All words are pegs to hang ideas on . --Henry Ward Beecher

1. All words are pegs to hang ideas on. --Henry Ward Beecher When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself. --Plato The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. --Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Ebbers 2005

2. "The greatest benefit from instructional time spent on word study can be gained from exploring roots, prefixes, suffixes, and networks of related words" --Henry,1997 Susan Ebbers 2005

3. MORPH OLOGY Gr. form, structure Gr. study of Morphology is the study of the structure of words as it relates to meaning. It is structural analysis. Morphology may also include the study of word history: etymology. Susan Ebbers 2005

4. Basic Terms • morpheme: smallest unit of meaning in a word • Ex: biographers: 4 morphemes: bio-graph-er-s • Types of Morphemes: • root or combining form: inspector, thermal • base word: unlikely • prefix: re-, un-, dis- • suffix: -able, -ive, -ly • derivation-a word formed from an existing word, root, or affix: electric, electricity }affixes Susan Ebbers 2005

5. Are these real words? • What might they mean? • ugsome • malductive • triskaidekaphobia • hydronauts Susan Ebbers 2005

6. Research Confirms Structural Analysis • Content Area Reading • English Language Learners • Spelling Skills • Vocabulary Acquisition • Fluency and Rapid Word Recognition • Comprehension Susan Ebbers 2005

7. Singson, Mahony, and Mann studied upper elementary students and found that their understanding of morphemes contributes to both decoding and spelling ability (2000). Abbott and Berninger concluded from their studies that older struggling readers benefit from learning the composition of English words, which includes their basic structure of prefix, root, suffix, syllable formation, and morpheme patterns (1999). Susan Ebbers 2005

8. Sally Shaywitz, M.D. has determined that "Knowing the etymology or the roots of a word is a very powerful aid to reading, shedding light on a word's pronunciation, its spelling, and its meaningShaywitz, 2003, p. 207 Arnbak and Elbro determined that morphological awareness training (learning prefixes, roots, and suffixes) significantly increased both comprehensionand spelling of complex words in dyslexic readers in fourth and fifth grade. In a second study with older secondary students, they found that "dyslexic adolescents use recognition of root morphemes as a compensatory strategy in reading both single words and coherent texts.” 1996, 2000   Susan Ebbers 2005

9. Another entry point for adding words to the environment is morphological relationships. For example, challenge students to compare Tyrannosaurus and tyrant; pedestrian and pedal; duplicate and duplicity…. Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002, p. 128 Susan Ebbers 2005

10. The mind analyzes every stretch of language as some mixture of memorized chunks and rule-governed assemblies --Steven Pinker, 1999 Susan Ebbers 2005

11. ALL MIXED UP You know this language that we speak, is part German, part Latin, and part Greek --Peter, Paul, and Mary Susan Ebbers 2005

12. French Anglo-Saxon Greek Latin Susan Ebbers 2005

13. Susan Ebbers 2005

14. wh-what, sh-ship, th-thumb, ch-church, ng-king, nk-thank vowel teams: teeth, footr-controlled: farm, star, storm, shirt compound words: mankind, blackbird common words: love, child, house, heart(often one syllable) prepositions, articles, conjunctions: with, to, for, and, the, but… words with silent letters: knee, night, comb, wrinkle, could, thought Anglo-Saxon: Germanic Indo-European Origins Susan Ebbers 2005

15. "Silent letter patterns such as kn-, wr-, -ough, -ould, and -igh are remnants of Anglo-Saxon, in which those "silent" letters were sounded."McCardle & Chhabra, 2004 Susan Ebbers 2005

16. **The brain needs to be prepared for the transition from Anglo-Saxon to Latinate words for three reasons. • Students speak Anglo-Saxon but begin to read and write Latin-based derivatives • Spelling patterns change: /sh/ -- ci, ti, si; /f/ -- ph, etc. • Structural changes: Latin prefix-root-suffix,Greek combining forms, multisyllabic words with schwa • Without this preparation for a change in word structure the brain may be perplexed. • Berninger & Richards, 2002, p. 233-234 Susan Ebbers 2005

17. Susan Ebbers 2005

18. LATIN STRUCTURE • Latin words follow a strict structure • Prefixes, if used, must be placed before the root and suffixes must follow the root • Latin roots (spect, vis, ject, rupt) are unlikely to stand alone as an English word • The Latin root usually receives the accent or stress: • e ject' • port' ability • in script' ion • at tract' ive Susan Ebbers 2005

19. Latin: Some CommonRoots Susan Ebbers 2005

20. White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (1989) found that third-graders who were given training on the nine most common prefixes and a strategy for decomposing words into roots and suffixes outperformed a control group on several measures of word meaning. They concluded that teaching at least the top nine (if not all twenty) to middle school students would pay dividends in increased vocabulary learning. Susan Ebbers 2005

21. 20 Most Frequent Prefixes in School Texts Susan Ebbers 2005

22. Prefixes: Meaning and Connotation Susan Ebbers 2005

23. report reporter deport deportee deportation supportsupporter supportiveunsupportivesupportively import importer importation portfolio portable portability transport transporter transportation port: to carry (L.) Susan Ebbers 2005

24. describe scribble prescription scripture Word Webs or Spoke Diagrams Create networks of related words. Make a word web, spoke diagram, or root tree for the Latin stem script or scrib, meaning to write Susan Ebbers 2005

25. Joanne Carlisle's studies suggest that proficient readers and spellers use knowledge of affixes and roots as they read and spell, while poor readers and spellers "lack awareness of the presence of base forms within derived counterparts, and they lack specific knowledge about how to spell suffixes and how to attach suffixes to base words correctly” 1987, pp. 106-107 Susan Ebbers 2005

26. Susan Ebbers 2005

27. GREEK WORD ORIGINS • a y for /i/ as in symphony and typhoid • a ch for /k/ as in chorus and chaos • a ps for /s/ and in pseudonym and psychology • a ph for /f/ as in sphere and epitaph • the letter x as in xylophone, dyslexia, xenophobe • Greek morphemes have no strict structure: • graph • biography • graphic • mimeograph Susan Ebbers 2005

28. Greek Combining Forms Susan Ebbers 2005

29. Counting in Greek and Latin Susan Ebbers 2005

30. Developing content-specific, academic vocabulary depends on a basic understanding of Greek and Latin Sixty percent of the words in English texts are of Latin and Greek origin Bear et al., 1996; Henry, 1997 Susan Ebbers 2005

31. grammar school grammar books rules of grammar grammatical grammatically ungrammatical ungrammatically grammatology photograph polygraph mimeograph phonograph telegraph paragraph gram, graph to write, written Greek photographer cartographer geographer cryptographer autobiographer xylographer paleographer biographer grammar graph telegram mammogram histogram anagram cryptogram monogram electrocardiogram graphite grapheme graphologist graphic graphically gram Susan Ebbers 2005

32. Look Inside—Look Outside • pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis • Look inside the word for known word parts: prefixes, roots or combining forms, suffixes. • Use the analogy strategy—“I don’t know this word, but I know pneumonia and I know volcano, so by analogy, this word might have something to do with lungs and heat.” • Look outside the word at context clues, visuals • The coal miners, coughing and wheezing, suffered from pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Susan Ebbers 2005

33. SO MANY ENGLISH WORDS Oxford English Dictionary ~615,000 words Webster's Third New International English Dictionary ~450,000 words ~200,000 words in common use Millions with technical and scientific terms (Bryson, 1990; King, 2000) Susan Ebbers 2005

34. SO MANY SYNONYMS ANGLO-SAXON, FRENCH, LATIN, and GREEK See also Bryson, 1990; Lederer, 1991; King, 2000 Susan Ebbers 2005

35. ENGLISH: A RICH VOCABULARY SO MANY SHADES OF MEANING Susan Ebbers 2005

36. Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them! --Adlai Stevenson Susan Ebbers 2005

37. Merci Danke Gratias ευχαριστώ /efharisto/ THANK YOU Susan Ebbers 2005