Teaching Morphemes: Affixes, Roots, and Practical Classroom Strategies

For struggling readers, longer words pose a significant challenge. Morphology instruction addresses this by building connections between words, supporting spelling, word recognition, comprehension, and vocabulary development at the word, sentence, and passage level. It’s also embedded in most content-area knowledge, making it a valuable tool across subjects. Participants will explore the research behind this approach and leave with practical, classroom-ready techniques for teaching it. 

Key Learning Objectives: 

• Define morphology as the study of the structure of words and explain how a morpheme functions as the smallest unit of meaning.  

• Distinguish between free morphemes (which can stand alone) and bound morphemes (which require a partner), and identify subcategories including prefixes, roots, and suffixes.  

• Differentiate between inflectional suffixes, which change tense or number without altering part of speech, and derivational suffixes, which change the meaning or part of speech of a base word.  

• Apply a grade-level morphology progression — beginning with inflectional suffixes in first grade and advancing through Greek and Latin roots in upper elementary — to sequence instruction appropriately for students.  

• Implement evidence-based morphology instruction using a structured sequence that includes reviewing previously taught affixes, introducing new content with student-friendly definitions and examples, and providing repeated exposures through word building and independent practice 

Date: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 4:30- 6:30 pm EST
Instructor: Kinjal Nicholls, MA
Grades: 3-8
Location: Virtual
Price: $120
Credentials: 2 Approved CTLE Hours