The Role of Morphology in Syllable Division and Multisyllabic Word Reading

This is part 4 of the syllable types blog series. Read part 1 , part 2 , and part 3 and 3* bonus. 

Morphology is a crucial part of structured literacy lessons that teachers should introduce early within reading instruction. In fact, I teach morphemes to my kindergarten students. Why? From the beginning, we want students to understand that words carry meaning, and morphology is a great way to help students deepen their understanding of language. We don't have to wait for this instruction to take place. Instead, we can embed morphology instruction into our lessons and help students with this right from the start.

Morphology instruction, the study of words and how they are formed and used, is one of the elements of structured literacy. When we look at language through the lens of units of meaning within words, that is part of morphology. Dr. Louisa Moats notes, "Knowing morphemes enhances reading, vocabulary, and spelling." (Moats, 2000). As students increase their understanding and use of oral language and written constructs, we see the emergence of morphology. When a young scholar says "jump-ted" in a sentence, they show that they know there is a language marker to indicate past tense but are not yet solid in understanding how the suffix -ed is represented in different words. We have three sound productions for suffix -ed, which is determined by the final sound in the base word. (If the base word ends in a final (t) or (d), then suffix -ed is read /ed/. If the base word ends in a voiced sound, then suffix -ed is read /d/, and if the base word ends in an unvoiced sound, then suffix -ed is read /t/ ).

While many students quickly pick up on these language variants and rules, students with dyslexia need explicit instruction and ample opportunities to practice with reading and spelling applications, and research indicates that instruction in morphology benefits all. Explicit instruction aids in student understanding and use of prefixes and suffixes in oral language development and reading and spelling application.

When we work with morphemes, we work with the smallest unit of meaning within our language. Morphemes can be single letters or units of letters that carry meaning and may or may not stand alone.

The English language is considered a deep orthography because of the many layers of language that impact the spelling patterns. The English writing system is morphophonemic or represents meaningful parts (morphemes) and speech sounds (phonemic). Morphology includes prefixes, suffixes, free morphemes, bound morphemes, roots, and combining forms.

*Read more about how to implement morphology instruction in this blog.

So, what role does morphology have in helping our students decode? How does morphology affect multisyllabic words, comprehension, and vocabulary development? The answer is a lot! 

The impact of morphology can be connected to spelling, phonology, meaning, vocabulary, and reading - in other words, a lot. This blog will address the role of morphology within decoding skills as part of the syllable type blog series.

Anchoring Terminology

There are a lot of terms associated with morphology. Here's a quick reference for some of the terms. 

• morphology - the study of meaningful units of language and how they are combined in word formation
• morpheme - smallest unit of meaning in language
• free morpheme - a word or word part that can stand alone (run, jump, etc.) These may also be referred to as base words. 
• function words - words (free morphemes) that provide grammatical structure (articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, pronouns, conjunctions)
• content words - words (free morphemes) that convey the meaning of the sentence (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
• bound morpheme - a word part which must be combined with other morphemes to create a word (con-, struct, -ed)
• prefix - a morpheme that is added to the beginning of a base word/free morpheme or a bound morpheme (root, combining form) to change the form or usage of the word (pre-, re-, in-, non-)
• suffix - a morpheme added to the end of a base word/free morpheme or bound morpheme to change the form or usage (-ed, -ing, -or, -ist). Suffixes can be broken further into inflectional suffixes and derivational suffixes. 
• Roots and combining forms - a bound morpheme used to form related meanings. Roots are typically of Latin origin, and combining forms are usually of Greek origin. These roots and combining forms create words related in meaning (dys - meaning difficult: dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia)

If you want a deeper look at these terms and how to bring multimodal application of morphemes into your reading and spelling lessons, you can read the blog post HERE  or let me know if you would like a deeper dive into morphology!

Our students encounter multisyllabic words daily in the spoken and written language. For students who have learned to guess at words from context, this becomes increasingly unreliable as a word recognition strategy (really, it is never a good strategy!); therefore, students must learn to consolidate reading skills using reliable decoding techniques by the end of third grade. They should know and be able to recognize syllable patterns and apply this knowledge to reading and spelling.

Just as students need explicit instruction in early decoding skills, they need reliable decoding strategies as they move into reading multisyllabic words. These word attack strategies are necessary for students, especially those struggling with reading, so they can avoid falling into the bad habit of guessing. One of the hallmarks of dyslexia is "...difficulty with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities..." (International Dyslexia Association, Dyslexia Definition). Strong readers subconsciously break words into syllables and meaningful parts (think affixes and roots) when reading new, unknown words. Explicitly teaching students HOW to approach a larger multisyllabic word sets them up for success and is especially important for our dyslexic and struggling readers, and morphology plays a role in this.

Morphology as a key part of word attack strategies

In part 3 of this series, we discussed the role of syllable division, and I shared how to approach this as a word attack strategy for reading. Morphology awareness brings another layer of decoding to reading and, in turn, spelling.

We use our knowledge of syllable types and syllable division to aid our reading and writing. There is a gradual release of responsibility and teaching of flexible variants as students develop more skills, but beginning with the most common syllable types and syllable divisions provides students with reliable strategies to apply to decoding words and is essential for students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties. Part 2 and 3 of this series goes into this in detail.

Because English is a morphophonemic language, we need to explicitly teach these small units of meanings, or morphemes, to students for meaning but also within a decoding strategy.

The Role of Morphology in Decoding Skills

Morphology work connects to spelling conventions, meaning, and pronunciation, so we can't wait to introduce this concept, and we need to provide students with reliable decoding strategies that include morphology. Research shows that students who received morphological awareness instruction "significantly increased comprehension and spelling of morphologically complex words in fourth-and-fifth grade children with dyslexia" (Arnbak & Elbro, 1996/2000).

There is so much to uncover with our students; it's fascinating! When working with my dyslexic learners, morphology should be embedded early on within our scope and sequence in meaningful ways.

How can we help students connect this knowledge of morphology within decoding to aid in reading and spelling multisyllabic words?

1. Introduce morphology early. Tip: Start with suffix -s

Begin with oral language application of morphemes. We can connect to reading, spelling, and meaning from this point. I begin with suffix -s in kindergarten. Using the keywords "cats" and "dogs" is simple and effective for introducing the plural use of suffix -s and the two different sound productions (If the base word ends in an unvoiced sound, suffix -s is read /s/ as in cats, and if the base word ends in a voiced sound, suffix -s is read /z/ as in dogs). You can see the clear connection to why we teach the articulatory features with reading and spelling applications. Plus, kindergarteners LOVE to read and write about cats and dogs! 

2. Pull off or box the affixes. 

Have students identify and code the prefixes and suffixes before moving to syllable division patterns. I have students box the prefixes and suffixes in the word. This simple coding provides students with opportunities to analyze words in meaningful ways and a decoding strategy. 

The following are the steps that I use as a scaffold* 

• Look for and box prefixes and suffixes
• Look for syllable types (vowel-r, vowel teams, consonant-le, vowel-consonant-e, etc.)
• Underline/identify the vowels 
• Mark/Find the syllable pattern from vowel to vowel (read more on syllable patterns here)
• Divide the syllables
• Read the word

*This is a scaffold for students to use when reading - a scaffold is designed to be temporary. As educators, we need to gradually remove the scaffold based on student performance and teacher observation.

3. Connect and bridge to vocabulary within and across content areas. 

Morphology work (prefixes, suffixes, roots, and combining forms) provides knowledge of our language. If a student understands the root "struct" means to build or the arrangement of parts, then in language arts, when the teacher asks students to conduct a structural analysis of the text, the student will understand that the teacher is asking about the impact and importance of the layout of the passage. In science, they may be learning about protein structures or, in music class, a song's musical form or structure. In social studies, they encounter a chapter about structural engineering, etc. The student who understands the root "struct" meaning will better apply this knowledge to their learning.

When students understand syllable patterns and knowledge of morphemes and are provided instruction and practice reading and spelling with these words reinforcing this knowledge, it provides opportunities to transfer learning to practice— we can model and practice syllable division with consistent expectations and procedures with multisensory strategies designed to engage learning.

Teaching syllable division patterns with morphology is one tool for students to use to access the reading of multisyllabic words. Without it, our students flounder, searching for a word they think will work in the context of a sentence. Those with high vocabulary and language knowledge can often scoot by this way - but only for a while before the overload of new words becomes too great, and their guessing creates a misunderstanding of the text, negatively impacting their comprehension. Instead, we need to provide reliable strategies for students to access unknown words as they read - one part of which is breaking words into syllables. The other is identifying meaningful parts.

Are you looking for a resource to help teach or reinforce syllable division patterns? These syllable division cards provide multiple ways for students to engage in hands-on practice. Each set includes a mini-anchor chart for students to reference and word cards for practice. 

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