What does it mean?

• Derivational relations: a type of word knowledge that more advanced readers and writers experience

• Spelling and vocabulary knowledge grow through the process of derivation

• Derivation: from a single base word or word root, a number of related words are derived through the addition of prefixes and suffixes

• Exploration of words draws on more extensive experience in reading and writing

• Words that are related in meaning are often related in spelling as well

• Oppose → Opposition, Compose → Composition

 

Derivational Relations Stage

• Upper elementary, middle, and high school

• Early adulthood

• Fairly competent spellers

• Making more higher level errors

• Requires a more advanced foundation of spelling and vocabulary

 

Reading

• Advanced readers are able to explore the Greek and Latin word elements that are the important morphemes out of which words are constructed

• 60 to 80% of words are generated through the combination of roots, prefixes, and suffixes

• Additional layer of word knowledge makes it possible for students to add a morphological layer to the perception of polysyllabic words

• Students in this stage pick up morphemic chunks

• Rather than picking up the word morphology in syllables (mor-pho-lo-gy), students use chunks (morph-ology)

• Morphemic analysis: process of analyzing or breaking down a word in terms of its meaning units or morphemes

 

Writing

Expanded vocabulary → Voice or standing in their writing → Word choice

Can be seen through informal writing (Journal entries)

 

Vocabulary Learning

• Growth in domain specific vocabulary increases during this stage

• General and content specific knowledge → significant vocabulary and conceptual growth → growth in knowledge

• Teach the understanding of words and ABOUT the words

• Generative instruction: an approach to word study that emphasizes the processes that apply to many words, as opposed to an approach that focuses on one word at a time

• “Give someone a fish, they can eat for a day. Teach someone to fish, they can eat for a lifetime.”

 

Concept Sorts

• Help to activate background knowledge and generate interest in and questions about the topic

• Develop word specific knowledge

• Develop relationships among the concepts that the words represent

• Concept sorts may be open or closed

• Include key vocabulary and important topic related words

 

Example

• Teacher chooses words the students already know (planet, star, moon, sun)

• Adds new words from the unit (asteroid, neutron star, white dwarf)

• Students sort words in the following possible ways

• In or out of our solar system

• Single bodies or members of a group

• Generating light or reflecting light

 

Dictionaries

• Get a lot of use in the derivational relations stage

• Students should be taught…

• Pronunciation guides

• Multiple definitions

• Parts of speech

• Materials that should be readily available

• Intermediate and collegiate dictionaries

• Thesaurus collection

• Several word history dictionaries and root books

 

Word Origins

• Students develop a real sense of how words work at this level

• Etymology: the study of word origins

• Understanding the origin of words can be a powerful key to remembering the spelling

• Knowing that many words come from mythology, literature, and historical events helps provide background knowledge

• Study words that have come in from other countries

• French → bistro, adventure

• Arabic → algebra, algorithm

• Spanish → quesadilla, canyon

 

Online Resources

• Visual Thesaurus

• Users type in a word

• The word is then presented in a “Thinkmap” web that visually displays the meaning relationships shared by the target word and other terms

• Students can then click on any word to reveal the definitions, examples, and new webs of relationships

• Vocabgrabber

• Analyzes the type, frequency, and relevance of vocabulary words

 

Orthographic Development

• Errors occur at the syllable juncture and with the vowel in unaccented or unstressed syllables.

• In contrast to the two-syllable words in which these errors occur at the syllables and affixes stage, derivational relations errors occur primarily in words of three or more syllables.

• Upper-Level Spelling Inventory (USI)

• Useful for spelling errors

3 main categories

1) Polysyllabic words often unaccented syllables in which the vowel is reduced to the schwa sound, as in the second syllable of opposition.

2)Several suffixes have different spellings despite similar pronunciations.

3)Other errors occur in the feature known as absorbed or assimilated prefix.

 

Spelling-Meaning Connection

• Generative understanding of words.

• Significant role that morphology plays in the spelling system and in learning vocabulary.

• Being aware of logical spelling-meaning connections that apply to most words in the English language results in far more productive and reassuring word learning than the traditional one-word-at-a-time approach.

 

Adding –ION Words

Pronounced “shun”

Can be written several ways. -tion, -sion, -ssion and -cian.

Many words end in this suffix and mean, “act, process, or the result."

 

Greek and Latin Elements

• To introduce Greek and Latin word parts we often use the term “word roots”.

• Word roots are different then base words.

• They are unable to stand alone when all affixes have been removed. (chron “time” in chronology)

• Students should begin to explore Latin and Greek word roots in upper elementary, middle grades, high school and beyond.

• When deciding what word roots to teach, an educator should look at the words that will be most familiar to students or are based on the area of content.

• Study government: Democracy, Monarchy, Plutocracy

• Common Roots

 

Greek vs. Latin

• The Greek origin is labeled as “combining forms”.

• Greek elements are flexible.

• Appear at beginning, middle, or end of word.

• Photo and graph

• Telephoto, Graphic, Photograph

• The Latin origin is known as just “roots”.

• Roots stay in one place in a word, and prefixes and suffixes attach to them.

• Cred

• Credible, Credence, Incredible

• Roots follow basic spelling meanings.

• Words meaning similar things are spelled similarly.

• Only on occasions will the root change.

• Videre (to see) -> video, evident

 

When teaching educators should...

• Start with greek and latin elements that are most frequent and transparent in words

• Sequenced according to the abstractness of their meaning

• Examples:

• Early in sequence: Greek roots- therm (heat) and photo (light) Latin roots - spect (to look), rupt (burst), dict (speak)

• Later in sequence: Latin roots - fer (to carry) in defer or spir (to breathe) in inspiration

 

Predictable Spelling Changes

• After exploring roots, students can begin to look at related words that have sound and spelling changes.

• Often, these changes are predictable or occurs frequently in families.

• Long a in explain from ai to a reduced a in the derived word explanation

• Exclaim/Exclamation

• Deceive/ Deception

• Students learn that if base words have ai/ei, the derived word has a spelling of either a/e.

 

Advanced Suffix Study

• This can be challenging even for advanced writers and readers.

• Common misspelling is -able/-ible

• Students need to see that if the base word can stand alone, it usually has a spelling of -able.

• Depend -> Dependable

• Base words that end in an “e” will drop it and add -able.

• Desire -> Desirable

• If the word root cannot stand alone, it usually has a spelling of -ible.

• Cred -> Credible

• Soft c/g endings may follow the ending of -ible

• Reduce -> Reducible

• Sometimes an e is kept to keep the soft sound of the c/g

• Noticeable, manageable

• When pairs are examined, students can also see a pattern between suffixes -ant/-ance and -ent/-ence

• Brilliant/Brilliance, Confident/Confidence

• During this stage, teachers and students will also revisit inflectional endings when the consonants are doubled in words that have more than one syllable.

• Committed, Benefitted

 

Assimilated Prefixes

• Prefixes are first studies in the syllables and affixes stage.

• Prefixes can often be visually/meaning obvious that can be see seen and understood.

• However, some prefixes are the opposite.

• Absorbed or assimilated prefixes

• Doubled letters

• Ex. Accommodate (most misspelled word in the English language)

• Spelling is related to base word

• il -> before words that start with l

• Illiterate, illegal

• ir -> before words that start with r

• Irregular, irrational

 

Spelling

• Vocabulary Development

• Analysis of Unknown Words

• Initiate word study for advanced readers

• “You know, when you first learned to read you had to learn how spelling stands for sounds. Now you’re going to be learning how spelling stands for meaning.” (288)

 

Consonant Alliteration

• Consonant sounds change when suffixes are added to a word

• Silent: sign, signal, signature; crumb, crumble; column, columnist

• Sound Change: compress, compression; magic, magician

• Builds students’ vocabulary

• Allows them to sound out and understand new words

 

Activities

Notebooks, Word Tree, Latin Root Jeopardy

 

Sequence and Pacing

• Choosing what to teach is restricted by the difficulty of the word meaning

• Not an issue with reading or spelling words

  • Ex: Assimilated Prefixes

• Taught later because prefixes will not occur as often in their readings or spoken language

• Placement of Students

• Not based on difficulty of spelling patterns, rather student grade level

• Can confirm with the use of the Elementary Spelling Inventory, the Upper-Level Spelling Inventory will provide more information

 

Spelling Changes

• Time to examine words that change in spelling and sound

• For example: Long - a in explain form - ai to a reduced -a in the derived word explanation

• It also changes in exclaim and exclamation

• Long to short -e occurs in receive and reception

 

Advanced Suffix Study

• Adjective forming suffix: -ible/ -able - students struggle to spell this suffix correctly

• Free morpheme: base word- if the suffix is attached to a base word, then it is usually spelled -able.

• Bound morpheme: word root: if the suffix is attached to a word root, then it is usually spelled -ible.

• Soft c or g endings may be followed by -ible.

• Final e is normally kept at the end of the word to keep the soft sound. Example: noticeable

• Students understand suffixes when they are paired up