Morphological awareness training
following the principles of MSL
learning
Morphological awareness training
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Morphemes are the smallest linguistic units with
a meaning (e.g. ‘unhappy,’ ‘unlucky,’ ‘unsatisfied’)
or a grammatical function (e.g. ‘looks,’ ‘looked’),
Some words cannot be further broken down
(e.g. ‘car’), they are free morphemes since they
can stand alone,
Bound morphemes (e.g. ‘un-,‘ ‘-s,’ or ‘-ed’) are
always attached to some other morphemes
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
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Bound morphemes (affixes) are classified into
prefixes, which attach to the beginning of
words, and suffixes, which attach to the end of
words,
Bound morphemes can be also divided,
according to their function in complex words,
into derivational and inflectional morphemes,
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
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Derivational morphemes have a power to derive
(create) new words, either by changing the
original word’s meaning (e.g. ‘un-‘ added to
‘happy’) or its part of speech (e.g. ‘-ness’ added
to ‘quick’),
Inflectional morphemes do not form new words
but change the existing ones by refining and
giving extra information (e.g. ‘-s’ added to ‘cat’).
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
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Inflectional morphemes occur at the end of a
word, following derivational morphemes,
In English there are eight inflexional
morphemes, they all are suffixes (‘-s’ 3rd person
singular present, ‘-s’ plural, ‘-ed’ past tense, ‘-ing’
progressive, ‘-en’ past participle, ‘-‘s’ possessive,
‘-er’ comparative and ‘-est’ superlative)
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Students use cards and movable devices with
words and morphemes to form word families
educate
employ
education
employed
educated
unemployed
uneducated
employment
educating unemployment
educator
employee
educators
employer
educational
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
fresh
refresh
refreshments
freshly
freshman
freshness
refresher
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Mark the base word in the following word family
formal formality formalize formally
informally
informal
informality
formalist
formalistic
formalist
 formal formality formalize formally
informally
informal
informality
formalist
formalistic
formalist
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Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Find the words that do not belong to a ‘belief’ family
beliefs
disbelief
believable
beautifully
disbelieve
unbeatable
unbelievably
believer
unbelievable
non-believer
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Choose the odd one out in each group
 differently, differential, difficult, difference,
different, differ
 central, certain, centrally, center,
centralization
 perfect, perfection, prefect, imperfection,
perfectionist, imperfect
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Do the following pairs of words belong to the same
family?
 friend/friendliness
 casual/causal
 enable/unable
 praying/playing
 filing/filling
 science/scientist
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Sort the words to form two word families
friend
friendship
painless
painful
painfully
friendly
pain
painkiller
unfriendly
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Morphological awareness training
Split the words into its constituent morphemes
correct
corrective
correctional
incorrect
incorrectly
corrections
correctly
correctness
correct
corrective
correctional
incorrect
incorrectly
corrections
correctly
correctness
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001
Based on:
Nijakowska, J. (2010). Dyslexia in the foreign language
classroom. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Jurek, A. (2008). Kształcenie umiejętności ortograficznych uczniów
z dysleksją (Developing orthographic skills in dyslexic
learners). Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Harmonia.
This project has been founded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission can not be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.
Project-Number: 518466-LLP-1-2011-PL-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant agreement number: 2011-3631/001-001