Download Just for the Spell of It

Incorporating Orthography, Phonology and
Morphology in Metalinguistic Development
Brian Davis
English 7520
9 December 2009



Bryant, Nunes, and Aidinis (1999)
investigated spelling problems caused by
similar morphemes across multiple
languages.
Reading and spelling are not just a matter of
representing sounds by letters and viceversa.
In alphabetic or “morpho-phonic” languages,
morphemic knowledge is essential in learning
to read and write.
“The psychological processes involved in learning to
spell . . .morphemes are similar across languages.”
They compared English, Portuguese and Greek with
primary grade students.
They conclude that everyone starts by spelling
phonetically, and the phonetic spelling is often
morphemic.

Problems occur when two or more morphemes
sound the same: hear/here, your/you’re, its/it’s,
there/their/they’re



There are three broad ways in which
morphology can help determine spelling when
words sound similar.
1. Deciding between two or more acceptable
spelling sequences. Syntax is useful here.
Example: -ed endings. Even though “-ed” can
be pronounced three different ways in English/t/, /d/, or /id/, syntactical knowledge can
assist the speller if he/she is aware of syntactic
relationships.


2. Spelling silent morphemes: Many syntactic
distinctions are unpronounced. “In several
languages spelling captures the syntactic status
of words in an explicit way which is not reflected
in the pronunciation of these words” (p. 116).
For example, in English, “the boy’s sail,” “the
boys’ sail,” and “the boys sail” all mean
considerably different things despite their
identical pronunciation.
“The spelling of stems in English . . . often remains constant
even though the pronunciation changes when a derivational
morpheme is added, for example “know” to “knowledge.”
From a spelling point of view, knowledge of stems is
necessary.
What do children do when sounds have multiple spellings?“At
first children tend to show a marked preference for one of the
alternative spellings.” This phenomena occurred across
Portuguese, English, and Greek.

Almost without exception they choose the phonetic one.



Question: When children add/learn alternative
spellings to their repertoire, do they do them
correctly?
No. “Children must go through an
intermediate stage in which they learn
alternative spellings for inappropriate and
appropriate ones without an understanding of
why.” It’s an incomplete understanding.
Spelling at this stage is still “unconscious.”




“Children go through a stage when they use
conventional spellings for morphemes
without understanding their morphological
basis. Eventually they restrict the new
spellings to appropriate words” (p. 123).
Is there a way to accelerate the process?
Yes.
Hypothesis: proper understanding of when to
use the new spelling patterns is based on
growing awareness of morphemes.



A need exists for new ways to test morphosyntactic awareness.
“We argue that a task measures children’s
awareness only when they have to manipulate
language intentionally.”
Analogy is useful.







Teachers are often criticized for not
implementing enough higher order thinking.
The sentence analogy test is useful for
helping students manipulate language.
Students are given three sentences and
instructed to come up with a fourth.
Tom helps Mary.
Tom helped Mary.
Tom sees Mary.
.


The method can be used to cause students to
regularize spellings of words that are
relatively phonetical, and to recognize
exceptions for less standard spellings,
irregular verbs, etc.
It introduces metacognitive and
metalinguistic strategies to supplant memory
and “unconscious” strategies. Metaphorically
it becomes similar to generative grammar.


Word analogies work similarly to sentence analogies.
They can be useful for teaching derivational strategies as well
since metalinguistics has previously been introduced.
Relationships between parts of speech can be shown.
Example:
anger:angry::
strength:
walk:walked::
shake:


“Children concentrate initially on mastering
phonological aspects of spelling and only
after they have conquered these to a
reasonable extent do they incorporate
morphological strategies to their repertoire.”
The result is that there is a “solid beginning”
for developing literacy beyond the first
stages, especially as the results hold true
across multiple languages.


Bryant, Nunes, and Aidinis concerned
themselves with primary students.
What can be done for older students,
especially those reading/spelling below grade
level, especially as they approach and enter
middle school?


Nagy, et al. (2003) assert that morphological awareness contributes
to reading and writing in at least five different ways:
a. providing insight into the writing system
b. enabling readers to read and spellers to produce longer words
more accurately
c. contributing to reading and writing (syntactic parsing and
packaging)
d. increasing the ability to decontextualize language and process it
analytically
e. facilitating written and oral learning.
Nagy asserts “Insight into the morphological
aspects of the English writing system appears to
develop much later than the alphabetic insight” (p.
730).
Still, this is a necessary skill. Until about 3rd grade,
students are exposed to primarily Anglo-Saxon
words of one and two syllables. Around fourth
grade they start to encounter polysyllabic words of
Latin and Greek origin. This is also when many
readers start to fall below grade level.



Morphemic knowledge can aid in determining
new words.
Nagy and Anderson (1984) estimate that 60%
of unfamiliar words can be comprehended
based on their component morphemes.
This is a useful strategy as morphemic
knowledge increases at least through high
school (Nagy & Scott, 1990).



In the beginning, literacy rests on
orthography and phonology (Nagy, et al.)
But “morphological mapping” must be added
as “written words become more complex”
(Nagy, et al. p. 732).
Reading competence by 2nd grade and
writing competence by 4th are necessary.

In education, many students are effectively “lost”
by the age of ten. A Matthew effect occurs.
Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) are more
optimistic than most. They assert it is relatively
easy to get readers back on track by 5th grade,
and they assert its necessity.
Their ten year longitudinal study determined
“Exposure to print serves to develop processes
and knowledge bases that facilitate reading
comprehension” (p. 935).




What to do for students beyond 5th grade who still read
below grade level?
Proposal: Reintroduce spelling in middle grades, including
old fashioned spelling tests. For many the visualization
necessary to learn spelling also enhances morphemic
awareness.
Incorporate it with word and sentence analogy tasks that
create metalinguistic situations, especially as they relate to
derivational morphology.
Teach reading and vocabulary in an ascending helix of
orthography, phonology, and morphology, including
content words from other subjects.




Reading is becoming more, not less prevalent
in content areas, even in math.
Emphasize spelling across disciplines at least
as late as 8th grade.
To reinforce, use word banks of derived
words—conform, conformist, nonconformist,
for example.
Require writing that employs the use of the
words so that students “see” the words in
context/action.
Bryant, P., Nunes, T., and Aidinis, A. (1999). Different
morphemes, same spelling problems: cross-linguistic
developmental studies. In M. Harris and G. Hatono (eds.)
Learning to Read and Write (pp. 112-133). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Cunningham, A., and Stanovich, K. (1997). Early reading acquisition
and its relation to reading
experience and ability 10 years
later. Developmental Psychology 33, 934-945.
Nagy, W., Berninger, V., Abbott, R., Vaughan, K., and Vermeulen, K.
(2003).Relationship of morphology and other language skills in
at-risk second-grade readers and at-risk fourth-grade writers.
Journal of Educational Psychology 95, 730-742.