Happy September Everyone!
For those of you in Canada or the United States, Happy Labour Day too!
Where I live, September means it is time to head back to school and get ready for the fall. This year, I hope more teachers take the time to learn about what morphological awareness is and how they might be able to incorporate it into their everyday teaching with only a little bit of increased effort.
If there is anything I can do or post to help you learn more about the importance of morphological awareness (or any other topic for that matter) please send an email to blog@garfortheducation.com
Without further ado, here are this week’s morphemes:
Origin: Greek
Definition: half
Examples: hemispherical, hemispasm, hemicardia, hemipyramid, hemiglyph
<hemi> + <sphere> = hemisphere
<hemi> + <sect> = hemisect
<hemi> + <cycle> = hemicycle
- Technically speaking, <hemi> is considered a Greek Combining Form, however, it is often taught as a prefix.
- This is an advanced morpheme that can be taught to older students and discussed in context when it arises in content classes.
Origin: Latin
Definition: cut
Allomorph: sec
Examples: insect, trisect, midsection, hemisect, prosector, dissect
<bi> + <sect> + <or> = bisector
<re> + <sect> + <ion> = resection
<sect> + <or> = sector
<inter> + <sect> + <ion> = intersection
<sect> + <ion> + <al> = sectional
- This root is an excellent choice for teaching in mathematics and or science lessons where it can be taught in context.
- This root is one that should be taught to students in the upper intermediate/middle high school grades when students are beginning to encounter words contain it on a more frequent basis.
Origin: Latin
Definition: able, can do
Examples: comfortable, drinkable, flammable, disputable, fixable, laughable
<credit> + <able> = creditable
<eat> + <able> = eatable
<explain> + <able> = explainable
<move> + <able> = movable
<suit> + <able> = suitable
- This suffix is adjective forming.
- This suffix is typically used with Old-English base words.
- This suffix is one that can be taught to younger children, once they have been introduced to the more frequent suffixes.
- Remind students when adding this suffix to a base word ending in an ‘e’, to drop the ‘e’ before adding the suffix <able>.
Last week, August 26, 2019, morphemes were the prefix <dis>, the root <therm> and the suffix <ous>.
Next week, September 9, 2019, the morphemes will be the prefix <uni>, the root <spire> and the suffix <ian>.
Be sure to check out more graphics for these morphemes on our Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter pages.
If there is anything I can do or post to help you learn more about the importance of morphological awareness (or any other topic for that matter) please send an email to blog@garfortheducation.com
Subscribe to Garforth Education’s Blog if you would like to be notified when a new post is up. [yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”Subscribe to Garforth Education’s Blog”]