Although many children develop considerable morphological awareness on their
own, explicit instruction is much more likely to result in extensive, accurate and
generalizable morphological awareness. This, in turn, is more likely to contribute
to reading success.
11 We suggest that it is well worth teachers’ time to engage
in morphological instruction from kindergarten onwards. There are opportunities
in every subject to demonstrate morphological regularities. Though instruction
should be primarily oral at the beginning, written morphology should soon
become involved. We emphasize that morphology should be used to augment,
not to replace, current instructional practices.
English makes use of three kinds of morphological construction: inflections,
derivations and compounds. Inflections are word endings that change grammatical
roles: plurals, past tenses, gerunds, etc. English has far fewer inflections
than many other alphabetic languages and therefore children should be expected
to master them early, first orally and then in writing. Derivations are ways of
creating new words, often in new grammatical categories; thus happy (adjective)
becomes happily (adverb). Derivations are so numerous and many are so
obscure that few adults will master them; for example, duct (for “lead, bring”)
is the base of educate and reduction. Further, some bases are not words by
themselves (for instance, the struct in construction). Compounds are made
when two bases are joined to make a new word, such as deadline or handbag.
We think that children should be exposed to these ways in which English works,
gently at first, of course, but then more formally.