I found this article to be very informative. I do not remember receiving any direct instruction in using morphology to figure out the meaning of words. I think adding morphology to students’ arsenal will be very beneficial for the students. I definitely agree that there is a relationship between vocabulary and comprehension. Students will be unable to comprehend main ideas from passages if they do not comprehend some of the key vocabulary. Furthermore, I also concur that there has to be a reciprocal relationship between vocabulary and morphology. The more student understand morphology, the more students will be able decode words. Also, the more students are exposed to vocabulary, the more students will be exposed to different word parts.
I feel that in many schools, students do not recieve rich vocabulary instruction. Students are given different spelling words and asked to use these words in sentences, write them five times, etc. These tasks may help students memorize the words, but I do not believe this to be rich instruction. Students are not exposed to the words in a variety of contexts. Furthermore, morphology is not being integrated into the spelling curriculum. Teachers need to make a contentious effort to provide rich instruction. Teachers need to choose words words which will provide the most Benefit for the students. Often, this means incorporating academic words with the spelling curriculum. Additionally, teachers need to add instruction in ELL students’ native language. This may mean the teacher needs to coordinate with the school’s ESL teacher.
Students need to be taught to use morphology as a way to decode the meaning of words. Shared readings would be a perfect way for teachers to model using morphology. Teachers would read a word, act as if they aren’t sure what it means. The teacher may write the word on the board. The teacher could model how to break the word down. If the teacher used the word courageous, the teacher may circle the word courage. The students will most likely know this word. The teacher they may address the suffix -ous. The teacher may do this several times before asking the students to do it themselves. It is also important to model to students how to check you hypothesis of what the word means (based upon morphology) to context clues found in text. Students will most likely not know how to use morphology without the teacher modeling. The teacher should continue scaffolding students, introducing new morphemes and vocabulary to students during shared readings.
Students will, in addition to shared readings, will need direct instruction. I like the tables the article included. They will provide a place to start during direct instruction. The I liked one of the suggestion the article gave. The article suggested giving students a a set of words. the words will have all the same root words. Students will work in groups to identify suffixes and prefixes and how they change the word. Students are constructing their own knowledge which I think is so important. They feel that they have a stake in their own learning. Of course, the teacher will need to circulate the room and provide scaffolding when needed.
I like the idea of using cognates to help ELL students. I feel that ELL students will learn better when their learning is connected to their native language.
