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AISR Word Study in UES Morphology Planner- DEMO LAB

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Shifting the Balance Morphology Lesson Planner

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Shifting the Balance Morphology Lesson Planner

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Engage with the Page (from Fiona Hamilton)

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Engage with the Page (from Fiona Hamilton)

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People collect things…Jerome collected words. Watch as Fiona, Lauren and Angela walk you through this great resource. Click on the icons in the Thinglink below to make these ideas your own.

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3-5 Download_Phonics Progression -Scope and sequence Triangle .pdf

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-struct- reading passage options (Morpheme Magic)

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-struct- reading passage options (Morpheme Magic)

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-struct- reading passage from Morpheme Magic (3 options)

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-struct- reading passage (science connection)

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-struct- reading passage (science connection)

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AISR Word Study UES Planner for Syllable Transfer- DEMO LAB

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The morpheme mapper lets you type in a word and see its morphemes and meanings mapped out.

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What is Structured Word Inquiry (SWI)?

"Structured word inquiry" Bowers and Kirby (2010) literacy instruction that engages learners of all ages and abilities by making sense of our surprisingly logical spelling system. English spelling can only be understood through scientific investigation of the interrelationship of morphology (bases & affixes), etymology (historical influences) and phonology (grapheme-phoneme correspondences).

The evidence from multiple meta-analyses is that morphological instruction brings literacy benefits to learners in general, but in particular for less able and younger students (see more on research on back).

According to the research morphology should be a feature of instruction from the start. However, we have little research about how best to teach teach morphology. Research on SWI is promising, but has only just begun. The practical work gong on with SWI in classrooms and tutoring around the world offers educators and researches needed models of what such instruction can look like. See an interview with Dr. Bowers on SWI HERE.

Orthographic-phonology makes sense of grapheme-phoneme correspondences phonics instruction describes as "irregular."

Those born with efficient orthographic memories just learn to read and spell words like does without pausing to think about the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they were taught. Lacking automated access to such spellings, the dyslexic pauses to draw on their instruction. The misspelling *<duz> is the result of a dyslexic successfully applying hard won learning. This is not a motivating learning experience.

Nothing motivates like understanding

Both phonics instruction and the instruction of orthographic phonology in SWI explicitly target grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The key difference is what phonics lacks. Phonics fails to address the morphological and etymological influences grapheme choice that is central to instruction of orthographic phonology in SWI.

Instruction from a phonics perspective treats <does> is "irregular," but when we investigate the structure and meaning of this word and its family we can make sense of its spelling. The base <do> keeps its spelling regardless of it's pronunciation. This is not "irregular," it is how grapheme-phoneme correspondences operate in a morphophonemic system.

Why does my child spell <jumped> as *<jumpt>?

The misspelling *<jumpt> is the result of a child successfully applying what they are taught. After all, the word ends in what they are taught is the "t sound."

But when we look at the structure we see the <-ed> suffix for the past tense is always spelled <-ed>, no matter how it is pronounced!

It turns out this is one area in which many teachers are taught

to teach the interrelation of morphology and phonology. Unfortunately this recognition about the spelling and pronunciation of this suffix is rarely used outside of SWI / Real Spelling as a way to understand the system The same principle explains the spelling of "does" and the spelling of the word "action" that we see at right.

All words built on the English base (morphology) <struct> derive from the The Latin root (etymology) rumpere for "build" which informs the meaning of any word with the <struct> base. This base has multiple pronunciations, but only one spelling.

Introduction to the research

Structured word inquiry (SWI) (Bowers & Kirby, 2010) is NOT morphological instruction. Structured word inquiry is literacy instruction that uses a scientific inquiry approach to build understanding English orthography represents the meanings of words to speakers of the language through an interrelation of morphology, etymology and phonology. As Venezky (1999) explained, "English orthography is not a failed phonetic transcription system, invented out of madness or perversity. Instead, it is a more complex system that preserves bits of history (i.e., etymology), facilitates understanding, and also translates into sound" (p. 4).

SWI is not morphological instruction, but it must teach about morphology. As a result we can gain some insight from the results of research on the effects of including morphological in literacy instruction. The results are in direct contradiction to decades of (untested) recommendations from the research to avoid inclusion of morphology in instruction to younger and less able readers. See the table below with the results of meta- analyses of morphological instruction.

Orthographic phonology is essential to SWI Instruction -- and morphological instruction builds phonological awareness

Please keep in mind that SWI instruction requires explicit, rigorous instruction of orthographic phonology. This is the linguistic term that describes how the grapheme- phoneme correspondences work within the context of morphological and etymological constraints. The research shows that morphological instruction benefits phonological outcomes. Goodwin an Ahn found the greatest effects of morphological instruction in their meta-analyses (2010,2013) were for phonological outcomes. They explained, "Similar to Bowers et al. (2010), results suggest that early morphological instruction may be particularly helpful perhaps because of the synergistic relationship between phonology and morphology and the larger repertoire of root [base] and affix meanings available for use. If a reciprocal relationship exists between morphological knowledge and literacy...it makes sense to jump start this knowledge from an early age" (Goodwin & Ahn, 2013, p. 23).

Research Links

At the bottom of the About WordWorks page are links to most of Dr. Bowers' published research.

The Bowers & Kirby (2010) that introduced the term "structured word inquiry" is at THIS LIINK

The most accessible article on SWI and its place in the research is titled, Structured Word Inquiry (SWI): Literacy instruction that makes sense of English spelling for students of all ages and abilities. (Bowers, 2022) available HERE.

See Pete's TEDx talk (18 min) for a helpful introduction to the big picture of SWI HERE.

See Pete's interview on SWI with Education Podcast 'Pedagogy Non-Grata" (April 2021) ini 3 parts;

Those interested in the research discussion can find it near the end of video 2 at the 29 minute mark at . That discussion continues in Video 3 (33 min).

The "4 Questions of Structured Word inquiry"

The 4 questions of SWI offer teachers and students with a guide for scientific inquiry of the spelling of any word. This is not a recipe to be used every time a spelling question arises. However, when you decide to do a deep investigation of a spelling, these questions in this order help guide that investigation safely.

Question #4 on graphemes is not last because it is lease important. It is last because one can't come to any safe conclusions about grapheme-choice ini a word until you have considered morphological and etymological factors that constrain and explain grapheme choice.

See THIS video for an explanation of this view.

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What is Structured Word Inquiry (SWI)? "Structured word inquiry" Bowers and Kirby (2010) literacy instruction that engages learners of all ages and abilities by making sense of our surprisingly logical spelling system. English spelling can only be understood through scientific investigation of the interrelationship of morphology (bases & affixes), etymology (historical influences) and phonology (grapheme-phoneme correspondences).

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Etymonline - Online Etymology Dictionary

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The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet’s go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.

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What should morphology instruction look like?

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What should morphology instruction look like?

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Pete Bowers via Tim Shanahan

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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. 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 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! I apologize for the poor renditions of the Word Matrix and the Word Sums. I'll be working with my webmaster to get the real graphics in, but in the meantime you can go to the Word Works website to see them in their full glory. http://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html
Word Matrix:
A map of a word family Here is Peter Bower's response (with my light editing):
Word Sums: reveal underlying structure of any complex word (a word with more than just a base)

"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 wordact. 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 "imagine" has a base "image" only if we know vowel suffixes replace final, non-syllabic "e" (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" (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 rootplegan, plegian for "frolic, move rapidly". However, the word "display" which can be analyzed structurally turns outnot to be related. It does not belong in the morphological family with the others because it goes back to a Latin rootplic(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:

Gr. 2 teacher showing investigations from his class Grade 2 morphology video

Investigating grapheme-phoneme correspondences in a Gr. 1 class - with the context of morphological word sums Grade 1 morphology video

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/ Kindergarten morphology video

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

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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Morphology Instruction in Reading | Shanahan on Literacy

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This blog explores the newest ways of teaching children to make sense of word meaning through morphological analysis. Unlike past approaches, this one focuses on younger students--and not just older ones.

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Excellent resource with "non-negotiables" for phonology, orthography and morphology as well as premade resources for matrices including links to trade books.

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Literacy Resources | Can Do Kids Academy

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The Can Do Kids website is full of ready-made resources to support teachers and learners in their study of English orthography.

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Multi-Year Morphology Plan Example - The Six Shifts.pdf

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Affix list- p 4

Bases & roots list- p 7

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Morphological Analysis Instruction in the Elementary Grades: Which Morphemes to Teach and How to Teach Them manyak2018.pdf

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 J Serravallo Picture It  Vocabulary Lesson

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 J Serravallo Picture It  Vocabulary Lesson

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J Serravallo Extending Vocabulary Engagements

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Learn the six types of syllables found in English orthography, why it’s important to teach syllables, and the sequence in which students learn about both spoken and written syllables.

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(see also video in our stack)

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Supporting Documents

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Supporting tool

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Part 1- AISR Word Study UES Planner for Syllable Types- DEMO LAB Feb 25

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Supporting tool

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Part 2- AISR Word Study UES Planner for Syllable Types- DEMO LAB Feb 25

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I want to create more opportunities for students in my intervention groups to be exposed to explicit instruction on multisyllabic words (with scaffolding).