The Why and How of Teaching Morphemes as a Content Area Teacher
As an elementary and middle school teacher for twenty years, I've taught multiple subjects to fifth and sixth-grade students. Throughout my career, I've recognized morphology's crucial role in developing students' vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing skills.
Yet I've often struggled to find an efficient, straightforward approach to teaching these fundamental word components. Too many teachable moments slipped away because I lacked the necessary background knowledge and resources to effectively teach morphemes.
In this blog, I will share two resources with you that will help you launch morphology in your classes.
What are morphemes?
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in words. They can be whole words, single letters, or letter groups, and they come in three types: prefixes, bases, and suffixes. Teaching students to identify these meaningful units helps struggling readers tackle multisyllabic words while supporting deeper vocabulary development as reading becomes more complex and content-specific.
My primary challenge was developing clear, consistent language for teaching morphemes. I wanted a reliable script that students could internalize and eventually use independently to analyze words.
Resources to bring morphology into the content
Our literacy coach, Heather Ballantine, created two invaluable resources that I'm sharing here.
The first is a comprehensive one-page guide that presents a clear framework for introducing morphemes. This resource transformed my understanding of morpheme categorization and simplified my teaching approach. Using this guide, I created an anchor chart positioned next to my whiteboard, providing both my students and me with real time access to this essential vocabulary framework. Here’s a FREE version of the anchor chart created in Canva:
The second resource is Ballantine's step-by-step script cognitive strategies for teaching students how to determine the meaning of words via morphemes. After approximately ten exposures to this method, students typically master the process without prompting. This gives them a powerful tool for understanding thousands of new words independently.
In my next post, I'll share specific strategies for incorporating these morpheme-teaching techniques into ELA instruction.
My goal remains consistent: sharing clear, practical resources that simplify both teaching and learning. Thank you for reading.
Cheers to working together for all students success!
