• Look inside the word

• Find the morphemes

• Say the sounds

• Write the morphemes of the word

• Check the word

  "It is essential to know, not just what to teach to improve children's spelling performance, but how to teach it" (Herrington & Macken-Horarik, 2015, p. 63).

Step 1: Train teachers on how language is acquired and the research-based strategies that are most effective for teaching students how to spell, i.e. the Relational Approach to Teaching Spelling.

Step 2: Provide resources for teachers to implement and teach spelling strategies to students.

Step 3: Additional support from administrators/specialists should be provided to teachers who need more assistance on how to apply their language knowledge in the classroom.

1. Identifying the written morphemes in words.

2. Learning the meaning and/or function of the morphemes identified.

3. Teachers make an explicit connection between the morphemes and how they sound (phonemes).

   
   

• Teachers should be provided with a teaching toolkit that includes information on how to identify morphemes, the different types of morphemes, the meanings and functions of common morphemes, and information on how words represent sounds and meaning.

• All morphological terminology (morpheme, phoneme, base, prefix, suffix) should be defined for teachers to confidently and explicitly use while teaching students spelling.

• Teachers should simultaneously teach letter sounds and the meaningful parts of words.

• Use compare and contrast to help students develop an understanding of how morphemes can change the meaning of a word. For example, the suffixes -est and

  -ist can sound the same at the end of words, but these suffixes have different meanings.

• Teach the most commonly used morphemes in written words that will help students with spelling and reading comprehension.

Morphological Spelling Test (MST)

• MST was delivered before and post intervention (words used in the MST were not used during intervention). The results were analyzed.

• Students were asked to spell the following words: richness, statement, madness, brother's, children's, opened, emotion, magician, musician, and bury).

• An analysis of the correct spelling on the MST was conducted. Each morpheme spelled correctly in a word was awarded one point. For example, in the word magician there are two morphemes (magic and ian).

As a result of the intervention, researchers expected to see a move from phonologically-based spelling to morphologically-based spelling approximations.

• Teachers indicated a new way of seeing the structure of words and how patterns of spelling are established.

• It is important that BOTH students and teachers pay attention to how words are structured.

• The smallest parts of words are significant!

• Students can spell familiar words and unfamiliar words for meaning.

• Students need to learn about morphemes in the early stages of their literacy instruction.