Morphological instruction is a part of vocabulary instruction, and vocabulary instruction is a critical component of everything we teach students across the curriculum. Put simply, vocabulary instruction and morphological instruction improves students’ reading comprehension, and improved reading comprehension makes students learn subject content better.
Occasionally, I come across valuable resources that I can share with people. While I don’t love reading the research, I do enjoy reading journal articles that quote ALL of the research. And that’s what you will find on this page. By the end of this page, you will know more about morphological instruction than… most every teacher you know.
Topics Covered
1. What is Morphology, Morphological Knowledge, Morphological Instruction, and Morphological Awareness?
2. Does Morphological Instruction and Morphological Awareness Improve Reading Comprehension?
3. Morphological Development and Morphological Knowledge with Elementary School Students
4. Do English Learning (EL) Students Benefit from Morphological Instruction?
5. What is the Relationship Between Metalinguistic Awareness, Morphological Awareness, and Reading Comprehension?
6. Three Aspects Of Derivational Morphology
7. More Research on L1 (English As First Language Students) and L2 (ESL/ELL Students)
Purpose of this Page
I created this page because I have been posting more and more resources that relate to morphology and word building. I don’t like to provide resources without placing them in a proper context. When teachers understand the background information, the concepts involved, and the history of the research, they teach lessons more effectively and more efficiently. Their goals for each lesson and all of their lessons become clearer and more focused. In short, they know what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Please note that both of the reports that I extracted text from are 30+ page journal articles. My goal here is to provide an overview of the research to date, so I extracted only what relates to my purpose. Instead of 60+ pages to read, you have 7 pages to read. The text and the paragraphs in each box are not edited except for a few ellipses, but the paragraphs may come from different sections of the journal articles.
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The Two Sources
You can find the complete journal articles below. One is a government-funded project on ERIC, and the other is a Creative Commons license. But truthfully, if you are looking for a basic overview of the research on morphological instruction and word building, please read this entire page first. You’ll be happy you did.
1. Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018). The impact of morphological instruction on morphological awareness and reading comprehension of EFL learners. Cogent Education, 5(1), 1523975. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1523975
2. Amy C. Crosson & Debra Moore (2017) When to Take Up Roots: The Effects of Morphology Instruction for Middle School and High School English Learners, Reading Psychology, 38:3, 262-288, DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2016.1263699 (ERIC PDF Link)
Please note that the text in each colored text box comes from only one text source, and each ends with the authors’ names as cited above.
A Note on L1 and L2
As relates to the research on this page:
L1 means that English is the students’ native language.
L2 means ESL/ELL/EFL students.
If you don’t see an L2 or another related term, the research applies to L1.
1. What is Morphology, Morphological Knowledge, Morphological Instruction, and Morphological Awareness?
Majority of English words have been made through combinations of morphological elements such as prefixes and suffixes with base words. If learners understand how this combinatorial process works, they possess one of the most powerful understandings necessary for vocabulary growth. Morphological awareness of words can influence literacy at lexical level such as word reading, spelling and vocabulary and levels beyond word level, such as reading comprehension.
In linguistics, morphology is defined as the study of internal structures of words and word formation processes (Carlisle, Goodwin, & Nagy, 2013). Morphological knowledge refers to correctly employing morphological units which may be without conscious awareness (Yucel-Koc, 2015), but morphological awareness is defined as “the ability to reflect on, analyze and manipulate the morphemic elements in words” (Carlisle, McBride-Chang, Nagy, & Nunes, 2010, p. 466) and this is conscious awareness. Morphological instruction aims at improving morphological awareness or the conscious awareness of morphemic structures. Researchers have emphasized the need for morphological instruction in language literacy (Fracasso, Bangs, & Binder, 2016; McLeod & Apel, 2015). This is due to the fact that, by its nature, morphological instruction addresses sub-lexical features of a language, but this can influence literacy skills at lexical level such as word reading, spelling, and vocabulary and supra-lexical level such as reading comprehension and writing (Brimo, 2016).
Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018)
2. Does Morphological Instruction and Morphological Awareness Improve Reading Comprehension?
Vocabulary knowledge (i.e., knowledge of word meanings) and morphological awareness are the two language skills hypothesized to be essential in reading comprehension. According to Nation (2001), vocabulary and reading are closely related and with an increase in vocabulary growth, growth in reading skill is also observed. This holds for both native learners and EFL/ESL learners (Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005).
Limited vocabulary knowledge is a major source of reading comprehension difficulties (August & Shanahan, 2006). According to Nagy and Townsend (2012), academic vocabulary is a vital tool necessary for increasing academic achievement. English academic vocabulary consists of words usually having Greek and Latin origin with a morphologically complex structure. Crosson, McKeown, Moore, and Ye (2018) state that instruction of academic vocabulary with Latin origin and morphologically complex structure using morphological analysis will enhance word learning of English language learners. According to them, such instruction produces better outcomes for learning academic words by strengthening semantic and orthographic representations and affects lexical access. A growing body of literature suggests that a limited breadth of vocabulary knowledge (i.e., limited number of words known) is the most common source of reading comprehension difficulties among learners (Droop & Verhoeven, 2003).
According to Carlisle (2003), words are usually made up of smaller recognizable units called morphemes. Knowing what a morpheme means helps one to understand or guess the meaning of new words. Morphological awareness helps to decode the words, infer their meaning, and facilitate both word reading and understanding of words in texts. Word recognition is a critical part of reading (Adams, 1990). The faster one recognizes the words, the more fluent reader s/he becomes (Yucel-Koc, 2015). Derivational Morphological awareness can help with automatic word recognition. Less frequently occurring words such as academic words can be accessed by segmenting them into morphemes. If learners have morphological awareness, they should be able to access words with decoding. This can help in recognizing the words more easily and quickly. Nagy, Beminger, Abbott, and Vaughan (2003) mentioned the role of morphological awareness in reading through enabling readers to read longer words more accurately and fluently. This awareness contributes to their word recognition, word reading and reading comprehension. Levesque, Kieffer, and Deacon (2017) state that direct and indirect relationships exist between morphological awareness and reading comprehension. Morphological awareness contributes to morphological decoding which can influence word reading and reading comprehension. Weak morphological awareness may be a limiting factor in the acquisition of new vocabulary. Morphological awareness can help learners find out the meaning of new and morphologically complex words while reading. According to Jiang, Kuo, and Sonnenburg-Winkler (2015), significant differences exist between successful and less successful readers in how they apply morphological information. Successful readers value derivational morphology while less successful readers underestimate it.
As stated above, previous studies confirm the positive relationship between awareness in derivational morphology and reading comprehension. Although the potential impact of morphological awareness on vocabulary and reading has been supported by research, studies conducted with learners for whom English is a second or foreign language are limited… Intervention studies… show that morphological instruction can help learners build vocabulary and improve their reading skills (Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010; Goodwin & Ahn, 2013). Morphological instruction can be an essential area of vocabulary instruction, vocabulary learning, and reading comprehension (Lo, Anderson, & Bunch-Crump, 2017). There is a need to evaluate instructional approaches that can develop learners’ morphological awareness with the ultimate goal of accelerating their independent word learning and reading comprehension.
Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018)
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3. Morphological Development and Morphological Knowledge with Elementary School Students
Research shows that there is a developmental component to morphological knowledge. Anglin (1993) argued children’s increasing understanding of morphology during the elementary years drives vocabulary growth. Indeed, research on morphological development has suggested that even very young children develop an understanding of how morphemes mark tense and number (i.e., inflectional morphology, such as Berko-Gleason’s (Berko, 1958) “wug” experiment: This is a wug. These are two ____.). Anglin’s research showed that from first to fifth grade, children’s ability to use morphological analysis to analyze words increased and fueled vocabulary growth. Berninger and colleagues (Berninger, Abbott, Nagy & Carlisle, 2010) found that while the steepest growth in knowledge of derivational morphological awareness was in the early elementary grades, such growth continued well beyond fourth grade, concluding that the “overall developmental trajectory” for morphological awareness has a much longer span than growth in areas such as phonological and orthographic awareness.” Wysocki and Jenkins (1987) looked at effects of grade level on morphological problem-solving using derivational affixes and they found that students in grades 6 and 8 were more successful at using knowledge of derivational affixes to infer word meanings when compared to fourth graders. However, how morphological analysis using bound Latin roots fits into a developmental trajectory is unclear.
It has long been established that young children develop an understanding of inflectional morphology (e.g., marking tense or number, such as the relation between deter and deters) early in English language acquisition (Berko, 1958). For native English speaking children, development of understanding of derivational morphology (e.g., prefixes and suffixes that alter meaning or change grammatical class, such as the relation between deter and undeterred) appears to begin developing in the early elementary grades and continue well into the middle school grades (Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987), and seems to be characterized by a protracted developmental trajectory compared to areas such as phonological and orthographic awareness (Berninger et al., 2010).
Amy C. Crosson & Debra Moore (2017)
4. Do English Learning (EL) Students Benefit from Morphological Instruction?
It is increasingly recognized that many English Learning (EL) students often have difficulty with English-language literacy in part because of a lack of familiarity with the lexical, grammatical, and discursive features that are associated with academic language (Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Scarcella, 2003; Schleppegrell, 2004; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Uccelli, Galloway, Barr, Meneses, & Dobbs, 2015). Also referred to as academic English (Bailey, 2007) and advanced literacy (Christie, 2002), academic language relates to the forms and functions of language necessary for participation in contexts of schooling. One aspect of academic language that has been identified as a key source of reading difficulty for EL students is academic lexis—or knowledge of general academic vocabulary. General academic vocabulary comprises words that are frequently encountered in academic texts across diverse subject areas (Coxhead, 2000; Gardner & Davies, 2013). These words often carry abstract meanings and multiple senses (e.g., diminish, benefit, innovative). General academic words are important for conveying abstract ideas, arguing positions, and communicating complex ideas in academic contexts. As such, they are critical for reading comprehension and academic success (Corson, 1997; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Snow & Uccelli, 2009).
Amy C. Crosson & Debra Moore (2017)
5. What is the Relationship Between Metalinguistic Awareness, Morphological Awareness, and Reading Comprehension?
Metalinguistic awareness means thinking about one’s own language and reflecting on one’s language (Scott & Nagy, 2004). It is clearly accepted that metalinguistic awareness helps language learners in the learning process. One of the subcategories of metalinguistic awareness is morphological awareness (Yucel-Koc, 2015). Morphological awareness plays a major role in literacy acquisition because “English language is a morpho-phonemic language” (Carlisle, 2003, p. 292). This emphasizes the relationship between morphological awareness and literacy relationship.
With regard to reading and metalinguistic awareness, Nagy, Beminger, and Abbott (2006) stated that there is a strong relationship between metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension. Metacognitive and metalinguistic factors play an important role in learners’ vocabulary growth and reading skills. Morphological awareness, as a subcategory of metalinguistic awareness, is related to vocabulary and reading comprehension. According to Tighe et al. (2018), metalinguistic skills such as morphological awareness have direct and indirect relationships with reading comprehension abilities of adult readers. Metalinguistic awareness is related to reading comprehension via decoding and oral vocabulary knowledge.
Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018)
6. Three Aspects Of Derivational Morphology
Awareness in derivational morphology consists of three components: relational, syntactic, and distributional aspects.
Relational awareness is the ability to recognize the stem in morphologically complex words and understand the relationship between the stem and the suffix (Kuo & Anderson, 2006). It is based on the understanding that there is a semantic relationship between different morphological forms of a word (Kieffer, 2009). If a student can recognize that the stem of “productive” is “product” and understand that—ive was added to make a new word, he/she is said to have relational awareness. According to Tyler and Nagy (1989), awareness in relational morphology is the fundamental understanding that words have internal structure. Words that share a common base morpheme also share some aspects of meaning. Relational aspect of derivational morphology, according to Tyler and Nagy (1989), is the simplest and most early developing morphological aspect. It has been tapped in the classic “Comes From” task used in many studies (Carlisle, 1995; Mahony, Singson, & Mann, 2000; Nagy et al., 2006). In these tasks, the learners are asked to judge relationships across words, such as “Does farmer come from farm?”
Syntactic awareness is the understanding of how a derivational suffix changes the part of speech of a word and how derived words function in clauses or sentences. A student is said to have syntactic awareness, if he or she recognizes that although the words “productive” and “production” contain the same stem, the suffixes that have been added determine the part of speech and the way the two words function in a sentence. According to Tyler and Nagy (1989), insights into syntactic morphology are more sophisticated than insights into relational morphology. They require the recognition that derivational suffixes such as -ize or -ion demonstrate semantic relationships across words in specific ways, including marking words for particular syntactic categories and grammatical roles within sentences. Syntactic aspect of derivational morphology is usually tapped by sentence completion tasks requiring students to generate morphological changes in a word; for example the word “farm” to complete a sentence such as “My uncle is a————” (Carlisle, 2000). The adaptations of these tasks have reduced the task demands by changing it to a multiple choice task in which the learners choose among various affixed options (Nagy et al., 2006; Singson, Mahony, & Mann, 2000).
Distributional awareness refers to the ability to understand how affixes are constrained and limited by the syntactic category of the stem (Kuo & Anderson, 2006). It reflects awareness of linguistic constraints on the allowable connections of stems and suffixes, influenced by the grammatical category of the base word. For example, the suffix—less can be attached to nouns such as “senseless”, but it cannot be attached to adjectives. Also—ness cannot be attached to verbs so the word “playness” is incorrect, but it can be attached to adjectives so the word “quietness” is correct. Thus the suffix -ness is constrained by the syntactic category of the stem. According to Tyler and Nagy (1989), when compared to syntactic aspect of derivational morphology, distributional aspect is even more sophisticated. As McCutchen, Green, and Abbott (2008) state, such distributional constraints have been studied explicitly in relatively few studies, always in conjunction with other morphological tasks.
A developmental sequence exists concerning three aspects of derivational morphology (Kieffer, 2009). Researchers have found that relational aspect develops before syntactic and distributional aspect (McCutchen et al., 2008; Tyler & Nagy, 1989). According to Loudermill (2014), it is highly unlikely that learners will acquire syntactic aspect before having a deep understanding of relational aspect and the same is true for the acquisition of distributional aspect. Distributional aspect is the most complex aspect of derivational morphology and learners must have adequate knowledge of both relational and syntactical aspect before distributional aspect can be acquired.
Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018)
7. More Research on L1 (English As First Language Students) and L2 (ESL/ELL Students)
With L1 learners, Levesque et al. (2017) studied English-speaking learners’ ability to read and analyze the meaning of morphologically complex words (morphological decoding and morphological analysis) and its relationship with reading comprehension. The results demonstrated that morphological awareness contributed to reading comprehension beyond all other variables.
Furthermore, Levesque, Kieffer, and Deacon (2018) investigated how core skills surrounding morphemes support the development of reading comprehension among English‐speaking students. The findings demonstrated that students’ use of morphemes to infer the meanings of unfamiliar complex words supports the development of reading comprehension.
Instructional studies on English L1 learners investigating the effect of morphological instruction on different language skills exist in the literature. Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame’enui (2003) and Baumann et al. (2002) investigated the effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary learning among native L1 learners. Both studies targeted relational aspect of derivational morphology by asking students to provide definitions of morphologically complex words that were scored based on students’ recognition of the meanings of taught word parts. The results showed that students who received instruction in specific prefixes and suffixes were more successful in inferring the meaning of morphologically complex words compared to students who received direct instruction in textbook vocabulary. These two studies provide evidence for susceptibility of relational aspect to instruction but raise the question of susceptibility of other aspects of derivational morphology to instruction. Other interventional studies showing the positive effects of morphological instruction on literacy among L1 learners include Goodwin and Ahn (2013) and Bowers et al. (2010).
Different studies on L2 learners have investigated the relationship between morphological awareness and literacy. Zhang and Koda (2012) tested the direct and indirect effects of morphological awareness on L2 vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension among advanced Chinese EFL readers. They found positive effects of morphological awareness on reading comprehension.
Diaz (2010) investigated if morphological instruction was effective in accelerating the acquisition of spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension by English language learners and their English dominant peers. The results showed that ELL students could make significant progress in reading, vocabulary, and spelling when morphological instruction was a major part of the curriculum. Crosson et al. (2018) investigated whether instruction concerning morphological awareness would enhance word learning outcomes of ELL adolescents. The results showed significant treatment effects for morphological problem-solving of unfamiliar words which led to lexical access.
Amirjalili, F., & Jabbari, A. A. (2018)
