Vocab 3 Morphemic Vocab Analysis

L E E M O U N TA I N

ROOTing out meaning: More morphemic analysis for primary pupils In a professional development program at an elementary school, teachers explored ways to expand instruction in morphemic analysis to give their students an early start on prefixes, suffixes, and roots. They modified some middle-grade methods to help their students learn to construct meaning from word parts.

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est day was only a month away. Ms. Ramirez (pseudonym) was getting her third graders ready, just as she had been doing all year. Her principal’s last memo had quoted some authorities who said teachers should be “not only giving students solid instruction for life, but also addressing the skills they need to be good test takers” (Mesmer & Hutchins, 2002, p. 27). Well, she was trying to do both for her students, thought Ms. Ramirez. Today she was using think-alouds (Harmon, 2000) to show them what to do when they met an unfamiliar word on a test. Ms. Ramirez felt OK about that. After all, even if there were no standardized tests, students would still need to learn vocabulary strategies for figuring out unfamiliar words. Feeling justified, she turned on the overhead projector and displayed this item. Beth took her camera out of its case and placed it on a tripod. What does the underlined word tripod mean? a. workbench b. desk with two drawers c. three-legged stand d. round table

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“Class,” said Ms. Ramirez, “let’s figure out the word tripod. First we’ll try phonics. We’ll sound out the syllables, tri-pod. Let’s say the word and see if it’s familiar—tripod. Do you know what it means? Can you choose the correct answer—a, b, c, or d?” No hands shot up into the air. Most of the third graders just shook their heads, looking blank. She continued, “Let’s try using context. The other words in the sentence show that a tripod is something that could hold a camera.” “But that doesn’t help much,” objected one of the students. “All of the answers—a workbench, a desk, a stand, or a table—could fit. You could put a camera on any one of them.” “True,” agreed Ms. Ramirez. “Well, we’ve tried phonics and context, and we still haven’t come up with the meaning of tripod. Let’s try another strategy. Let’s say the word again, syllable by syllable, and look for a meaningful part, tri-pod. Haven’t you heard tri before—in triangle, tricycle, triceratops? How many sides on a triangle? Three. How many wheels on a tricycle? Three. How many horns on the dinosaur triceratops? Three. Do you think a tripod might have three of something?” Suddenly a dozen hands were waving in the air. Ms. Ramirez called on Tyrone. “I get it,” he said. “I see the three connection in ‘c. three-legged stand.’ That’s the answer.” “Right,” said Ms. Ramirez. “As soon as you connected tri with three, you spotted the correct answer. The prefix tri gave you the clue you needed.” Ms. Ramirez’s approach to the word tripod involved three strategies. First, she modeled trying phonics; second, context; third, morphemic analysis (affixes and roots). Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnston (2004) considered the modeling of

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strategies to be critical for vocabulary instruction. Nagy (1988), too, recommended “modeling for students how knowledge of context and word parts can help the reader deal with unfamiliar words” (p. 38). Phonics did not unlock the meaning of tripod. The word was not recognized when spoken. “Failure to ‘click’ a word into a recognizable whole can be frustrating for students and teacher alike” (Lewkowicz, 2003, p. 737). Ms. Ramirez’s students probably experienced some initial frustration over tripod. Context helped a little, but not enough, though the value of context has long been acknowledged (Blachowicz, 1985; Nagy, 1988). Context did not enable Ms. Ramirez’s students to identify the best definition for tripod. “For those all too frequent times when context does not provide enough clues to an unfamiliar word, knowledge of word parts can come to the rescue” (Farris, Fuhler, & Walther, 2004, p. 398). In this case, knowledge of the word part tri came to the rescue; morphemic analysis did the trick. At Ms. Ramirez’s school (an urban elementary school in the southwestern United States), the teachers of the primary grades had selected morphemic analysis for their professional development topic. The middle-grade teachers had recommended the topic, suggesting that an earlier start on prefixes, roots, and suffixes might be beneficial. My role, as their university consultant, was to answer the primary teachers’ questions about morphemic analysis and to help them with classroom strategies if they decided to blend more instruction on meaningful word parts into their lessons. After I observed Ms. Ramirez’s lesson on the word tripod, the principal gave me these questions from the primary teachers: 1. Does morphemic analysis really help elementary students use affixes and roots to construct the meaning of unfamiliar words? 2. Our middle-grade colleagues see value in morphemic analysis for their students, but do any vocabulary authorities see value in it for students in the primary grades? 3. If we decide to do more with the study of meaningful word parts, can we modify effective middle-grade methods for use with our primary students?

Answers for teachers’ questions on morphemic analysis I prefaced my remarks with these “preview answers” for the teachers’ three questions, before offering a longer literature-based response to each question: 1. Studies suggest that instruction in morphemic analysis can help elementary readers use affixes and roots to construct meanings of unfamiliar words; however, those studies were conducted mainly in the middle grades (Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, & Kame’enui, 2003; Baumann et al., 2002). 2. Despite the scarcity of classroom studies of morphemic analysis at the primary level, some vocabulary authorities see reasons to recommend an early start on the teaching of meaningful parts of words (Anglin, 1993; Biemiller, 2004; Moats, 2000; Templeton & Pikulski, 1999). 3. Certain methods of instruction in morphemic analysis that were effective in the middle grades would be likely to work well in the primary grades, with some modifications. Examples of such methods include disassembling and reassembling words (Edwards, Font, Baumann, & Boland, 2004) and direct instruction with posters (Graves, 2004). Because of its interactions with the middlegrade teachers, my audience was acquainted with the basics of morphemic analysis. The teachers were aware that a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. They knew that prefixes like un and re, inflectional endings like ed and s, and derivational suffixes like ness and ly are “bound” morphemes (units of meaning that are attached to other words or word parts). They even knew that morphemes include not only Greek and Latin word roots like micro and fer, which cannot stand alone, but also base words like call and slow, which can stand alone (Bear et al., 2004). What they wanted from me was a report on what the literature said about their questions. I told them that researchers have long been addressing their question about the effectiveness of morphemic analysis. There is an accumulating body of evidence suggesting that it does help students recognize affixes and roots, learn their meanings, and apply this knowledge to unlock new words that have meaningful parts (Graves & Hammond, 1980; Nagy, Diakidoy, & Anderson, 1993; White, Power, & White, 1989).

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Reports of recent classroom studies in fifth grade have added to that body of evidence, supporting the effectiveness of teaching prefixes, suffixes, and roots as word-part clues (Baumann et al., 2002, 2003). At the fourth-grade level, Dutch students profited from instruction in morphemic and contextual analysis; they learned to use meaningful parts to help unlock the meanings of new words (Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998). For third graders also, a small quasi-experimental study indicated positive potential for morphemic analysis. The study culminated in four types of vocabulary tests. Third graders who were given instruction in prefixes and suffixes outperformed students who were not given such instruction (White, Sowell, & Yanagihara, 1989). After my brief overview of the preceding studies, a teacher nudged me toward the second question by saying, “I guess there’s reason to teach morphemic analysis in upper elementary classes, but has anyone—other than our middle-grade colleagues—recommended it for the primary grades?” I assured this teacher that her middle-grade colleagues were in good company in favoring an early start on morphemic analysis. Moats (2000) recommended, “Word structure at the morpheme level should be addressed as early as first grade” (p. 74). Why? Because “knowledge of roots and affixes facilitates rapid, efficient, and accurate reading of unfamiliar vocabulary” (p. 74). When Nilsen and Nilsen (2004) were developing their source-based approach to morphemic analysis, they tried out their lessons in primary as well as middle-grade classes. They reported that primary pupils showed great enthusiasm for being word detectives and solving meaning mysteries by spotting familiar word parts. Nilsen and Nilsen (2004) recommended an early start on morphemic analysis because, for young children, even one familiar morpheme can “serve as the key that will unlock the meaning of an unfamiliar word” (p. 3). Templeton and Pikulski (1999) pointed up the beneficial partnership of spelling and morphemic analysis in the primary grades. At an early stage in learning spelling patterns, students can see the effect of adding morphemes, like the plural endings -s and -es, to familiar words. From the primary grades onward “spelling plays an important role in facilitating morphemic knowledge” (p. 3).

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When Anglin (1993) measured vocabulary development in grades 1 and 3, he found that third graders had acquired almost twice as many words composed of two morphemes as first graders. Because children’s ability to figure out words by analyzing their morphological structure increases with age and grade, instruction in morphemic analysis would be developmentally appropriate in the primary grades. Biemiller (2004) considered word study vital in grades 1 and 2, though he “found few classroom studies of teaching or promoting vocabulary in the primary grades” (p. 32). By asking children the meanings in context of morphemes that he calls root words (mostly base words), Biemiller found that second graders in the top vocabulary quartile knew twice the number of words of students in the bottom quartile. Graves, Brunetti, and Slater (1982) found a wide vocabulary gap at first-grade level between children from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Early deficits are of concern because of the long-term relationship between vocabulary size in kindergarten through grade 3 and later reading success (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997). Again, one of the teachers moved me along, saying, “Morphemic analysis may be only one of many ways to narrow the gap between the vocabulary ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ But I see that our middle-grade colleagues are not alone in recommending an early start on it. Now let’s hear how to do it.” I explained that some methods and materials that were effective for teaching morphemic analysis in the middle grades would work well in the primary grades, with modifications. Consider, for example, the use of posters as reminders. Graves (2004) recommended keeping this type of information on display at the beginning of middle-grade instruction on prefixes: Removing the prefix un from the word unhappy still leaves the word happy. That means it’s a prefix. But if you remove the letters un from the word uncle, you are left with cle, which is not a word. This means that the un in uncle is not a prefix. (p. 90)

A poster for a primary classroom might deliver a simpler message, but it could fulfill the same purpose.

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In teaching the meanings of the prefixes un-, re-, and in- in the middle grades, Graves (2004) recommended having students bring in words that begin with those prefixes and discussing the words. The discussion could lead to such observations as “two prefixes can have the same meaning” (e.g., both un- and in- can mean “not”), and “some prefixes have two meanings” (e.g., in- means “not” in involuntary and “inward” in inbound). The same type of discussion, but with easier words, could convey similar information at the primary level. Another example of an easy-to-modify lesson from the middle grades is having students “disassemble words into roots and affixes, and learn how parts function together to construct word meanings” (Edwards et al., 2004, p. 164). In a middlegrade class, students broke the word subzero into the meaningful parts sub and zero, and then constructed the meaning from the reassembled parts. The prefix sub- probably would not get much attention in the primary grades. It is not one of the four most frequently used prefixes: un-, re-, in-, and dis- (White, Sowell et al., 1989). Some primary teachers already present the meanings of these prefixes in their literacy programs: 1. un- (not) 2. re- (again, back) 3. in- (inward, not) 4. dis- (not, reverse)

At this point, one teacher remarked, “Maybe expanding our instruction in morphemic analysis would just be doing more of what we are already doing some of.”

Teachers’ considerations regarding morphemic analysis As our discussion continued, a second-grade teacher said, “Last week I told my class that the prefixes on incomplete and unfinished both meant ‘not.’ Kids don’t need to be in fourth grade to understand that two different prefixes can have the same meaning.” A third-grade teacher said, “It can be catchy, though, when the same prefix has two meanings, like in- on the list you showed us. Suppose you were dealing with a sentence like, ‘You’re inca-

pable of staying indoors.’ I’d want to teach those two meanings of the prefix in- separately.” She continued on a different tack, “Also, I teach them to invert in math. I wonder if dividing the word invert into in and vert would help them understand it.” One of the first-grade teachers frowned. “I’d hesitate to teach a classical root like vert at the primary level. It’s not a stand-alone base word. We need to start by showing our children how affixes affect the meanings of words they know. Take the word kind, for example. I can show my first graders that knowing kind helps them with words like kindness and unkind. The words are related, even though the affixes give them variations in meaning.” “First graders are accustomed to variations,” said another teacher. “Think of all the variations I teach in phonics, like the sounds of c—the /k/ sound in cut, and the /s/ sound in city. I teach the rules that govern each sound, but the kids find a lot of exceptions. You mentioned that there are exceptions in morphemic analysis too: un- means ‘not’ on a lot of words, but not on uncle.” I agreed that both phonics and morphemic analysis work much of the time, but not all the time. It seemed to some of the teachers that phonics (looking within a word for its sounds) paralleled morphemic analysis (looking within a word for its meaning). Durkin (2004) commented on this parallel in terms of two prefixes: “Letters like mis and re help readers not only to pronounce words like misteach and reteach but also to unravel their meaning” (p. 234). At the end of our discussion, some teachers invited me to visit their classes.

Morphemic analysis with phonics and context in first grade In a first-grade class, I saw the teacher doing a fine job of teaching the prefix un-. The pupils could sound out the phonetically regular prefix: /u/ /n/. They could blend the sounds into /un/. These first graders then learned that un- meant “not.” Unhappy meant “not happy.” Unable meant “not able.” After completing her lesson on un-, the teacher sat down with a small group of pupils. One little boy in the group was really struggling as he read aloud. He looked up at the teacher, frowned, and complained, “This book is....” He paused,

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seemingly searching for the word hard or an even stronger word. Then he started again, “This book is un-easy!” Of course, un-easy, not easy, hard! I almost laughed, but he was completely serious, and so were all the other children in his group. They were nodding in agreement. One even repeated his verdict, “Un-easy.” His response gave me the same feeling I get when a child says comed for came or goed for went. What an intelligent miscue! Of course you correct the child, but as a teacher you also rejoice that the child has internalized the -ed for past tense. No doubt the first-grade teacher rejoiced internally that her instruction on the prefix un- had been so successful, but aloud she cleared up the uneasy miscue. She initiated a discussion on feeling “at ease and comfortable” when eating favorite foods, entering a room full of friends, walking a familiar path. The first graders also discussed feeling uneasy about trying new foods, entering a room full of strangers, or walking into a dark cave. So this skillful teacher clarified the use of the morpheme un- when the un-easy miscue gave her a teachable moment.

Second-grade applications of affixes and roots I heard a second-grade teacher use morphemic analysis when he was explaining the vocabulary of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. He lingered over the word indivisible, reminding his students, “You’ve learned that the prefix in- can mean ‘not’; the word infrequent means ‘not frequent.’ Look at the word indivisible in the Pledge. In- means ‘not’ on that word, too. Indivisible means not divisible, not dividable, not able to be divided.” In two second-grade classrooms, I saw affix posters. One was strictly informational, like Graves’s (2004): The prefix re- can change the meaning of a word. Rebuild means “build again.” Replay means “play again.” Reread means “read again.”

The other poster was being used interactively by a teacher who was making morphemic analysis

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an integral part of her word-study program. It read as follows: Remember—If you know the word clear, you also know all these words: clears

clearer

cleared

clearest

clearing

clearly

unclear

The teacher who was displaying this poster told me, “After I taught the word clear, I added affixes in subsequent lessons. Now, at the reviewing stage, I can go back and forth with my students, disassembling and reassembling the words. If I want to reinforce that -est means ‘most,’ I point to the word clearest. Then I cover clear, and I ask for the meaning of -est. I finish by asking my students to put together the meaning of clearest from its parts.” That teacher was making good use of wordpart clues, as recommended by Clark (2004).

Strategies for morphemic analysis in third grade One class of third graders had become fascinated with Harry Potter. Their teacher found she could capitalize on that fascination by pointing out meaningful parts in the names of characters from the Harry Potter books (Nilsen & Nilsen, 2002). The villainous Lord Voldemort, for example, has a name that ends in the classic root mort, meaning “death.” Because Voldemort wants to kill Harry Potter, who is mortal—not immortal—the children could see a meaning connection. Nilsen and Nilsen (2002) said that, for students, “an important key to learning new words is being able to relate parts of them (morphemes) to parts of words that they already know” (p. 255). The other third-grade teachers, including Ms. Ramirez, found that contests and games were quite effective for exercising meaningful word parts (Brabham & Villaume, 2002). One contest involved the Venn diagram. For this activity, Ms. Ramirez divided her class into two teams, drew a Venn diagram on the chalkboard, and labeled the two overlapping circles with the two meanings of the prefix re-, AGAIN and BACK. “When I say a word that starts with re-, I want you to decide where it belongs in our Venn diagram

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and write it in the correct place.” Ms. Ramirez turned to Team A and said, “The first word is restart.” A girl from Team A quickly wrote restart in the AGAIN circle of the Venn diagram. “Correct,” said Ms. Ramirez. “To restart means to start again.” Then, turning to Team B, she said, “The second word is retreat.” A boy from Team B wrote retreat in the BACK circle and explained, “When an army retreats, it goes backward.” Ms. Ramirez nodded. Then she said, “The third word is review”—and the fun started. One child on Team A said, “Reviewing is looking again at what you’ve studied.” Another said, “No, when I review, I look back at the pages I’ve read.” The Team B children could not contain themselves. Before Team A could figure things out, a Team B member was at the chalkboard again, writing the word review in the overlapping section of the Venn diagram circles. “It’s both,” he declared. “In the word review, the prefix re- means both ‘again’ and ‘back.’” Ms. Ramirez smiled; she had just heard a thirdgrade application of the morphemic-analysis concept that a prefix can carry two related meanings. In a learning center in one corner of her classroom, she kept mix-and-match cards so that her students could build words from morphemes. For example, from care, thought, ful, and less, they could put together the words careful, careless, thoughtful, and thoughtless. When Ms. Ramirez added ness and Madelyn put together thoughtlessness, the little girl said, “Wow, look how long that word is. But long words like aren’t really hard— not if you can spot their parts, the way I did with thought-less-ness. Then you can put the meaning together.” Ms. Ramirez beamed; the “construction of meaning” benefit of morphemic analysis had been expressed—in the words of one of her third graders.

Guidelines for incorporating morphemic analysis in primary lessons At a follow-up meeting, the teachers formulated these guidelines for incorporating morphemic analysis in their lessons.

1. When you teach a word, also gradually teach its derivative forms. To the word plant, add (and subtract) -s, -ed, -ing, -er, and re-.

2.When you teach an affix, introduce it on words that carry its most common meaning; later, present other meanings. For the prefix dis-, start with the “not” meaning, as in disagree. Later introduce the “reverse” meaning, as in disappear.

3. When you teach a word that has meaningful parts, deconstruct and reconstruct the word with your students, pointing out the meaning of each part. For un-reach-able, show that the parts add up to the meaning “not able to be reached.”

Rooting out the meaning of root My last visit to Ms. Ramirez’s classroom took place after standardized tests were over. (Her students did well, of course; there was no way, however, to divide the credit between her superb teaching and her emphasis on morphemic analysis.) The principal had stopped pushing word study for test preparation, but Ms. Ramirez was still emphasizing it for vocabulary development. She had her class playing a vocabulary game called Mystery Word that focused on multiple meanings rather than morphemic analysis, but the game ended up involving both. She displayed this transparency: This mystery word has four letters. It has both of these meanings: — to make a dividing line in hair — a piece of the whole

Then Ms. Ramirez told her teams of students, “Remember—you need to write a sentence to fit each meaning. You get a bonus point if you can come up with a third meaning of the mystery word and a sentence to demonstrate it.” Soon one team was ready. The captain said, “The mystery word is part. Here’s our sentence for the first meaning, to make a dividing line in hair: ‘I part my bangs in the middle.’ For the second

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meaning, a piece of the whole: ‘My favorite part of the book is the ending.’And for our bonus point, another meaning of part is role in a play: ‘She has the leading part on stage.’” “Good,” said Ms. Ramirez. When she displayed the next transparency, she gave me a wink as she told her students, “This is a word you’ve heard in class, but maybe with another meaning.” This mystery word has four letters. It has both of these meanings: — to dig — the source or supporting part of a plant

As I walked around, listening to the teams, I heard one student say, “For the plant meaning, maybe the word could be stem or root. But the first meaning, to dig? I don’t know.” He shook his head. A girl on his team said, “Maybe root can mean to dig. My dog likes to bury bones in the yard, and I’ve heard my mom yelling at him, ‘Rover, don’t you root around in my garden.’” As the team started to write its sentences, another member exclaimed, “We can get the bonus point for a third meaning of root—the meaning we’ve heard in class.” The team captain looked puzzled for a moment. Then he exclaimed, “Oh, yeah. Of course! Ms. Ramirez always has us looking for the meaningful parts of a word—the prefix, the suffix, and the root.” Mountain teaches at the University of Houston in Texas (Curriculum and Instruction Department, College of Education, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5027, USA). E-mail [email protected]. References Anglin, J.M. (1993). Vocabulary development: A morphological analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58 (10, Serial No. 238). Baumann, J.F., Edwards, E.C., Boland, E.M., Olejnik, S., & Kame’enui, E.J. (2003). Vocabulary tricks: Effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth-grade students’ ability to derive and infer word meanings. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 447–494. Baumann, J.F., Edwards, E.C., Font, G., Tereshinski, C.A., Kame’enui, E.J., & Olejnik, S. (2002). Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth-grade students. Reading Research Quarterly, 37, 150–176.

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Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2004). Words their way (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Biemiller, A. (2004). Teaching vocabulary in the primary grades. In J.F. Baumann & E.J. Kame’enui (Eds.), Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice (pp. 28–40). New York: Guilford. Blachowicz, C. (1985). Vocabulary development and reading: From research to instruction. The Reading Teacher, 38, 876–881. Brabham, E.G., & Villaume, S.K. (2002). Vocabulary instruction: Concerns and visions. The Reading Teacher, 56, 264–268. Clark, K.F. (2004). What can I say besides “sound it out”? Coaching word recognition in beginning reading. The Reading Teacher, 57, 440–449. Cunningham, A.E., & Stanovich, K.E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability ten years later. Developmental Psychology, 33, 934–945. Durkin, D. (2004). Teaching them to read (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Edwards, E.C., Font, G., Baumann, J.F., & Boland, E. (2004). Unlocking word meanings: Strategies and guidelines for teaching morphemic and contextual analysis. In J.F. Baumann & E.J. Kame’enui (Eds.), Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice (pp. 159–176). New York: Guilford. Farris, P.J., Fuhler, C.J., & Walther, M.P. (2004). Teaching reading: A balanced approach for today’s classrooms. New York: McGraw-Hill. Graves, M.F. (2004). Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets. In J.F. Baumann & E.J. Kame’enui (Eds.), Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice (pp. 81–99). New York: Guilford. Graves, M.F., Brunetti, G.J., & Slater, W.H. (1982). The reading vocabularies of primary-grade children of varying geographic and social backgrounds. In J.A. Harris & L.A. Harris (Eds.), New inquiries in reading research and instruction (pp. 99–104). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference. Graves, M.F., & Hammond, H.K. (1980). A validated procedure for teaching prefixes and its effect on students’ ability to assign meaning to novel words. In M. Kamil & A. Moe (Eds.), Perspectives on reading research and instruction (pp. 184–188). Washington, DC: National Reading Conference. Harmon, J.M. (2000). Assessing and supporting independent word learning strategies of middle school students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43, 518–527. Lewkowicz, N.K. (2003). Finding the accented syllable: Start at the suffix. The Reading Teacher, 56, 737–738. Mesmer, H.A.E., & Hutchins, E.J. (2002). Using QARs with charts and graphs. The Reading Teacher, 56, 21–27. Moats, L.C. (2000). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

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Nagy, W.E. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve comprehension. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Nagy, W.E., Diakidoy, I.N., & Anderson, R.C. (1993). The acquisition of morphology: Learning the contribution of suffixes to the meanings of derivatives. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 155–170. Nilsen, A.P., & Nilsen, D.L.F. (2002). Lessons in the teaching of vocabulary from September 11 and Harry Potter. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46, 254–260. Nilsen, A.P., & Nilsen, D.L.F. (2004). Vocabulary K–8: A source-based approach. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. Templeton, S., & Pikulski, J.J. (1999). Building the foundations of literacy: The importance of vocabulary and spelling development. Retrieved June 3, 2004, from http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hmsv/expert/research. html Tomesen, M., & Aarnoutse, C. (1998). Effects of an instructional programme for deriving word meanings. Educational Studies, 24, 107–128. White, T.G., Power, M.A., & White, S. (1989). Morphological analysis: Implications for teaching and understanding vocabulary growth. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 283–304. White, T.G., Sowell, J., & Yanagihara, A. (1989). Teaching elementary students to use word part clues. The Reading Teacher, 42, 302–308.

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