1.  Morphology

• Learning the structure of words at the syllable and morpheme levels supports word recognition, spelling, and vocabulary development (Nagey & Anderson, 1984). The meaningful parts (morphemes), are often recombined with others in compounds and affixed forms and are thus extremely productive; many words can be deciphered from a few familiar parts. Roots such as scribe, rupt, struct, and port are each found in scores of related words. For example, students who know that rupt means to break will find it much easier to to add words such as erupt, corrupt, disrupt, interrupt, rupture, and bankrupt to their vocabulary.   Moats,   American Educator, 1998.

2.  Syntax

• The arrangement of words and inflectional endings signal word relationships within a sentence. Skillful readers use syntactic features along with other clues to help them identify unfamiliar words and understand text. Teaching and Assessing Phonics, Chall & Popp, 1996.

3.  Semantics

• Information contained in the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences helps the reader to identify unfamiliar words. Teaching and Assessing Phonics, Chall & Popp, 1996.

Agenda | Phonemic Awareness | Alphabetic Principle | Syllables | Morphology, Syntax, Semantics | Resources

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