Vocabulary Development:
Morphographemic Approaches
Susan Easterbrooks
Georgia State University
(Join Together Grant: Topical Team 2.2 Activity)

Word meanings are expanded, modified, and
changed routinely by affixing single and
multiple morphemes to the front or end of a
root word.

The word “antidisestablishmentarianism”
derives from the word “establish” and is
modified by two prefixes (anti-, dis-) and four
suffixes (-ment, -ary, -an, -ism). (We complicate this even
further with a spelling rule requiring us to change the y in –ary.)
What is a morpho-grapheme?

Based on morphemes (word parts):
• Root words- dog, car, at, on, just
• Bound morphemes (affixes)
• Prefixes (un, re, dis)
• Suffixes (ly, ment, s, ness)

Students learn word meanings by first
writing parts of words (graphemes) and
then by analyzing their meaning.
Word parts are called “parts of speech”, although that is
misleading. They are categories of base words.
Unpack Your Adjectives, Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here, Conjunction
Junction, Interjections, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, Verb: That's What's Happening, A Noun is a
Person, Place or Thing, Busy Prepositions, The Tale of Mr. Morton

http://www.klise.com/learn/grammar/pos.
htm
Examples of affixes attached to
root/base words

Ease
•
•
•
•
•
Eased
Easy
Easier
Easiness
Easement
•
•
Disease
Uneasy

Teach
•
•
•
Teaches
Teacher
Teaching
•
•
•
Reteach
Preteach
Unteach
Morphographemic instruction requires the use of SEE prefix and suffix signs.
Similar to “structural analysis”


Structural Analysis-
•
The process of identifying words by dividing them into morphemes or small
meaningful units. Instruction in structural analysis generally focuses on breaking
words into syllables, then identifying their base word and affixes. An affix is
something you affix to a base word, as in a prefix or suffix. ALSO FOCUSES
ON traditional SYLLABICATION activities. The syllable is the unit of instruction
we are interested in. Sound-based.
Morphographemics-
•
•
The relationship between a meaningful unit (or morpheme) and the print unit (or
grapheme) that represents it. Morphographemic analysisThe process of teaching a child to use structural analysis then to go beyond
basic structural analysis to a higher level of understanding of the Latin or Greek
roots of words. Focuses on the meaning of affixes and root words. The
morpheme is the unit of instruction we are interested in. Meaning-based.
How are these two alike? How are they different?
Structural analysis includes phonics rules and
structural rules.

Example phonics rules
•
•
•
Break words into their consonant and vowel patterns. For
example, ro/bot is made up of the VC/CVC pattern. When
you see a word with VCV (obo) that is surrounded by other
letters, divide between the first vowel and the consonant to
its right.
When a two consonants occurs in a word, we usually
divide between them as in rab/bit or win/dow. We do not
divide two consonants when they form a digraph as in
no/where.
When le is at the end of a word and it is preceded by a
consonant, divide the word before the preceding
consonant as in ap/ple, or ta/ble.

Example syllabication (structural) rules
• Divide between two roots in a compound word as in
•
•
•
•
any/body, or cup/cake.
Divide between roots and suffixes as in pay/ment or
govern/ment.
Divide between prefixes and roots as in un/happy or
im/mature.
Divide between verb and verb inflections such as walk/ing.
Sound out words first. Just because they have a verb
ending does not necessarily mean they have more than
one syllable as in jumped
Morphographemic analysis is effective with deaf
students because:

The patterns of letters are visually mediated and are thus available
to the deaf student. You see and sign them, not necessarily say
them.

Morphographic correspondence in English is more stable and
therefore more reliable than graphophonemic correspondence.

Ability to apply syntactic knowledge to decoding text is highly
correlated with comprehension performance of good readers who
are deaf (Kelly, 1995).

Skilled readers who are deaf pay attention to form features of
English text more so than poor readers.

Strong evidence exists for the role of a large vocabulary in
reading proficiency, and manipulation of morphological forms is
critical to development of more advanced vocabulary.

Spellings derived from morphographemic analysis are more
stable than spelling from phonic analysis.
13 Rules for Teaching Morphographs
1.
Embed decoding of the target (e.g., ambi) into
meaningful print to ensure comprehension.
2.
Teach students to decode unknown vocabulary in the
context of known grammar and vocabulary. You want to
give them as many context cues a possible.
3.
Teach morphographemes by visually highlighting the
changes they make to base or root words or to other
morphographs (e.g., happy versus unhappy).
4.
Teach basic verb inflections (-ing, -er, -s, etc.)
5.
Next, teach prefixes, suffixes, and compound words.
6.
Next, teach Latin roots for numbers as they are most easy to
demonstrate visually.
They also are among the Latin prefixes/roots that will allow you
to demonstrate the largest number of derived words.
For example, "turb" means "to agitate" and gives us such words
as "perturbed" or "turbulence", but "uni" means "one" and gives
us a much longer list (e.g., universe, universal, university,
unicycle, unity, unite, unicorn, union, unison, unit, uniform,
united, unitary, unisex, unicelluar).
7.
Next, teach base word meanings such as -turb and -script.
Some base words cannot stand alone.
8.
To teach Latin and Greek affixes and roots, focus on
recognition of the meaning of a root or affix as in:
•
How many feet does this creature have?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
unipod
biped
tripod
quadruped
hexapod
octopod
centipede
millepede
9.
Teach within the context of created sentence
groups.
For example, when teaching the meaning of
"unicycle" (assuming that the child knows that "uni"
means "one“), tell a story where the root "cycle"
clearly appears elsewhere in the passage.
(When I was little, I had a tricycle. My parents
bought me a bicycle when I was six years old. One
day, when I am brave enough, I want to learn to
ride a unicycle. What does unicycle mean?)
10. Teach all possible derived forms of a word to show the possible ways
an affix can change the meaning and grammatical category, helping
students examine all the different words that can be derived from one
base. This is a teacher-directed activity.
e.g., scrip/scrib (to write)
nouns
scripture
description
manuscript
prescription
scriber
script
inscription
verbs
scribe (d, ing)
describe
inscribe
prescribe
scribble
adjectives
scribed
scribbled
prescribed
11. Next, have students brainstorm as many words as possible with a
given affix or root (e.g., cycle, bicycle, unicycle, cyclical). This is a
student-directed activity. The teacher might give students passages in
books that have the root.
graph= write
graphic, grapheme, autograph, telegraph, biography, calligraphy
cent= 10 or middle
cent, central, centrifugal, centimeter, century
12. Source: Paul, P. (1998). Literacy and deafness. Boston: Allyn & Bacon
Paul recommends a table of combing charts after students have a lot of
experience with word parts. Which words in the columns can be combined
with which prefixes in the rows?
Table of Combing Parts
gon
ton
cycl
(angle)
(pitch)
(wheel)
mono (1)
X
bi, di (2)
tri (3)
oct (8)
gam
angl
(marriage) (angle)
X
dec (10)
poly (many)
ped/pod enni/annu
(foot)
(year)
13- Have student use the Table of Combining Parts to complete the following matching
exercises

Activity A
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Monotonous
Monocycle
Monogamy
Polygamy
Bigonial
Bicycle
Bigamist
___a. having two angles
___b. having only one spouse
___c. marrying several persons
___d. a person who has two spouses at the same time
___e. always the same
___f. one-wheeled vehicle
___g. two-wheeled vehicle
Activity B
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
biannual
quadricycle
biangular
tricycle
trigamist
triangle
triennial
___a. three-angled figure
___b. every third year
___c. three-wheeled vehicle
___d. having two angles
___e. person having three wives at once
___f. happens twice a year
___g. four-wheeled vehicle
Activity C
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
monopod
biped
decapod
hexapod
tripod
octopus
quadruped
___a. a horse
___b. three-legged stand
___c. has eight feet (tentacles)
___d. a person
___e. an insect with six legs
___f. having one foot
___g. lobster or crayfish with 10 legs
Teaching Tips

Remember to use visual and context cues as
often as possible.

Include advance organizers where possible.

Supplement with higher-level comprehension
strategies (e.g., what to expect from certain
kinds of books, activation of prior knowledge,
etc).
Use visual organizers to help students apply new words.
Identify word
Meaning 1
Verb
endings
-s
Prefixes
-ed
Suffixes
Meaning 2
Verb
endings
Prefixes
Suffixes
Incorporate work into stories, such as this example.

In this story, Sir Cumference
must make a round table. With
the support of his wife, Lady Di,
and son, Radius, he
successfully measures the
table.

The diameter of the table
measures exactly as tall as
Lady Di, and the radius is
exactly as tall as their son.

It is a cute and clever story and
excellent for introducing
morphographemic work.

Concepts you can develop in this story
•
Circum= around, about, on all sides, surrounding
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Circumnavigate
Circumscribe
Circumfuse
Circumambulate
Circumspection
Circumvent
Circumstantial
Circumlocution
Circumnavigate
Other Resources

http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/KSD/MA/resources/
greek_and_latin_roots/transition.html (list of
Greek and Latin roots and affixes)

Orton-Gillingham Institute

http://www.strugglingreaders.com/html/GA122.
htm