Teaching Word Learning
Strategies
Cynthia Santosuosso
January 30, 2014
Objectives
 Determine the different types of context clues
 Deepen your personal knowledge of morphology
 Learn classroom strategies to support students
learning of new words
 Context clues
 Morphology
Common Core Connections
Teaching Word Learning Strategies
Teach word
learning
strategies
Using the
context
Types of
Clues
Teaching
Word Parts
Prefixes
Suffixes
Roots
Teaching Word Learning Strategies
Use
context
Best
to
combine
Use
word
parts
What can effective word learners
do?
 Attack unknown words
 Break words into their meaningful parts
 Hypothesize meanings for larger words
 Check the word meaning against the context of the text
as well as their own background knowledge
 Use their knowledge of high-frequency root words to
access low-frequency words.
Context Clues
What are context clues?
Context clues are the words,
phrases, and sentences
surrounding an unfamiliar word
that can give hints or clues to its
meaning.
Why Teach Context Clues?
Instruction in specific types of
context clues is an effective
approach for teaching students to
use context to infer word
meanings. (Reading Rockets)
What is the best way to teach
context clues?
Provide examples from content
reading.
Types of Context Clues
1. Definition
2. Description
3. Synonym
4. Comparison
5. Contrast
6. Example
Type of Clue: Definition
 Explanation: The word is defined directly
in the sentence.
 Example: The nation was undergoing
urbanization-the movement of people into
cities.
Type of Clue: Description
 Explanation: The word is described by
information in the context so that the
reader can figure out the meaning.
 Example: Pollination occurs when a pollen
grain from a male plant lands on the
stigma of a female plant.
Type of Clue: Synonym
 Explanation: A word that is similar to
the word is provided.
 Example: Water soaks in
the ground pores,
or spaces, among
the fragments of
soil.
Type of Clue: Comparison
 Explanation: The word is compared with
other examples that are similar.
 Example: Light enters your eye through a
pupil, which is like a small hole.
Type of Clue: Contrast
 Explanation: The word is contrasted with
another word, usually an antonym.
 Example: Unlike a compound,
an element cannot be broken
down into simpler materials.
Type of Clue: Example
 Explanation: A word or words that are
examples are provided.
 Example: The children could tell, from
Pete’s statement about everything and
everybody having a good side, that he
was an optimist.
Teach students:
1. Read carefully and
ask yourself, “Does
this make sense?”
2. Notice when you don’t know the meaning
of a word and slow down. Read that sentence
at least once more, looking for clues.
3. If necessary, go back and reread the
preceding sentence, looking for clues that help
you figure out what the word might mean.
4. When you figure out what the word might mean, substitute
your guess for the difficult word and see if it makes sense. If it
does, keep on reading. If it doesn’t try again.
Teach Students that Context
Clues Cannot Always be Used!
Example: In order to gain
active immunity to a disease,
one of two things must occureither you come down with the
disease, or you receive a
vaccination.
Your Turn!
Can you determine each
type of context clue?
Basics of Morphology
 A large percentage of the words students
learn after the third grade are derived
words, such as discontinuous, that have a
base word with one or more affixes that
change the meaning and grammatical role
of the word. (Carlisle 2007)
 60% of unfamiliar words middle school
student encounter in books are derived
words whose meaning could be figured
out by analysis of word structure and
their use in the passage. (Nagy and
Anderson 1984)
What is Morphology?
In language and reading, morphology
refers to the study of the structure of
words, particularly the smallest units
of meaning in words: morphemes.
What is a morpheme?
A word or a part of a word that
carries meaning. They are the
smallest unit of meaning in a
language.
Ex: place, re-, -ment, -s
Unbound Morphemes
Unbound morphemes, which are roots
within more complex words that can
stand alone as words.
Example: Popular
Bound Morphemes
1. Inflectional morphemes
2. Derivational morphemes
Inflectional Morphemes
(“ed” “s” “ing”)
-They can only be suffixes.
-They are a marker of some kind (plural, tense….).
-They don’t change part of speech.
-They carry more grammatical meaning than content.
Derivational Morphemes
Affixes= prefixes, suffixes, and connectors
Derivational morphemes can change the meaning and part of
speech of the word.
Most prefixes (“pre” “post” “re”) change content meaning,
but do not change the part of speech of the word.
View, preview
Most suffixes (“ful” “able” “ist”) can change the content
meaning and the part of speech of the word.
Popular, popularity
Connectors
They connect suffixes with bases.
(e, i, u - in Latin words)
(o, in Greek words)
They also connect 2 bases or 2 suffixes.
Doctorial
Linear
Special
Actual
Phonology
Watch Out!
A syllable can be disguised as a “morpheme wanna-be.”
It may look like and sound just like a morpheme!
(-er as in father)
(moth as in mother)
The word part it clings to may even be a word on its own.
Can “mother” be broken into 2 meaningful word parts?
Is a mother someone who moths?
In these words, moth, fath, and er are not morphemes.
Turn and Talk
Explain the differences
between bound and
unbound morphemes. Don’t
forget to describe the two
different types of unbound
morphemes!
As with phonemic awareness, in morphology, we
are:
-Segmenting words into word parts to be able to
spell
transported = trans + port + ed
-Blending word parts together to read or
pronounce
trans + port + ed
=
transported
-Manipulating word parts to create and infer
meanings of new words
transported
exported
pretended extracted
extended
Apply segmenting, blending
and manipulating to this
word!
 noun: floccinaucinihilipilification
 floc·ci·nau·ci·ni·hil·i·pil·i·fi·ca·tion
 ˌfläksəˌnôsəˌnīˌhiləˌpiləfiˈkāSHən/
 1. the action or habit of estimating something as
worthless. (The word is used chiefly as a curiosity.).
Phonology:
Being able to
hear the
different
morphemes
Morphological
Awareness
Orthography
Being able to
see the
different
morphemes
What is morphological awareness
(MA)?
The ability to reflect upon and manipulate
morphemes and employ word formation rules in one’s
language.
Example: If a student grows in MA, she becomes
increasingly aware that words sharing the same base
or root are similar in form and meaning. For example,
the child notices similarities across painted, painter,
paintings, painterly, and repaint, at the same time
realizing that pain –while somewhat similar in form—
is not related to this morphological family. MA also
includes knowledge of common suffixes and prefixes.
Baby-lag
Noun: Extreme fatigue and
disorientation due to the sleep
deprivation associated with
parenting a baby.
See also babylag, baby lag
Video
 English Word Formation
Student development of
morphological awareness
Who Should Learn Morphology?
All students!!!
Research has shown that students
with Special Needs and English
Language Learners especially
benefit from instruction in
morphology.
Application to The Common Core State
Standards Vocabulary Acquisition and
Use
 L. 1. 4 [First Grade] Use frequently occurring affixes as a
clue to the meaning of a word.

L.2.4 [Second Grade] Determine the meaning of the new
word formed when a known prefix is added to a known
word (e.g., happy/unhappy, tell/retell).
 L. 3. 4 [Third Grade] Determine the meaning of the new
word formed when a known affix is added to a known word
(e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable,
care/careless, heat/preheat).
 L.4.4 (Fourth Grade and Fifth Grade): Use common, gradeappropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to
the meaning of a word.
The Fourth Grade Slump
Academic vocabulary
demands increase
Reading comprehension
decreases
(Kieffer and Lesaux)
Comprehension
Vocabulary
 Vocabulary and reading comprehension have a reciprocal
relationship—as greater vocabulary leads to greater
comprehension, better comprehension also leads to
learning more vocabulary words
Vocabulary
Morphological
awareness
As morphological awareness
increases, reading
comprehension increases (Kieffer
and Lesaux)
Reading
Comprehension
Morphological
Awareness
Classroom Application
Teach in Context
Knowledge of Prefixes and
Suffixes
Knowledge of How Words Get
Transformed
Knowledge of roots
Prefixes
 There is a significant body of research indicating that
instruction of prefixes is beneficial, and many vocabulary
researchers recommend instruction of the most common
prefixes as the first and best component of word
analysis. (Graves, Edwards, 2004).
 20 prefixes account for almost 97% of the 2, 959
prefixed words that most frequently appear in school
reading materials.
 Four of these prefixes account for 58% of all prefixes.
Teaching Prefixes
 Provide direct, explicit instruction about what a prefix is
and how it can affect he meaning of a word. Provide
many examples of words with prefixes that most
students already know.
 Avoid having students focus on memorizing the
meanings of prefixes; instead have them practice using
knowledge of prefix meanings to help define new words.
 Provide students list of roots and prefixes and have
them try to combine them to create new words.
 Encourage students to think of other words they know
that start with the same prefix. This can provide
another clue to the meaning.
Suffixes
 Less agreement about the value of teaching
suffixes.
 Inflectional suffixes do not change meaning.
 Suffixes have vague meaning (-ic=related or
marked by)
 Teach suffixes in content classroom reading.
Root or Base?
Base Word: Usually a free-standing
word, often of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Example: water
Root Word: Usually not freestanding; often Latin or Greek origin
Example: aqua in aquamarine
Teaching Roots
 Teach students how roots combine with
prefixes and suffixes.
 Emphasize roots that come up repeatedly
in instructional materials.
 Introduce Greek roots before Latin roots,
because their meanings are more obvious.
Example: aero=air
zoo=animal
Teaching Roots
Visual Cues to Divide Words
Flip Books
Make flipbooks with prefixes, roots, and suffixes.
Word Matrices
ab + use + ive = abusive
re + use = reuse
mis + use + ing = misusing
Visual representations of roots
Word Trees
Grows from “root word”
Word Webs
Give students a root, and have
them create a web of words.
Word Sorts
To Find Out the Meaning of
Unfamiliar Words
1. Look for context clues in the words, phrases,
and sentences surrounding the unfamiliar word.
2. Try to break the word into parts.
Look at roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
3. Guess the
word’s meaning.
4. Try out your meaning in the original sentence
to check whether or not it makes sense in context.
5. Use the dictionary, if necessary,
to confirm you meaning.