Teaching the Structural or Morphemic Analysis Skills

1. Provide students with skills/opportunities to learn words independently

Recommendations:

Primary focus of instruction in grades K-3 should be on developing

critical reading skills

Read storybooks to younger children to develop vocabulary

Teach older students strategies for contextual analysis and morphemic

analysis

2. Teach students the meanings of specific words

Recommendations: for younger children

Choose 2-5 words to teach directly from storybooks

Choose words that are important for the story or important for
students to know

Give simple definitions (i.e., examples, synonyms, or definitions) &

discuss them in the context of the story

Provide students with the opportunity to process the words "deeply"

Discuss the words multiple times

Recommendations: for older children

Choose words that will enhance the meaning of what students are
reading or important for students to know

Use both context and definitions

Teach word meanings by using examples, synonyms, and definitions

Provide students with the opportunity to process the words "deeply"

Discuss the words multiple times

3. Nurture a love and appreciation of words and their use

Recommendations:

Choose quality storybooks that children enjoy listening to

Model "word awareness" and show students that words are important,
interesting, and fun

Provide students with rich oral language experiences

Understanding Structural Analysis

Unfamiliar words are a lot like puzzles. When we come across a word we don't know or
understand, it helps if we can look at it like it's a puzzle that can be broken apart into
puzzle pieces. Structural analysis is dividing words into parts to discover what an
unknown word means. Word parts contribute to the overall meaning of a word. Many
words in the English language are composed of a root, a prefix, and/or a suffix.
A root word is a word that does not have a prefix or a suffix and is the base or core that
can't be reduced into a smaller word form. A prefix is a letter or group of letters that is
placed at the beginning of a word to change its meaning. For example, let's say you
have the root word agree. Then, you add the prefix 'dis' (which means not or opposite
of) to the word agree. That gives you the word disagree, which means to not agree.
A suffix is a letter or group of letters that come at the end of a word and change its
meaning. Suffixes can indicate how a word is being used grammatically and what tense
is being used. For instance, the word close becomes closed when you add the suffix 'd'
to show that the action already took place and is over. The verb manage can change to
a noun by adding the suffix 'ment' (which means a product or resulting state) to form the
word 'management.' Although both prefixes and suffixes change the meaning of the
word, the key to not getting the two confused is to remember that 'pre' means before
and 'suf' means after.
The Importance of Structural Analysis
Studying roots, prefixes, and suffixes helps students:

Learn to break apart unfamiliar words in order to understand their overall

meanings

Understand how prefixes and suffixes can change a word's meaning and how
much of our language is constructed

Increase vocabulary and reading comprehension

Just by learning a few prefixes, roots, and suffixes, a world of new words linked to that
one word part is introduced to that student. Take the prefix 'dis,' which means not, apart,
or away. It's linked to a variety of words like disconnect, disappear, and dishonest.
Now, if a student is presented with a word like dislocate and he only recognizes the
prefix 'dis,' he will at least know it's something negative. But, if he has also learned the
root 'loc,' which means place, then he can understand why someone would be in a lot of
pain if she dislocated her shoulder. By knowing the root 'loc,' words like locomotion,
locale, and locating can all be understood. Changing the suffix for a word, like locating,
can alter its meaning by making it present tense as in locates, or changing it to locale so
that we're now talking about a setting or location.

Morphemic Analysis: A strategy in which the meanings of words can be

determined or inferred by examining their meaningful parts (i.e., prefixes,
suffixes, roots, etc.)
Structural Analysis
A word recognition skills in which knowledge of the meaningful parts of words aids in
the identification of an unknown written word.
aids with the pronunciation of unknown words.
aids with the understanding of an unknown word.
the student looks for meaningful parts of an unfamiliar word in order to decode it
or to determine what the word means.
Syllable
A vowel or a group of letters containing a vowel sound which together form a
pronounceable unit that usually does not have meaning on its own.
Ex. pa-per,

pen-cil,

com-mon,

stum-ble

Syllabication
The ability to break words into syllables, aids in reading by:
Helps to pronounce words not recognized as sight words.
Assisting in spelling of words
Root Words & Base Words

Root words come from another language or language structure and can not stand
alone in English as words (Bound morphemes)
Examples: the root tain in the following:
Maintain
Refer

sustain
confer

pertain
prefer

Base words are English words and can stand alone as words(free morphemes)
assist/assistance

under/undergo
Adding to Base or Root Words

Affixes
Letter combinations or syllables added at the beginning or end of a word to
change its meaning or part of speech.
There are two kinds of affixes:
Prefixes
Suffixes
Prefixes
Prefixes are attached to the beginning of base words or root words to change
their meaning.
Examples:
Unpleasant
disorganized
enable
Misspell
preview
resend
Meanings of common prefixes
Disnot
disregard
Enwithin
within
Innot
inactive
Unopposite of
unlock
Reagain
redo
Prebefore
preview
Miswrong
misrepresent
Irnot
irresponsible
Suffixes
Suffixes are attached to the end of base words or root words that can change the
words part of speech or its meaning.
Two types of suffixes:
Inflectional endings the formation of grammatical variants of the same word
Determine
determined

Derivational suffix the process of forming a new word on the basis of an

existing word
happy
Common inflectional endings are:

happiness

-s
dogs
-es
matches
-ess
hostess
-ing
skating
-ed
helped
-er
shorter
-est
tallest
-ly
softly
Inflectional ending ed:
Can be pronounced as /t/ as inbaked
Can be pronounced as /ed/ as in branded
Can be pronounced as /d/ as in warmed
Common suffixes
-y

consisting of or tends to behairy

-ful

full ofbeautiful

-er, -or

resident of or one who does-- teacher

-able, -ible

capable, worth adaptable

-less

condition of being or withouthatless

-tion, -ion, -ation

action --contribution

-ness

condition of beingdirectness
Compound Words

Compound words are a combination of two words.

The new word must keep the pronunciation of the two original words in order to be
considered a compound word.
The new word contains some sense of meaning connection with one or both of the
original words.
Examples: roadway, classroom, bookstore
Syllabication

 The primary reason for teaching or learning how to divide words into
syllables for reading or decoding purposes is to give the reader clues to
the possible pronunciation of vowel sounds in unknown words.
By breaking words in syllables or smaller parts, students are better able to
pronounce the parts and then blend them back into a word that is familiar to them.
When teaching syllabication, students should be taught to first look for meaningful
chunks of the unknown word.
Syllabication Generalizations
The number of syllables in a word is closely related to the number of vowels in
the word.
Cat
alphabet
pencil
tiger
Exceptions exist: rate, sweet

Think about the final e as always silent.

CEBU NORMAL
UNIVERSITY

Teaching the Structural

or Morphemic Analysis
Skills

Group 5

Members:

Dumaguit, Elna

Torino, Paulo

Melody

Tumabiene,

Grace

Vasquez, Honey

Sollano, Shariza