Word Detectives: Does investigating the connections of structure and meaning in morphological word families build vocabulary knowledge? Peter Bowers & John R. Kirby: Faculty of Education, Queen’s University Purpose Investigate the effect of an intervention which taught morphological structure on students’ morphological knowledge and vocabulary learning. Background (a) Vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary instruction are fundamental to literacy development. (b) There is insufficient research to recommend a particular approach to vocabulary instruction over others. National Reading Panel (2000) The Vocabulary Instruction Problem Massive scale of vocabulary students need to learn: Teach wide or deep? Researchers divided on whether to teach many words briefly (e.g. Biemiller, 2005), or fewer words deeply (e.g. Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). Typical vocabulary instruction is not aligned with linguistic structure - Word-level reading instruction occurs mainly in early grades when words of Anglo-Saxon origin are most prevalent. As a result… - Instruction rarely addresses patterns in words of Latin and Greek origin characterizing much of the new subject area vocabulary students face after Grade 3. Henry (1988,2003 ). How to motivate word learning? It is critical to develop “word consciousness” - an interest in words, including how to learn new words (Graves, 2006; Nagy, 2007). But how? Morphology: Motivating Word Knowledge? Can investigating structure and meaning patterns of morphological word families result in generative word knowledge and attitudes? Structured Word Inquiry: Teaching morphological structure through problem-solving A candidate for generative vocabulary instruction is morphological structure which uses bases, prefixes and suffixes to link large families of related words (Carlisle, 2007; Nagy, 2007). “Leaving morphological analysis to be discovered by students on their own means that those who are not inherently linguistically savvy are likely to be left behind their peers in the development of vocabulary, word reading and comprehension, and spelling.” (Carlisle, 2003, p. 312) “If you want to know what many written words are, particularly new words, and if you want to know how to write words, and, again, new words in particular, you really have to be able to work out their morphemic structure.” (Nunes & Bryant, 2006, p. 16) Teaching how to problem-solve the structure/meaning connections in words of a morphological family may: (1) provide a context for “deep” and “wide” instruction; (2) motivate “word consciousness”. Method Sample: 84 grade 4 and 5 children (4 classes from 2 schools) Treatment group (N=38): a Grade 4 & a Grade 5 class Control group (N=46): a Grade 4 & a Grade 5 class Pretest vocabulary (PPVT-lll) showed no significant differences between groups prior to instruction. Instruction 20 lessons (50 min. each), 3-5 days a week for five weeks. Problem-solving approach: As ‘Word Detectives’ students investigated structures and patterns of large families of words linked by structure and meaning. (See teaching tools examples.) Outcome Measures (both measured on a 3-point scale) Base Identification: Students circled the base of complex words. (See example below.) Morphological Vocabulary: Students gave definitions of words from Base Identification. The 30 items for these tasks were divided equally into 3 word types. Labelled in order of increasing transfer: 1) Word Taught: Words explicitly addressed by treatment. 2) Base Taught: Words with a base that was explicitly taught, but never with the affix used in the test. 3) Affix Taught : Words with an affix or affixes that were explicitly taught, but bases that were never taught. re as sign al ing ed ment ify redeateure Word Sums: Morphological synthesis sign + al  signal de + sign + ing  designing sign + ate/ + ure  signature Some Teaching Tools & Strategies from Intervention Morphological Word Matrix (Ramsden, 2001) more examples, including videos at Reverse Word Sums: Morphological analysis business  busy/i +ness structural  struct+ ure/ + al hopping  hop(p) + ing Possible “Structured Word Inquiries” With the morphemes from this matrix, create two word sums for words that pronounce the and two that do not. Can you explain how the words, and are connected in meaning to the base ? Can you find the word built from this matrix that has a suffixing change? Make two word sums with three affixes. Example word sums from matrix Contact Peter Bowers Faculty of Education Duncan McArthur Hall 511 Union Street Queen's University Kingston ON Canada K7M 5R7 or

Analysis 1: Two 2 (Group: experimental vs. control) x 3 (Level of Transfer: near, medium, and far) ANCOVAs were performed. The covariate in each analysis was pretest vocabulary (PPVT-lll). Regression results Base Identification explained a significant amount of variance in Morphological Vocabulary for both Treatment group and Controls. PPVT-lll had a stronger effect on Morphological Vocabulary for the experimental than the control group. Treatment effect: Significant differences between Treatment and Control on both variables. Covariate effect: PPVT-lll significant in both analyses. Treatment x Transfer effect: Linear component of interaction marginal in Base Identification (p =.053), significant in Morphological Vocabulary (p <.001) Base Identification: Treatment Group scored significantly higher than control Group at all three levels of transfer (p <.001). Morphological Vocabulary: Treatment Group scored significantly higher than Controls on near transfer (p <.001) and mid transfer (p <.05) measures. Research Questions/Findings 1. Can Grade 4/5 students learn to identify the base of morphologically complex words through instruction? Yes. The instructed students were better at identifying the bases of all levels of words. They even matched untaught Grade 10 students on words not addressed by the intervention. 2. Can morphological instruction lead to gains in vocabulary learning? Yes. The instructed students improved on defining words they were taught, or words of the same morphological family they were taught, but not on words of untaught word families. 3. Does ability to identify bases explain variance in vocabulary performance? Yes. Whether or not it was instructed, ability to identify the bases explains variance in vocabulary performance. Discussion Vocabulary Knowledge: This study provides evidence of some generative vocabulary learning through morphological instruction. This effect was limited to morphological families of words that were studied. Motivating Word Knowledge? Teachers and administrators at both schools reported high engagement from students of all skill levels and continue to develop this instructional approach. Both deep and wide instruction?: Students received rich instruction of some words in a word matrix, (e.g. sign, design, assignment, and signature) but only brief exposure to others (e.g. designate). Students’ knowledge of word meanings increased for all those words, and words like significant that were not taught directly. Perhaps the problem of scale can be reduced from needing to address enough words to needing to address enough word families. Follow up study Performance of the grade 4/5 students was compared to that of untaught Grade 10 students (n = 87). Taught Grade 4/5 students surpassed Grade 10 students on the near and mid transfer measures, and equalled them on the far transfer measure of untaught words. Tukey HSD analyses show: Gr 4/5 Treatment > Gr 10 Controls for Word Taught and Base Taught Gr 4/5 Treatment = Gr 10 Controls. for Affix Taught Gr 10 Controls > Gr 4/5 Controls for all word types Figure 1 Level of Transfer Base Identification (Z Scores) Figure 2 Level of Transfer WordBase Affix TaughtTaughtTaught Level of Transfer WordBase Affix TaughtTaughtTaught Morphological Vocabulary (Z Scores) Level of Transfer Base Identification (Z Scores) Word Base Affix Taught Taught Taught Level of Transfer Word Base Affix Taught Taught Taught Level of Transfer Morphological Vocabulary (Z Scores) Treatment Control Base Identification in Elementary and High School Students Analysis 2: Regression analyses were performed for control and experimental groups investigating the effect of Base Identification on Morphological Vocabulary, controlling for initial vocabulary. References Beck, I., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. 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Beyond phonics: Integrated decoding and spelling instruction based on word origin and structure. Annals of Dyslexia 38, Henry, M.K. (2003). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction. Baltimore, Maryland: Brookes Publishing. Nagy, W. (2007). Metalinguistic Awareness and the vocabulary comprehension connection. In Wagner, R.K., Muse, A. E. & Tannenbaum, K. R. (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. NY. Guilford Press. Nunes, T. & Bryant, P. (2006). Improving literacy by teaching morphemes. Routlege. England. Ramsden, M. (2001). The user’s self-training manual: The essential reference for real English spelling. Retrieved October 24, 2006 from