What Are Morphemes and Why Do They Matter?

Spelling in English can seem irregular and confusing—it's easy for students to feel lost at sea! But small word parts called morphemes can be islands of regularity, helping students tackle big words.

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a word. Morphemes include roots (the main component of a word, such as “port” in the word “transportation”), prefixes (morphemes that attach before a root, such as “trans”), and suffixes (morphemes that attach after a root, such as “ation”). 

Morphological knowledge, or the ability to identify and manipulate morphemes, contributes to students’ abilities to read and understand words and comprehend texts. 

New App Available March 13

Our new application, the Morpheme Dissector, will be available starting Friday, March 13. Using the app, educators can enter important words from a lesson, see their component morphemes and meanings, and find other words containing the same morphemes. Additionally, students can use flashcards and play games within the app to practice connecting morphemes to their meanings. 

New eLearning Module Available April 13

Additionally, starting Monday, April 13, educators will be able to access a new eLearning module: Effective Morphology Instruction for Secondary Students Across Content Areas. The goal of the module is to equip educators with effective morphology instructional strategies to help students understand the meaning of unfamiliar words. The module will include a variety of resources to support learning including interactive activities, printable resources, and videos of effective classroom implementation.

Other morphology resources, including a professional development toolkit, observation forms, blog posts, and more, will be available later this spring!

Explore the blog posts below to learn how morphology instruction can support students’ learning in English language arts and beyond!