Morphemic Knowledge

What is Morphemic Knowledge?

Morphemic knowledge is the knowledge of word structure or how words are composed of one or more meaningful linguistic units. In summary, it is a form of spelling knowledge that focuses on the meaning of words in its smallest form (morphemes) and how they change when making compound words or using suffixes and prefixes. Characteristics of normal development relating to this aspect include, pronoun usage, using plural forms of nouns, overgeneralization (usage of morphemic rules for words that are not regular), using verb tenses, etc.

Morphemic Knowledge in Infants/Toddlers:

The development of the morphemic aspect of language knowledge is influenced by phonemic awareness. The ability to perceive sound distinctions associated with inflectional morphemes is necessary for the development of morphemic knowledge. As infants listen to language around them, they begin to develop receptive knowledge of the meaning-changing aspects of morphemes. For example, "You may have one cracker" versus "You may have these crackers" signals significant differences for the young child. The development of morphemic knowledge becomes more evident as children begin to produce language during the toddler years.

Pronoun usage begins during toddlerhood, with the use of "I, mine, my, it, and me." This is important to the development of morphemic knowledge in the sense that noun-verb agreement in English influences the use of inflectional morphemes. (ex: I go, He goes, We go). Children's production of verbs during the early toddler period is usually expressed in present tense or present progressive (ex: go-going). At the end of the second year, children usually begin regularly using plural forms of nouns. The first grammatical morphemes to appear include present progressive of verbs (go-going), plurality (toy-toys), and possessive (dog-dog's). The sequence of morpheme acquisition does not appear to be influenced by the frequency of parents' use of specific morphemes; instead, acquisition is thought to be related to the linguistic complexity involved in using the specific morpheme.

Morphemic Knowledge in Pre-Schoolers:

The preschool years are a time of significant development in morphemic knowledge. Children first develop knowledge of inflectional morphemes used to indicate plurality, possession, and verb tense. This typically begins between the ages of 2 and 4. Development of derivational morphemic knowledge begins later and takes longer. Derivational morphemes are morphemes added to words that change the part of speech or alter the meaning of the word, such as instruct-instructor, happy-unhappy. Specific variations in the use of morphemes are also acquired by young children as they interact with adults and other children in settings where a dialect variation or different language is spoken. Development of morphemic knowledge contributes to young children's linguistic competencies in providing a way of communicating meaning more precisely. By knowing how to change word structures to change meanings, children can communicate more effectively. Researchers have concluded that children do not learn morphology through simple imitation of adult speech; instead children appear to experiment actively with language to determine how word endings are used to influence the meaning of a sentence. As children develop their morphemic knowledge, their use of morphemes provides evidence that they are learning the general or regular patterns for using morphemes to communicate meaning using grammatical and semantic markers as well as learning the exceptions or irregular patterns.

Children's experiments with language can be observed as they use language to tell stories or in conversations. Overgeneralization occurs when children use their morphemic rules for words that are not regular. For example, the past tense of regular verbs is formed by adding -ed to the word as in walk-walked. When using irregular verbs in the past tense, children may overgeneralize and use falled as a past tense for fall, etc. Preschoolers also being to use comparatives. Children are not yet able to determine which comparatives are regular and which are irregular, so overgeneralization may occur, as in good, gooder, goodest. Evidence of preschoolers' developing morphemic knowledge can be also found in children's narratives.

Morphemic Knowledge in Kindergarteners:

Throughout the kindergarten year, morphemic knowledge increases as children become more aware of morphemes in oral language. Kindergarteners continue to develop their awareness of how to show verb tense by using morphemes. With regular verbs, -ed is added to the word, as in "wanted" and "jumped." More irregular verbs are mastered, such as went, gone, and caught; however, kindergarteners may still overgeneralize. Increasing morphemic knowledge is evident in kindergarteners' use of comparatives and superlatives. Kindergarten-age children appear to be aware that there are two ways of making comparatives and superlatives. One way is to add -er and -est to the root wood; another way is to use more or most in from of the root word. Sometimes, it appears that children are trying out several hypotheses as to how comparatives and superlatives are formed. For example, a kindergartener might use both forms of making comparatives, as in "even more dirtier." By age 5, most children have receptive and productive knowledge of the noun suffix -er. Children know that by adding this suffix to a verb, they can make the name for the person who does the verb action, as in teacher-teacher, bat-batter, etc. They may also create their own words. For example, upon noticing that a toy was broken, Sean told a classmate, "this needs to go to the fixer-upper."

Morphemic Knowledge in Primary Age Children:

During the primary years, children become more consciously aware of inflectional and derivational morphemes that are added to words to change the meaning of a word and/or to change the syntactic function of a word. While many primary-age children will have acquired most of the inflectional morphemes for marking plurality, possession, and past tense, their comprehension and use of derivational morphemes is still developing. Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes used with word stems that change the way a specific word functions in a sentence. For example, adding -ly to an adjective makes the word an adverb, as in quick-quickly. During the primary grades, children begin to form adverbs by using the suffix -ly and may use other derivational morphemes as well, depending on the presence of such morphemes in their oral and written language environments. Children's oral language may not provide evidence of the same use of morphemic knowledge as their written language. When using oral language, such as slang and dialect, children may not observe the same use of inflectional endings as they do when using written language. For example, on the playground, a child might say, "I'm goin' skate-boardin' after school," whereas if the child was writing this in a story for a class assignment, he would write, "I am going to go skateboarding after school." This difference reflects the way in which classroom instruction and exposure to academic English focuses on the use of both inflectional and derivational morphemes. Primary-age children's morphemic knowledge can be observed in their early attempts at encoding their thoughts into words on paper. While this knowledge is related to children's phonemic knowledge, as discussed in an earlier section, it also provides evidence of their understandings of word formation and morphemes. Throughout the primary years, children's morphemic knowledge continues to develop as they are engaged in informal conversations with others as well as in classroom activities that provide opportunities to hear, focus on, and use words containing inflectional and derivational morphemes.

Tips for Parents:

1. You can conduct word sorting activities where you ask your child sort the following words according to their affixes. Then they should guess the meaning of the affix based on their prior knowledge and the patterns they see.

2. Another idea is to make flash cards and ask your child to make as many real words as they can with these cards. Make sure that the cards contain several root words and multiple affixes.