloud that students and teachers can view.
Read, Wonder, and Learn!
Author Kate Messner's site is being regularly updated with publisher-approved author readings, art lessons, and curricular resources. Messner has also received permission for read-alongs for some of her books, including a not-yet-published title from Chronicle.
Stimola Live
Stimola Literary Studio will offer more than 50 live streams for children to tune into between March 23 and April 3. A Stimola Live YouTube channel will archive the readings for future viewership. Content is for kids of all ages and will include read-alouds, crafts, journaling, math, yoga, and drawing lessons. Where possible, the livestreams will link to indie bookstores for customers to be able to purchase books by the authors. Among the participating authors and illustrators are Donna Barbra Higuera, James Ponti, Barb Rosenstock, Barney Saltzberg, Mika Song, Matt Tavares, Susan Verde, and Rowboat Watkins. A logo for the effort was donated by author Shanda McCloskey, and McCloskey's husband developed the website.

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How Kids' Lit Is Responding to the Coronavirus

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With widespread school and library closures due to the new coronavirus outbreak, children's authors and publishers are going digital to provide kids with ways to read, draw, engage, and support other children who might need a helping hand. PW is tracking some of the most creative efforts on social media and across the web, and will be updating our list regularly.

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Arranged by skill

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A New Moodel

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Overview of suggested restructuring

Teach 10-15 "sight words" before phonics instruction begins

Flash Words and Heart Words defined

Flash Words with advanced vowels to teach with early phonics instruction

Flash Words with two and three syllables

Implementing the new model

You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. To do this, high-frequency words need to be categorized according to whether they are spelled entirely regularly or not. This article describes how to "rethink" teaching of high-frequency words.

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On Line White board

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Whiteboard.fi - Free online whiteboard for teachers and classrooms

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Whiteboard.fi is an instant formative assessment tool for your classroom, providing you with live feedback and immediate overview over your students.

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Remote Theater Activities

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teaching Drama Remotely

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A Growing List of FREE Tools & Resources for Distance Learning

As schools and theatre programs deal with closures due to COVID-19, we thought it would be useful to begin compiling a list of online resources to help keep your drama programs running. This list has been curated by the Beat by Beat Team and posted here with permission from the creators. If you know of any resources not listed here, or have any ideas or lesson plans to contribute, please leave them in the comments below. Thank you!

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Teaching Drama Online - Theatre Education Distance Learning Resources

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A Growing List of FREE Tools & Resources for Distance Learning As schools and theatre programs deal with closures due to COVID-19, we thought it would be useful to begin compiling a list of online resources to help keep your drama programs running.

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Tile Free Play and Heart words

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Really Great Reading | Specialists in Reading Education

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K-2 How to teach prefix and suffix

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Teacher question:
Are there any resources that provide a list of morphemes to teach at each K-5 grade level? I have been looking for a definitive list of morphemes that is organized by grade level like the Fry sight word list. I often come across research about how L1 and L2 students acquire morphemes, but I am looking for a list that represents the morphemes that students will most likely see in print at each K-5 grade level. Does anything like that exist? Thank you for your time.
Shanahan's response:

The short answer to this question is, "No, I don't know of such a list."

But when have I ever been satisfied with the short answer to anything?

Let's make sure we're all in agreement as to what constitutes a morpheme? Basically, a morpheme is the "smallest grammatical unit." It isn't the same thing as a word, and yet many words are morphemes. The distinction turns on whether the unit (the morpheme or word) can stand on its own. Words have to have that kind of independence, while morphemes don't require it.

Thus, bags, trucked, running, and redirect are all words in the English language while bag, s, truck, ed, run, ing, re, and direct are all morphemes. Each morphemic unit carries meaning, but sometimes morphemes can do that independently (bag, truck, run, direct), and sometimes they need to be combined with other morphemes to be considered a word (s, ed, ing, re).

I admitted ignorance on this issue, and I've tried to turn that ignorance to your advantage. I contacted Jeffrey and Peter Bowers. Both are outstanding scholars (Jeff at the University of Bristol in the UK, and Peter at WordWorks Literacy Centre, in Ontario) who are particularly knowledgeable about teaching morphology to improve literacy. They've both published widely on the issue, and both have chided me when they felt I wasn't paying sufficient attention to how words work morphologically. These days I know no one better able to provide you with a thoughtful answer to your question, and boy was I right!

Word Matrix: a map of a word family

Word Sums: reveal underlying structure of any complex word (a word with more than just a base)

un + help + ful + ness > unhelpfulness

Here is Peter Bower's response (with my light editing)

I have no knowledge of such a list, but I wouldn't recommend one anyway.

My recommendation based on theory not direct research evidence - is that the main value comes from teaching all or many members of a morphological family at one time with the matrix and word sums (see the attached figure illustrating a matrix and word sum). In the younger grades I start with free bases [those morphemes that stand alone as words], but once that is established, I have no trouble introducing bound bases [the units that can't stand alone]. This relates to the research we cite about the value of studying meaningfully related items at one time rather than disconnected items.

Instead of a "scope and sequence" of morphemes to teach, what I recommend is starting with words in the children's vocabulary, analyzing such words to find their bases, then looking for other members of that family.

The point is not that there is a "scope and sequence" of morphemes to teach. Rather there is a kind of a "scope" of orthographic concepts that we want students to learn, and teachers can address those concepts based on whatever words are central to the readings they are introducing to the students.

A brief list of those concepts that should be taught would include:

Every word is a base or a base with something else (another base or affix)

Bases and affixes (morphemes) are the meaningful building blocks that construct words.

We can analyze complex words into constituent morphemes with word sums and show their interrelationship with a matrix.

English spelling prioritizes consistent spelling of morphemes over consistent pronunciation of morphemes. (This is why we refer to morphemes by their spelling not their pronunciation. The base of the word action is not referred to by the pronunciation of the word act. Instead it is referred to by its spelling. The base "a - c - t". This is the same as the fact that we don't refer to the <-ed> suffix by one or all of its three pronunciation, we call it by it's spelling "e-d suffix.")

Thus, we need to understand grapheme-phoneme correspondences from within the context of morphological families. (e.g. we learn the phonology of the grapheme by studying morphological families).

There are reliable conventions for the three suffixing conventions.

Studying and understanding the suffixing conventions is not primarily about improving spelling accuracy, it is about being able to analyze hypotheses about connections between words. We can test the hypothesis that has a base only if we know vowel suffixes replace final, non-syllabic s (image/ + ine -> imagine).

The "structure and meaning test": To determine that two words share a base, we need evidence from both structure (word sum) and meaning (etymology). So with the earlier example of words related to (play, playing, playful, replay, playhouse), we can prove all of those words can be analyzed with word sums with coherent affixes and bases. But we can also show that they all go back to an Old English root plegan, plegian for "frolic, move rapidly". However, the word which can be analyzed structurally turns out not to be related. It does not belong in the morphological family with the others because it goes back to a Latin root plac(ere) for "fold". So to "display" is to "unfold".

If we are going to teach children how their writing system works, we need to teach them the interrelation of morphology, phonology, and etymology. As we have pointed out, this is why Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is not about "adding" morphological instruction to phonics instruction - its about teaching how the system works.

This is why I argue that SWI teaches grapheme-phoneme correspondences more explicitly and accurately than phonics. Phonics instruction (under the definition of associations of pronunciations and letters without reference to morphology or etymology) cannot explain the grapheme-phoneme correspondences in countless words like does or rough or every or homophones, and so on. So many people miss the absolute detail into orthographic phonology that comes with SWI.

Here are some videos to illustrate my point.

Grade 2 Morphology

A teacher showing investigations from his class.

Grade 1 Morphology

Investigating grapheme-phoneme correspondences - with the context of morphological word sums.

Kindergarten Morphology

A kindergarten lesson I taught introducing the word sum and matrix that touches on grapheme-phoneme correspondences like the pronunciation of the <-s> suffix for /z/ and /s/.

It's as simple as starting with the "known" and then expanding from that. Even if kids know all the words in a morphological family (e.g. play, playing, playful, replay, playhouse) the lesson is not about new vocabulary, but learning how word structure links words. That concept can then be applied anywhere.

The other thing I keep in mind when choosing morphological families to investigate is the orthographic concepts a family has to offer. If I've established the fact that words that share a base share a spelling and a meaning connection, then I can introduce a base like with words like actor, acting, react, and action as a way to introduce the fact that the pronunciation of morpheme might change but keep the spelling. In that way we learn the phonology of t is not the "t sound", but that the grapheme can write /t/ when that is the appropriate sound. I've attached an example of a lesson I've used for that before.

I also draw on the <-ed> suffix from early on to highlight this same concept that morphemes do not have pronunciations until they are in a word. The pronunciation of a word like is another useful one to get rid of this idea of a "t sound" since this very common pronunciation of a very common suffix is what is typically thought of the "t sound," but their ain't no /t/!

And then you also encounter words that give rise to the need to teach all the suffixing changes.

These are concepts teachers need to learn and they can bring into work with their class as they investigate words."

Shanahan again

I don't disagree with Peter on any of this, except I'm not as dismissive of the kind of list that you are requesting. I don't see it as mutually exclusive from the curriculum goals that he specified or contradictory of the kind of instruction he described.

Many teachers, when referring to morphology or "structural analysis", actually are talking about affixes alone, and not the bases. If that is the case here, there are some lists like that which present the most common prefixes and suffixes from textbooks in grades 3-9 (White, Sowell, & Yanagihara, 1989). You can easily find those lists on line and you could definitely make use of those lists to make sure that you are hitting all the notes if you do the word sums and matrixes that Peter recommends.

Otherwise, I haven't been able to come up with a graded list of bases for you to use. But I have passed your letter along to my friends at MetaMetrics (the Lexile people) and have asked if they could produce such a list from their language corpus of more than 1 billion words. Stay tuned!
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What Should Morphology Instruction Look Like?

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Are there any resources that provide a list of morphemes to teach at each K-5 grade level? I have been looking for a definitive list of morphemes that is organized by grade level like the Fry sight word list.

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Word work /recorded lessons

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Printable Materials

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PK-5th Grade Independent Study Workbooks | Education.com

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Download these independent study workbooks that offer activities in reading, writing, and math for grades PK-5th grade.