Morphological Awareness with Greek and Latin
Comprehensive Vocabulary
Morphological Awareness is the new buzz phrase to describe the connections students make among phonology, orthography, and semantics.
Older, close-to-retirement teachers or parochial school expatriates remember the value of their own high school Latin classes. Both grammar and cognates significantly improved their writing and vocabulary. They swear by it. Also those colleagues trying to make a few extra dollars by teaching SAT or ACT prep classes will affirm the importance of learning Greek and Latin word parts for the reading sections of these tests. So, high school 9-12 CCSS Standards strongly emphasize Greek and Latinates, right? Wrong. There are no Greek and Latin vocabulary Standards for Grades 9-12.
Interestingly, the CCSS vocabulary Standards dealing with Greek and Latin affixes and bases begin at 4th Grade and end at 8th Grade. Here are these Standards for each of these grade levels:
Common Core Greek and Latin Morphology
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L.4.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 4 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
- Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph).
- Now, recent reading research has supported emphasizing the morphological approach to vocabulary development in elementary and middle school.
Why is it important to study Greek and Latin word parts?
- Over 60% of the words students will encounter in school textbooks have recognizable word parts; and many of these Latin and Greek roots (Nagy, Anderson,Schommer, Scott, & Stallman, 1989).
- Latin and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffixes have predictable spelling patterns.(Rasinski & Padak, 2001; Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2000).
- Content area vocabulary is largely Greek and Latin-based and research supports this instruction, especially for struggling readers (Harmon, Hedrick & Wood, 2005).
- Many words from Greek and Latin word parts are included in “Tier Two” and “Tier Three” wordsthat Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) have found to be essential to vocabulary word study.
- Knowing Greek and Latin word parts helps students recognize and gain clues to understanding of other words that use known affixes and roots (Nagy & Scott, 2000).
- “One Latin or Greek root or affix (word pattern) aids understanding (as well as decoding and encoding) of 20 or more English words.”
- “Since Spanish is also a Latin-based language, Latin (and Greek) can be used as a bridge to help Spanish speaking students use knowledge of their native language to learn English.”
- Learning Greek and Latin affixes and roots may help reduce the literacy gap.
So, which Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes, and bases should we teach?
It makes sense to begin with the most commonly used word parts. Free bases (those which stand on their own as base words, prefixes, and suffixes. Bound bases (morphemes which require the addition of an affix to form a word) shortly thereafter.
Additionally, here are the most useful Greek and Latin word part lists I’ve found:
So, how many Greek and Latinates should we teach per week? I’d say from two to seven, depending upon grade level. Less is more. The more word play, analogies, writing, and games the better.
So how should we introduce the Greek and Latin word parts?
Introduce two Greek and Latin word parts that fit together to form one word. Tell students to write down this word. Ask students to brainstorm which words they know that include each of the word parts. Write their example words on the board. Direct students to guess the part of speech and definition of the word formed from the word parts and to write down their guesses next to their vocabulary word.
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For full-year vocabulary programs which include multiple meaning words (L.4.a.), Greek and Latin morphology with Morphology Walls (L.4.a.), figures of speech (L.5.a.), words with special relationships (L.5.b.), words with connotative meanings (L.5.c.), and academic language words (L.6.0), check out the assessment-based grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Comprehensive Vocabulary.
Get the Grades 4,5,6,7,8 Vocabulary Sequence of Instruction FREE Resource:
Get the Greek and Latin Morphology Walls FREE Resource:
Get the Diagnostic Academic Language Assessment FREE Resource:
Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing