{"id":2176,"date":"2020-07-06T12:23:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T20:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/?p=2176"},"modified":"2020-07-06T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T20:33:00","slug":"does-teaching-morphology-improve-vocabulary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/does-teaching-morphology-improve-vocabulary\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Teaching Morphology Improve Vocabulary?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Does <a href=\"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/the-myth-of-teaching-morphology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching morphology<\/a> improve students&#8217; vocabulary?<\/p>\n<p>Short answer:<br \/>\nNo.<\/p>\n<p>Long answer:<br \/>\nSee my recently published article <a href=\"http:\/\/language-issues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/1-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Medium-length answer:<br \/>\nThe theory behind morphological instruction is that if you teach students Greek and Latin roots and\/or common prefixes and suffixes, students will be able to apply that knowledge to figure out the meanings of <em>new<\/em> words. Most studies teach word parts with sample words to illustrate the stem or affix.<\/p>\n<p>More morphological knowledge <em>should<\/em> result ultimately in more knowledge of new words.<\/p>\n<p>But it doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"http:\/\/language-issues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/1-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found<\/a> that teaching word parts has only a small and non-significant effect on a student&#8217;s ability to figure out the meaning of new words (<em>d<\/em> = .04).<\/p>\n<p>If you read the actual studies, though, you&#8217;d find that the researchers who did them think it was a great success! Why the different conclusions?<\/p>\n<p>Because the researchers counted the gains on the <em>sample<\/em> words as well as the new words.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, kids taught a set of words will know more of those words than kids who are\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> taught those words.<\/p>\n<p>The issue is how kids do on <em>new<\/em> words with those same morphological parts. <strong>On those words, there was no difference<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than spending time teaching kids morphology, perhaps we give them more time doing what we know really works to improve vocabulary: reading.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does teaching morphology improve students&#8217; vocabulary? Short answer: No. Long answer: See my recently published article here. Medium-length answer: The theory behind morphological instruction is that if you teach students Greek and Latin roots and\/or common prefixes and suffixes, students will be able to apply that knowledge to figure out the meanings of new words. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2194,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions\/2194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}