Research Article Morphology

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M s. Jenkins (all names are pseudonyms) reads a newspaper article regarding a recent poll of public opinion about the U.S. President

with her fourth-grade class. She stops to pose a ques- tion, “What does popularity mean?” The room is silent for a few moments as the 9- and 10-year-olds put their minds to work. Antonio, a student known more for the frequency of his answers than their accuracy, raises his hand. “It’s like something about the president.” “OK,” Ms. Jenkins notes. “Can anyone add to what Antonio said?”

Ms. Jenkins faces a sea of furrowed brows and blank stares. She glances at the clock on the wall and begins to wonder if they will make it through the text before lunch. After a long silence, Brenda responds. “It’s what the people think about the President, like how much they like him,” she suggests. “Great, Brenda. You’re right, how did you figure that out?” “Well,” Brenda pauses. “I looked at it for a while, trying to find a word inside it that I do know like you told us to do last week—and I found the word popular. A pop- ular kid is, you know, a kid that people like, so I fig- ured that popularity must have to do with that.” “Good work, Brenda, in attacking that word to find a part that you know. Did anyone try something different?” After a longer pause, Rafael raises his hand, “Well, I did what Brenda did. But when you say popular I think of Spanish, and it’s como popular. And when on televi-

Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning: Morphology, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension in the Urban Classroom Michael J. Kieffer, Nonie K. Lesaux

When it comes to teaching vocabulary, a little knowledge (of root words, prefixes, and suffixes) goes a long way.

sion they say el Presidente es popular, it means they like him.”

The scene above resonates with many teachers we know. As students read challenging texts, especially those in the content areas, they encounter increasing- ly complex words. When confronting a novel word, many students are like Antonio—they have a vague notion of what the word means, but they lack a spe- cific understanding of it, and others may not recognize the word at all. As a result, students’ comprehension of a text may suffer. Without a firm grasp on the definition of a key word such as popularity, many students like Antonio are likely to miss the meaning of the passage. Even when teachers provide appropriate scaffolding with respect to decoding these words by reading them aloud, students with limited vocabularies may not be able to access the meaning of the text (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002).

Research evidence confirms what many teachers know—students who reach fourth grade with limited vocabularies are very likely to struggle to understand grade-level texts (e.g., Chall & Jacobs, 2003; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002; Biancarosa & Snow, 2004). Unfortunately, this is often the case in urban or low-income schools in the United States. Even before they arrive at school, students in low- income neighborhoods tend to have smaller vocabu- laries than their counterparts in high-income schools, and this gap tends to increase with time (Hart & Risley, 1995; Molfese, Modglin, & Molfese, 2003; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2000). Along with many others, Rupley, Logan, and Nichols (1998/1999) argued that vocabulary is an essential and

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often overlooked component in any balanced literacy program, a sentiment increasingly recognized in re- cent years (Cassidy & Cassidy, 2005/2006).

A large and rapidly growing segment of students in urban schools in the United States are English- language learners (ELLs). These learners are particu- larly likely to lack the English vocabulary they need to comprehend difficult texts (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005). An increasing number of ELLs are stu- dents who immigrated before kindergarten age or who are the U.S.-born children of immigrants (August & Hakuta, 1997). By the fourth grade, most of these students have acquired the basic, interpersonal English they need to communicate with their class- mates and teachers, but continue to lack the academ- ic English vocabulary to comprehend content area texts. These learners, along with many of their native English-speaking classmates, require thoughtful, tar- geted instruction in academic English vocabulary in upper elementary school.

Despite their limited vocabularies, some students have effective strategies for learning new words, and these strategies can and should be taught to others. Effective word-learners attack unknown words, break them into their meaningful parts, hypothesize mean- ings for the larger words, and then check their mean- ings against the context of the text as well as their own background knowledge (Anderson & Nagy, 1992; Freyd & Baron, 1982). In the process, they use their knowledge of high-frequency root words to access low-frequency words. For example, Brenda can use the root word popular, a word that is commonly heard on the playground, to access the more infrequent

word popularity. Because many of the difficult words that students encounter contain

root words that are more commonly known, this strategy can be very pow- erful. Spanish-speaking ELLs, like Rafael, who have a developed

knowledge of their first language, can use their knowledge of

word parts in that language to understand English words. In each of these cases, the children are using their ability to think about the

forms of language to de- rive meaning.

Considering the limited vocabularies

of many students in urban schools, equipping them with effective strategies for learning new words is es- sential. Instruction that provides these strategies is cru- cial for ELLs and for many of their classmates in urban schools who face similar struggles with reading com- prehension.

In this article, we describe what reading research can tell educators about the role of word-attack strategies in reading comprehension. In particular, our recent study with urban fourth- and fifth-graders in California suggests that breaking down words into meaningful parts is important for both Spanish- speaking ELLs and their native English-speaking classmates. We first explain what research says about vocabulary and reading comprehension, then describe the findings of our study, and finally suggest some general principles and specific activities with which teachers can improve their students’ abilities to break down words to build up meaning.

What Does the Research Say? Vocabulary, Comprehension, and the Fourth-Grade Slump Decades ago, reading researcher Jeanne Chall identi- fied a trend well known to teachers—many students succeed in learning to read and comprehend simple texts in the early grades, yet struggle to comprehend grade-level texts in the upper elementary years (Chall, 1983). Although it is not entirely clear what causes this “fourth-grade slump” or what factors put urban students at greater risk for these difficulties, there is a general consensus among researchers that vocabulary (Freebody & Anderson, 1983; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002), increasing word length and complexity (Juel, 1988), and differences in exposure to print each play a role (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991). As the vo- cabulary demands of texts increase in the upper ele- mentary and middle school grades, many students struggle with comprehension. A particular source of dif- ficulty is their academic vocabulary—the words neces- sary to learn and talk about academic subjects. This academic vocabulary plays a more prominent role as students read to learn about science and social studies concepts in upper elementary and middle school.

Our own research and teaching in urban schools supports the importance of academic vocabulary in students’ success or struggles. First author, Michael Kieffer, found that his students in an urban middle

Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning 135 © Getty Images.com

school lacked much of the vocabulary to read grade- level texts. Urban students with below average vocab- ularies need thoughtful and strategic vocabulary instruction.

Vocabulary and reading comprehension have a reciprocal relationship—as greater vocabulary leads to greater comprehension, better comprehension also

leads to learning more vo- cabulary words (Stanovich, 1986)—and this relation- ship has major implications for the teaching of reading (Rupley, Logan, & Nichols, 1998/1999). Although most research in this area has been conducted with na- tive English speakers, cur-

rent studies suggest that a similar reciprocal relationship between reading and vocabulary exists for ELLs (García, 1991; Proctor, August, Carlo, & Snow, 2005).

Researchers emphasize the importance of vocabu- lary yet also point out that knowing a word well in- volves the combination of several different types of knowledge. In his clear and concise volume on vo- cabulary development, Stahl (1999) suggested that knowing a word means not only knowing its literal definition but also knowing its relationship to other words, its connotations in different contexts, and its power of transformation into various other forms. Students who can master these different aspects of knowing a word have strong depth of vocabulary knowledge, and students who are familiar with many words have breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Antonio, having been previously exposed to word the word popularity, has a vague notion of what it means, but he lacks this depth of knowledge about the word; with only a superficial understanding of this key word, his comprehension will likely suffer.

Closing the Word Gap Although teachers and researchers agree on the im- portance of academic vocabulary, less consensus ex- ists concerning how such vocabulary can be learned. Some emphasize wide-ranging free reading as the pri- mary vehicle through which words are learned. For example, Anderson and Nagy (1992) argued that the word-learning task is enormous—they estimated that students reading on grade level learn between 2,000

and 3,000 new words a year—and therefore conclud- ed that most words must be learned through context. In support of this argument, researchers described the strong correlation between students’ volume of read- ing and their vocabulary knowledge (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991).

Other researchers insist that explicit instruction (of at least some of the low- and medium-frequency words likely to challenge students) is crucial for vo- cabulary learning. Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) argued that the information provided by context is of- ten too limited or misleading to be reliable in effec- tively supporting students’ learning of new words. The National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) supported this view, finding that direct instruction of vocabulary improves comprehension. They found insufficient ev- idence to prove that extensive reading programs such as Silent Sustained Reading improved vocabulary, at least when implemented without complementary in- structional techniques.

A balanced approach to vocabulary instruction combines explicit instruction of a limited number of well-chosen words with instruction in strategies with which students can acquire words independently (Graves, 2006; Stahl, 1999; Stahl & Nagy, 2006). Implementing such an approach ultimately requires that teachers know how to teach specific words and know which strategies are the most efficient and effec- tive for students to use when learning words inde- pendently. Not all strategies for learning words are made equal, nor will all strategies work for all learners. To identify those word-learning strategies that will best equip students to comprehend text, researchers have investigated the strategies that successful learners use naturally.

One way to identify effective strategies is to exam- ine students’ use of various strategies and to analyze how these strategies relate to students’ performance on reading comprehension assessments. Although the average vocabulary level of students in urban schools is often below the national average, great differences exist among students’ individual levels, suggesting that some urban school students are more successful in learning vocabulary than others. By examining what strategies average and above average word learners use regularly, differentiating them from below average word learners, one may be able to identify the tools that could help move all students forward in

136 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 2 October 2007

Not all strategies for learning words are

made equal, nor will all strategies work

for all learners.

their vocabulary and comprehension. In our own re- search, we found that one such tool is morphology.

Morphology: What Is It and Why Does It Matter for Reading? The word morphology can be broken down (morpho- logically) into two meaningful parts (known as mor- phemes): morph- meaning shape and -ology meaning the study of. Thus, morphology, in its most generic form, is the study of shape. In language and reading, morphology refers to the study of the structure of words, particularly the smallest units of meaning in words: morphemes. Morphemes are generally one of the two following types:

1. Bound morphemes, which are prefixes and suffix- es that cannot stand alone as words, such as geo-, re-, and -ity

2. Unbound morphemes, which are roots within more complex words that can stand alone as words, such as popular

Bound morphemes that are suffixes are one of the two following types:

1. Inflection morphemes such as -ed and -s that change the tense or number of a word without changing its part of speech

2. Derivational morphemes such as -ity and -tion that change a word’s part of speech

For example, adding -ity changes popular from an ad- jective to the noun popularity. When an inflectional morpheme is added, as in walked, we call the new word inflected whereas when a derivational mor- pheme is added, as in information, we call the new word derived.

An understanding of word structure can be a pow- erful tool for students faced with the daunting task of acquiring academic vocabulary. A large number of the unfamiliar words that students encounter in printed school English could be understandable if students knew the more common root word and could break the complex word down (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Because texts contain many of these complex but decipherable words, children’s abilities to attack and dissect them are essential to their understanding of these texts.

Children develop awareness of morphology throughout their childhood and into their adolescence.

Young children generally understand how inflectional morphemes (such as -s on plurals or -ed on past-tense verbs) are attached to words, whereas children in up- per elementary school continue to develop under- standing of how derivational morphemes connect to words (such as -ity on popularity; Tyler & Nagy, 1989). This development follows a relatively predictable se- quence, although the rate at which students progress through the sequence varies considerably between children. As a result, students at a given grade level can be at very different levels in their awareness of mor- phology. Teachers can get some sense of where their students are on this developmental continuum by ad- ministering a developmental spelling inventory (for an example, see Bear, Invernezzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2000).

A few studies have shown that understanding of derivational morphology is related to reading compre- hension (Carlisle, 2000; Freyd & Baron, 1982; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006). Because the ability to at- tack and dissect words is our particular focus, we will use the terms morphology and breaking down words interchangeably in the remainder of this article. Although there are many ways in which students can understand morphology, the ability to use morpholo- gy to attack novel words is the most promising for im- proving reading comprehension.

What Did We Investigate and What Did We Find? Because the relationship between morphology and reading comprehension had primarily been studied among native English speakers in suburban contexts, we wondered whether this relationship also held up among Spanish-speaking English-language learners and native English speakers in an urban context. This research seems particularly important given the appar- ent difficulties that these populations have with acquir- ing vocabulary and comprehending academic text.

Our study examined how students’ ability to break down words related to their vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in fourth and fifth grade. We also examined how this relationship changed be- tween fourth and fifth grade. We collected data from 111 students (87 Spanish-speaking ELLs and 24 native English speakers) in a large urban district in southern California in both fourth and fifth grade. Students’ un- derstanding of morphology was assessed by asking

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them to extract the root word from a complex word to complete a sentence (e.g., students were given popu- larity and asked to complete “The girl wanted to be very ________”; see Table 1 for a list of the words used on the task). Students were also given a range of stan- dardized tests assessing reading comprehension, word reading fluency, and vocabulary. We assessed reading comprehension with the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery—Revised, Passage Comprehension subtest, which is a cloze test in which students provide a word to complete a passage; and the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Test (1989), which is a traditional multiple-choice test. We assessed word reading fluency with the Test of Oral Word Reading Efficiency, Sight Word Efficiency sub- test (1999), which is a timed test in which students read as many words of increasing difficulty as they can in 45 seconds. Vocabulary was assessed with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (3rd edition), which is a multiple-choice measure of receptive vo-

cabulary knowledge in which students hear a word and choose an appropriate picture.

Following an analysis of these relationships in the context of reading development and instruction, we have two major findings about comprehension and vocabulary to report.

Morphology and Comprehension We found that morphology was related to reading com- prehension in both fourth and fifth grade, and became more important as students grew older. Students with greater understanding of morphology also have high- er reading comprehension scores when holding con- stant their word reading fluency. Although this relationship was significant in fourth grade, it grew stronger in fifth grade, such that students’ understand- ing of morphology was a better predictor of reading comprehension than their vocabulary level. In addi- tion, we found that this relationship was the same for Spanish-speaking ELLs as for native English speakers in an urban setting. That is, morphology was equally

138 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 2 October 2007

Table 1 Items on Fourth-Grade Morphology Test in Order From Least to Most Difficult With Spanish-English Cognates in Bold and Cognate Suffixes in Italics

Derived word Root word Root frequency (from Changes required www.wordcount.com)

Runner Run High Spelling Growth Grow Medium None Dryer Dry High None Swimmer Swim Low Spelling Fourth Four High None Teacher Teach Medium None Discussion Discuss Medium Sound Originality Originality Original High Sound Popularity Popular High Sound Baker Bake Low Spelling Courageous Courage Medium Sound Fifth Five High Sound, Spelling Possession Possess Low Sound Activity Active Medium Spelling Division Divide Medium Sound, Spelling Width Wide High Sound, Spelling Decision Decide Medium Sound, Spelling Availability Available High Sound, Spelling Glorious Glory Medium Spelling Strength Strong High Sound, Spelling Famous Fame Low Spelling Admission Admit Medium Sound, Spelling Density Dense Low Spelling Furious Fury Low Spelling

important for reading comprehension in both popula- tions of students.

Vocabulary and Morphology Students with larger vocabularies tended to have greater understanding of morphology. As with the re- lationship between reading and vocabulary devel- opment, the relationship between vocabulary and morphology appears to be reciprocal. Understanding morphology may help students broaden their vocab- ularies, and vocabulary growth may improve stu- dents’ understanding of morphology. This suggests that teaching morphology may work well with other types of context-rich and thoughtful vocabulary in- struction to improve students’ reading and language outcomes.

As shown in Table 1, some of the items on the mor- phology task were more difficult for students than oth- er items. The following three factors influenced the difficulty of the items:

1. Whether they required a change in sound to go from the derived word to the root (e.g., popularity to popular)

2. Whether the word required a change in spelling (e.g., from swimmer to swim)

3. The frequency of the root word

As shown in Table 1, items that required both spelling and sound changes (e.g., strength to strong) were among the most difficult. Items that also included less frequent root words (e.g., from furious to fury) tended to also be difficult for students. The easiest items had common root words and did not require changes in spelling (e.g., dryer to dry, growth to grow). This finding suggests that teachers may need to point out to stu- dents how some derived words relate to their roots. Although students may automatically see the connec- tion between dry and dryer, they may need to be taught to recognize that strength and strong are related. The findings also suggest that for some words, students need to be taught the meaning of the root even before they learn about its relationship with the derived word. Teaching students to recognize fury within furious can only be helpful if they first learn the meaning of fury.

The conclusion that students with greater under- standing of morphology are more successful at learn- ing academic vocabulary and comprehending text is a strong argument for including morphology instruc-

tion in language and literacy programs, especially in urban settings. This conclusion also raises important instructional questions regarding how teachers ought to go about teaching morphology in the context of general vocabulary instruction.

So, What Does Good Morphology Teaching Look Like? We recommend four principles for teaching morphol- ogy to improve students’ vocabulary and reading com- prehension. These recommendations are based on the research findings described above, the frameworks and programs put forth by vocabulary experts in the field, and our own experiences working in urban schools.

Principle 1: Teach Morphology in the Context of Rich, Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Our findings suggest that understanding morphology is related to, but also distinct from, overall vocabulary. Therefore, it makes sense that morphology strategies should be taught within the context of a comprehen- sive program of vocabulary improvement, but as a dis- tinct component of that program. Although a complete discussion of effective vocabulary instruction is not possible here, it is worth summarizing some of the key elements that make up rich, explicit vocabulary in- struction, with an emphasis on how morphology may fit into such a program.

Vocabulary instruction has been conceptualized in several different ways. In their classic meta-analysis on vocabulary instruction, Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) found that the most effective approaches provided multiple exposures to words, introduced the words in meaningful contexts, and involved students in deep processing of the words’ meanings. By synthesizing re- sults from 52 studies on the topic, they found that these methods had substantial effects not only on vo- cabulary knowledge, but also on students’ reading comprehension.

Similarly, Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) de- fined what they call “robust vocabulary instruction” as vigorous, strong, and powerful instruction that “in- volves directly explaining the meanings of words along with thought-provoking, playful, and interactive follow-up” (p. 2). They suggested that teachers

Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning 139

choose useful, academic words that appear in a wide variety of texts, provide student-friendly explanations for them, create instructional contexts that supply use- ful information about new words, and engage stu- dents in actively dealing with word meanings. Although they did not address morphology in particu- lar, they highlighted the importance of teaching rela- tionships among words. Teachers should emphasize the relationships among words based on their shared roots, prefixes, or suffixes.

In his recent book, Graves (2006) suggested that a comprehensive vocabulary program would include activities that serve the following four functions:

1. To provide students with “rich and varied language experiences” (p. 38)

2. To teach a relatively small number of well-selected individual words directly

3. To teach word learning strategies, including mor- phology, dictionary skills, and the use of context clues

4. To foster “word consciousness,” that is, students’ “awareness of and interest in words and their mean- ings” (p. 119)

In this framework, understanding of morphology is firmly contextualized alongside other strategies for word learning.

Addressing the specific needs of ELLs, Carlo et al. (2004) suggested four principles that underlie an ef- fective vocabulary program for these learners.

1. New words should be taught in meaningful contexts.

2. Words should be encountered in a variety of con- texts.

3. Word knowledge involves depth of meaning as well as spelling, pronunciation, morphology, and syntax.

4. Native Spanish speakers should have access to the text’s meaning in Spanish.

From this perspective, morphology is considered both a component of knowing a word well and a strategy for learning new words.

Principle 2: Teach Students to Use Morphology as a Cognitive Strategy With Explicit Steps Our findings, along with those of other researchers, suggest that using morphology to manipulate words

is best understood as a cognitive strategy to be learned, not simply a set of rules to be memorized. Like other strategies related to reading comprehen- sion, this is a strategy that is best taught with the cog- nitive steps of the task in mind. To break a word down into morphemes, a student must complete the follow- ing four steps:

1. Recognize that he or she doesn’t know the word or doesn’t have a deep understanding of the meaning of the word.

2. Analyze the word for morphemes she or he recog- nizes (both roots and suffixes). As our findings in- dicate, this process may be more difficult if the word is not transparent, particularly if it requires a change in both sound and spelling.

3. Hypothesize a meaning for the word based on the word parts.

4. Check the hypothesis against the context.

Teachers should teach these four steps explicitly, model them several times with various words, and provide students with time to practice them. In so do- ing, teachers can scaffold this process, gradually re- leasing the responsibility to the students (see Clark & Graves, 2005, for a thoughtful discussion of scaffolding in comprehension instruction).

Principle 3: Teach the Underlying Morphological Knowledge Needed in Two Ways—Both Explicitly and in Context Although the ability to break words down into mor- phemes is best taught as a cognitive strategy, it also requires a certain amount of knowledge about lan- guage. Along with the four steps described above, this knowledge needs to be taught explicitly. There are three types of knowledge of language that students need to know to use morphology effectively:

Knowledge of Prefixes and Suffixes. Teachers can teach prefixes and suffixes in a variety of ways. Teachers should engage students in grouping words by prefix or suffix. They can then discuss what these words share in meaning or part of speech. In this way, students can ar- ticulate their own meanings of prefixes and suffixes. Providing a cumulative word wall with these prefixes and suffixes grouped by meaning will reinforce these lessons. Teachers can also develop students’ word con-

140 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 2 October 2007

sciousness by encouraging them to seek out and ana- lyze new examples of word parts to add to the wall. Like other vocabulary items, learning prefixes and suffixes will require practice and reinforcement. Table 2 dis- plays the 20 most common prefixes and suffixes, adapt- ed from Blevins (2001). Students may know many of the high-frequency affixes but need to learn the low- and medium-frequency affixes.

Knowledge of How Words Get Transformed. Students should be taught the changes in sound and spelling that are often required to extract roots from derived words. To do so, teachers can group words by root to show how a single word can take many forms. This can expand students’ written vocabulary by pro- viding them with several forms for a known word. For instance, Kinsella (2002) and others have advised teachers to create a word chart that displays these var- ious forms of key words selected from a text that stu- dents are reading. Table 3 displays an example of such a word chart, with words drawn by us from a newspaper article about current events. As with the word wall grouped by prefixes and suffixes, students

can be engaged in finding and adding forms of these words themselves.

Knowledge of Roots. Students’ abilities to extract roots from derived words can be a powerful strategy for acquiring new vocabulary, but only if students know the meanings of the roots. Although some roots are known to upper elementary students, it appears that others (such as dense and fury) may not be. Thus teachers need to teach a selected number of these roots as well. Clearly, this is a big task, given the huge number of roots that exist. As a starting point, teachers can teach some of the most common Latin and Greek roots (see Table 4). However, like other vocabulary words, these roots should be not be presented as a list to be memorized, but rather they should be taught in meaningful contexts when they are most useful for students to comprehend particular texts. For instance, many of these roots such as therm and hydro may be best suited to science lessons built around exposito- ry text. For other resources on teaching morphologi- cal knowledge, see Bear et al. (2000).

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Table 2 Most Common Prefixes and Suffixes in Order of Frequency

Prefixes

Highest frequency High frequency Medium frequency un- (not, opposite of) over- (too much) trans- (across) re- (again) mis- (wrongly) super- (above) in-, im-, ir-, il- (not) sub- (under) semi- (half) dis- (not, opposite of) pre- (before) anti- (against) en-, em- (cause to) inter- (between, among) mid- (middle) non- (not) under- (too little) in-, im- (in or into)

Suffixes

-s (plurals) -ly (characteristic of) -al, -ial (having characteristics of) -ed (past tense) -er, -or (person) -y (characterized by) -ing (present tense) -ion, -tion (act, process) -ness (state of, condition of)

-ible, -able (can be done) -ity, -ty (state of) -ment (action or process) -ic (having characteristics of) -ous, -eous, ious (possessing the qualities of) -en (made of) -ive, -ative, itive (adjective form of a noun) -ful (full of) -less (without)

Note. Adapted from Blevins (2001).

Principle 4: For Students With Developed Knowledge of Spanish, Teach Morphology in Relation to Cognate Instruction Teaching Spanish-speaking students to recognize and use cognates (words with similar spelling and mean- ing in two languages, such as information and informa- ción) has the potential to be a very powerful way for students to use their first language as an asset to im- prove their English reading comprehension. This strat- egy is particularly promising because many academic English words are similar in form and meaning to everyday Spanish words (e.g., tranquil is a rare, low- frequency English word while tranquilo is a common, frequently used Spanish word). But as with any tech- nique or instructional strategy of promise, there are also pitfalls. Research suggests that this strategy may not work automatically for all students because stu- dents may lack proficiency in Spanish or may not have enough literacy in Spanish to recognize similari- ties in spelling (Nagy, García, Durgunoglu, & Hancin- Bhatt, 1993; Nagy & García, 1993). Even students with well-developed Spanish skills will need targeted in- struction to learn how to recognize cognate relation- ships and use them to build reading comprehension in English.

One step to making cognate instruction effective is to teach the understanding of morphology in relation to teaching cognates. This is not difficult to do, given the prevalence of cognates among derived words (See the bold items in Table 1 for examples) and among Latin and Greek roots (virtually all of the roots

in Table 4 have some cognate relationship with Spanish words). Teachers can further subdivide their word wall to have a section for cognates and encour- age students to find them. Students can also be taught to use common suffixes that are themselves cognates (See italicized suffixes in Table 1 for examples). They can be taught to recognize the regular relationships between English and Spanish suffixes (-idad in Spanish almost always translates to -ity in English, as in originalidad and originality).

Putting It All Together to Build Meaning As we have suggested, morphology is just one part of a comprehensive vocabulary and reading comprehen- sion program for upper elementary students. However, it is important that we do not ignore such a potentially powerful tool to add to students’ toolkits for extracting and constructing meaning from texts. As the insights of Brenda and Rafael reveal, this tool can be essential in our students’ path toward becoming successful readers and writers.

Note. This research was supported by National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Grant 1 R03 HD049674-01 awarded to Nonie K. Lesaux, and in part by a Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean’s Summer Fellowship awarded to Michael J. Kieffer. The authors wish to acknowledge the Spencer Foundation’s support of Lesaux during the writing of this article.

142 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 2 October 2007

Table 3 Sample Completed Word Form Chart With Words Drawn From a Newspaper Article

Noun Adjective Verb Adverb

politics, politician political politically

strategy strategic strategize strategically

provision provisional provide provisionally

representation representative represent

finance financial finance financially

acceptance (un)acceptable accept (un)acceptably

Kieffer is a graduate student at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. E-mail michael_kieffer@gse. harvard.edu. Lesaux teaches at Harvard University.

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Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning 143

Table 4 Common Latin and Greek Roots

Common Latin roots

Root Definition Examples

Audi Hear Audience, auditorium, audible, audition Dict Speak Dictate, predict, contradict, verdict, diction Port Carry Import, export, portable, porter, transport Rupt Break Abrupt, bankrupt, erupt, interrupt, rupture Scrib/script Write Describe, inscribe, prescribe, scribe Spect See Inspect, respect, spectacles, spectator Struct Build Construct, destruct Tract Pull, drag Attract, detract, contract, subtract Vis See Visible, supervise, vision, visionary

Common Greek roots

Auto Self Automobile, automatic, autograph, autobiography Bio Life Biography, biology, biodegradable, biome Graph Written or drawn Graphic, telegraph, seismograph Hydro Water Dehydrate, hydrant, hydrodynamic Meter Measure Barometer, centimeter, diameter, thermometer Ology Study of Geology, biology, archeology Photo Light Photograph, photocopy, photosynthesis,

photoelectric Scope See Microscope, periscope, stethoscope, telescope Tele Distant Telephone, telescope, telecast, telegram

Note. Adapted from Blevins (2001).

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144 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 2 October 2007

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