prefixes

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Here’s What’s Wrong With Teaching a List of Prefixes

I ran across a fascinating article recently called “Anumeric People:  What Happens When a Language Has No Words for Numbers?”  While I immediately noticed the word ‘anumeric’ in the title, I set it aside while I read the article and imagined a life without words for numbers.  What are the advantages/disadvantages?  It’s quite likely that there are people in remote areas of the world whose lives don’t revolve around clocks and other numbered things.  But is the ability to distinguish by number the difference between 3 and 6 items crucial to one’s existence?  Obviously not, for the people who only have words to name “some,” have lived for generations.  The interesting focus in this article is “how the invention of numbers reshaped the human experience.”  The article is not particularly long, but certainly gave me something to think about!

Now.  Back to the word ‘anumeric.’

Right away I connected it to the following.
numeric
numeral
numerous
innumerable
numerology

If you compare the spelling of these words, you’ll notice (as my students would) that they each have <numer> in common.  If given the opportunity to write a word sum hypothesis for ‘numeric’, I might see students write both <numer + ic> and <num + er + ic>.  They are both logical.  The first includes the letter string that is consistent among the words and might be the base.  The second includes prior knowledge of <er> being the suffix in baker, teacher, and colder.

Once we have discussed the hypotheses and the fact that both are based on what we already know to be true about word construction, it is time to find evidence that will support one more than the other.  If I look in either Etymonline, Chamber’s Dictionary of Etymology, or the Oxford English Dictionary, I find that all the words on our list derive from Latin numerus “a number.”  Once the Latin suffix <us> is removed, we see the Latin stem that came into English as the base <numer>.  This evidence shows that the <er> was part of the word’s spelling in Latin and is part of the base in English.  I like to compare this situation to the <ing> in ‘bring.’  We know there to be an <ing> suffix, but that doesn’t mean that every time we see that letter string we are looking at a suffix.  It’s logical to wonder about it, and scholarly to check with a reference!

Once I had looked closer at the base of ‘anumeric,’ I thought more about the prefix <a>.  Thinking about its use in the article where I found it, it obviously has a negativizing sense.  It has a similar use in the following.

apnea – without breathing
amnesia – not remembering
atheist – without a god
apathy – without feeling or emotion
atypical – not typical
aphotic – without light

The prefix <a> that incorporates a sense of “not, without” is sometimes spelled <an>.  According to Etymonline, it is “a fuller form of the one represented in English by <a>.”  You may recognize the <an> prefix in the following.

anarchy – without a ruler
anonymous – without a name
anomaly – not the same
anesthesia – without feeling
anhydrous – without water

So does this mean that every time we see a word with an <a> or <an> prefix that it contributes a sense of “not, without?”  No.  No it doesn’t.  There are a number of words like asleep, awash, aside, and aflame that originated in Old English and in which the prefix <a-> contributes a sense of “on, in, into.”  That <a> prefix can also be an intensifying prefix as it is in ashamed.  An intensifying prefix is one that doesn’t contribute a separate sense to the base, but instead intensifies the action of the base.  (More about intensifying prefixes to come.)

An unexpected sense

As I began a deeper dive, looking at words with an <a> prefix, I came across afraid, award, and astonish.  The word ‘afraid’ was derived from Anglo-French (afrayer) and further back from Old French which influenced the spelling (affrai, effrei, esfrei) and further back from esfreer “to worry, concern.”  The first part of this word is actually derived from Old French es-; Latin <ex-> prefix “out” and the second part is from Vulgar Latin *exfridare “to take out of peace.”  Please note that the asterisk in this ancestor means that the spelling is unattested.  This spelling is thought to be a likely spelling by those who study languages.  Beyond that, just think about the denotation of this word!  To be afraid is to have been taken out of peace!  Don’t you love it?

Looking at ‘award,’ this is another word that was derived from Old French.  It is from Old French (awarder) and further back from Old North French (eswarder).  Do you notice the initial <es> spelling?  To award something to someone is to give one’s opinion after careful consideration.  As with ‘afraid,’ the first part is actually from the Latin <ex-> prefix “out” and the second part is from Germanic warder “to watch.”  So the person choosing who will receive an award is the one who watches out for which person will be deemed most worthy!

That brings us to the word ‘astonish.’  This word, too, was influenced by its use in Old French.  It is from Old French estoner “to stun, daze, deafen, astound.”  If you noticed the ‘es’ in the Old French word estoner, you may be expecting that the first part of this word is from Latin <ex-> “out,”  and you’d be right!  The base is from Latin tonare “to thunder.”  If something astonishes you, it leaves you a bit stunned or dazed, as if you were shook by thunder!

So the question with afraid, award, and astonish is whether or not they have an <a> prefix.  The etymology clearly reveals that the prefix sense here is from <ex> even though we see an <a> prefix.  The story of how the <ex> prefix came to be spelled as <a> can be found in the influence of Anglo-French and Old French spellings!   So here we have evidence of words with an <a> prefix that represents Latin <ex>.

Assimilated forms of other prefixes

The prefix <an> can also be an assimilated form of the prefix <ad> “to” as it is in announce, annul, and annexation.  You’ll notice that the <ad> assimilates to <an> when the next element in the word begins with an ‘n.’   The <ad> prefix can reduce to <a> in words like ascend, ascribe, avenue, and avenge.

In the word ‘avert,’ the <a> is a reduced form of the <ab> prefix “off, away from.”

If you’re wondering, “How will I know which prefix it is or which sense it brings to the word I’m investigating?”  Fear not!  A quick check with a reliable source like Etymonline will clear up which <an> you are looking at as well as which sense it brings to the base or stem!

What about other prefixes?  Are they all like this?

Once I got thinking about <a> and <an> as a prefix, about all the different ways it can contribute sense to a word, I thought about all the other prefixes that I have been similarly surprised at.  You see, prior to SWI, my understanding was that prefixes contribute a consistent meaning to each word they are attached to.  For instance, in books that I was using to understand prefixes, suffixes, and “root words,” the prefix <re> was listed as meaning “again.”  The examples given were similar to remarry, reuse, and resupply.  Every prefix that was mentioned had a specific definition.   Examples of some of those are below.

de – down
dis – away
ex – out
in – not, without
pre – before
un –  not
con – with

I bet you’ve seen lists like this.  Taking a close look at the English spelling system by incorporating Structured Word Inquiry into my teaching and learning has made me realize so much!  For instance, the way in which a prefix steers the meaning of the base isn’t as “set in stone’ as we have been led to think.  We’ve already had a glimpse of that with our look at the <a> prefix!

Recently the International Dyslexia Association presented a live Facebook chat featuring Sue Scibetta Hegland, who spoke on the topic of incorporating morphology in spelling instruction.  The presentation was recorded and you can watch it below.  In this talk, Sue uses the prefix <dis> to address the very point I am making in this post. I encourage you to watch it.  Besides her point about prefixes, she makes many many others that are so eye-opening!  In the paragraphs following the video, I have elaborated on the point she made with <dis>.

If you think about words in which you’ve seen a <dis-> prefix, you might think of words like disapprove, disappear, and disable.  In all three of these words, the prefix brings a sense of “opposite of.”  If you disapprove of something, that is the opposite of approving.   When something disappears, it does the opposite of appearing.  When a machine is disabled, it is the opposite of when it is able to do its intended job.

In the words distract, disrupt, and dismiss, the <dis-> prefix contributes a sense of “away” to the denotation of the base.  In all three of these examples, the prefix is paired with a bound base.  Looking closer at ‘distract,’ the base <tract> is from Latin trahere “to draw.”  When someone is distracted, their attention has been drawn away from where it was.  Looking closer at ‘disrupt,’ the base <rupt> is from Latin rumpere “to break.”  When a meeting is disrupted, everyone’s attention is broken away from what it had been focused on.  Looking closer at ‘dismiss,’ the base <miss> is from Latin mittere “to send, let go.”  When you dismiss your students, you send them away!

A third sense that the <dis-> prefix might bring to a base or stem is “not.”  This is the case in the words displease, dislike, and dishonest.  When you are displeased, you are not pleased,  When you dislike something, you do not like it.  When you are dishonest, you are not being honest.

There are other senses as well.  In the word ‘distribute,’ the base is from Latin tribuere “to pay, assign, grant.”  The prefix <dis-> contributes a sense of “individually.”  When you distribute materials, you are assigning those materials to each individual in the group.  In the word ‘distort,’ the base is from Latin torquere “to twist.”  The prefix <dis-> contributes a sense of “completely.”  When something is distorted, it is completely twisted (whether physically or metaphorically).  In the word ‘dissension,’ the base is from Latin sentire “to feel, think.”  the prefix <dis-> contributes a sense of “differently.”  When there is dissension within a group of people, they no longer are in agreement.  Some or all think differently than the leader of that group.

Intensifying prefixes

I spoke earlier about prefixes that act as intensifiers.  The example I gave was ashamed.  In ‘ashamed,’ the state of feeling shame is intensified.  There are others, of course.  Once you begin finding them for yourself, you’ll experience a new kind of fun!  Until then, here are a few I’ve discovered.

Let’s compare the words ‘reunion’ and ‘refine.’   A reunion happens when people are coming back together again to become one group with something in common.  The main sense and meaning of that word, “the act of joining one thing to another,” has been consistent since it was first attested in the early 15c.  The prefix ‘re’ adds that the act of joining one thing to another is happening again. These people have come together before and now they are coming together again.  According to Etymonline, the word ‘refine’ was first used with a reference to metals (1580) and later to manners (1590).  It has to do with reducing something to its purest form (or as close to it as one can get).  The main sense and meaning of that word is “make fine.”  In this word, the prefix <re-> does not indicate that a thing is becoming fine again.  Instead, the <re-> prefix is an intensifier.  It is intensifying the action.  Whatever it is that is being refined is being made super fine.

Another example of a prefix that can intensify the action of the base is found in the word ‘corrode.’  The sense and meaning of the word since it was first attested in the late 14c is “wear away by gradually separating small bits of it” according to Etymonline.   You might recognize the base as <rode>.  It is from Latin and has a denotation of “to gnaw.”  We see it in rodent and erode as well.  The meaning connection is pretty obvious, isn’t it?  That leaves <cor-> as the prefix.  It is an assimilated form of <com->.  We often think of <com-> or one of its assimilated forms (<col->, <con->, <cor->, or <co->) as bringing a sense of together to the base’s denotation.  But that’s not what is happening here.  Instead, the <cor-> of ‘corrode’ is intensifying the “wearing away.”

One more example of a prefix being an intensifier is found in the word ‘complete.’   The Latin bound base <pl> has a denotation of “to fill.”  If you think about how you use the word ‘complete,’ you’ll realize that the <com-> doesn’t bring a sense of “together” to this word.  The act of finishing or concluding something can be done together with others, but it can also be done alone.  The prefix <com-> in this word is intensifying the “filling of something.”  Check out the entry at Etymonline to see for yourself.

Concluding thoughts

I hope I’ve made it obvious that when we teach children that <con> means together and <re> means again, we are teaching them only one possible sense when the truth is there are many.  There’s nothing wrong with saying that <re> typically incorporates a sense of “again” to a word it is part of as long as we also say, “but let’s check to be sure.  It could be doing something else as well!”

People who are hesitant to use SWI with their struggling students often say it is because their students don’t find dictionaries friendly.  Mine didn’t either.  That is, until they had a reason to use them.  I remember the days when my dictionaries sat unused on the shelf.  If I sent a student to grab one so we could look up a word, the student often said, “Nevermind.  I’ll use a different word.”  Since the students and I started asking questions that we were genuinely interested in exploring, those same dictionaries have become dog-eared and in come cases the pages have popped out.  I couldn’t be happier!  Once there was an authentic need to use the dictionaries, the students picked up the skills necessary more quickly than when we used to make up a fake scenario so they could practice.  “Let’s check to make sure,” became the quick look it’s supposed to be.  Students like knowing whether they’re on the right track or not, and using a dictionary lets them do that for themselves.  They learn confidence by not needing to run every hunch they have by the teacher.   When you avoid using dictionaries with your students because they are uncomfortable with them, you lose a huge opportunity to show them how to use reference materials and how to find out things on their own.  In effect, you are helping them stay uncomfortable with them.

So do your students a favor.  Make, “Let’s check to be sure,” a common practice in your classroom.  Let them discover the value and worthiness of a great reference material!  Thank goodness we have dictionaries and solid etymological resources like Etymonline, Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, and the Oxford English Dictionary!  That is where you and your students will be able to distinguish which sense a prefix is contributing to a word!  You don’t want your students to sort-of, kind-of understand the words they read and use in their writing.   A quick “check to be sure” will create a solid definition of a word as well as a scholarly habit.

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Instead of Being Submerged in a Sea of “Sound It Out”, We Suggest Spelling Success with Structured Word Inquiry!

My students have been working on several things lately.  Some have been looking at specific graphemes/digraphs and the phonemes that they can represent.  Others have been looking at prefixes and the assimilated forms they often have.  Still others have begun to explore Latin verbs and the unitary/twin bases that come from them.   So with all of these different  investigations going on at once, how do I make sure that all the students are learning all these things?  It happens on a day like today.  It happens when I plan a simple review that turns into a simply rich inquiry.  I can’t imagine that any other review set up in the same way would yield anything less.  You see this wasn’t a fluke.  It didn’t just happen once today.  It happened three times … in each of my three classes.  Fortunately I set up my camera during one of the classes and am able to invite you in.  If I tried to tell you all about it without letting you see for yourself, you might think I was exaggerating.

Setting the scene …

Here are a few of the posters my students have presented lately.  When I say they presented the poster, I mean they told the class what their investigation was all about.  They read any words they found that were related to the investigation, and then they shared the definitions of some of the words that were new to them as they investigated.  After that, the students listening asked questions and discussions ensued.

With other investigations still in process, I thought it was a good time to pause and reflect on what we have been learning.  Every once in a while I see the students sliding back into the comfortable yet unproductive habit of robotic research.  I define that as collecting what has been asked for without thinking about what the words mean or whether or not they fit the focus of the investigation.  Their whole spelling lives they have been asked to mindlessly focus on letters and letter strings.  They have not been asked to see those letter strings as anything in particular.  I am asking them to think critically about whether those letter strings constitute a morpheme in a word.  This is a new skill for most.

Before the students walked in, I wrote the prefix <sub-> on the board along with the most common sense it brings to a base, “up, under.”  Then once the students were seated, I asked them to think of words with a <sub-> prefix.  It could actually be <sub>, but it could also be one of this prefix’s assimilated forms (<suf>, <sug>, <sup>, <suc>, <sur>).  Here is what the board looked like:

At this point I asked the students to look at the board and let me know what they thought.  Did all of these words indeed have an <sub-> prefix or one of its assimilated forms?  Is there anything you question or wonder about?

I turned on my camera and the students were engaged in discussion for 50 minutes.  Fifty minutes! Take a listen and see where their questions and observations took the discussion.  (Don’t worry.  I edited so that the first video is 12 minutes and the second is 7 minutes.  I must say it was hard to find parts of the discussion to cut.  It was all as great and interesting as what you are about to see!)

As you can see, the questions just kept coming and the students exhibited a comfort level in using the resources (on this day it was Etymonline and the Collins Gage Canadian Paperback dictionary).  They were connecting dots all over the place!  They were understanding familiar words in a new way and understanding unfamiliar words enough to connect them to other words by their structure.  Structured Word Inquiry is never about memorizing a word’s spelling.  It is about understanding it.  But becoming a better speller is a pretty reliable side effect of the work my students do each day.  We talk about words every day whether we are focused on SWI or not.

When my third group of fifth grade students brainstormed their own list of words with the <sub-> prefix or one of its assimilated forms, this is what the board looked like.  I did not take video, but you can imagine by what you see that it was every bit as rich a discussion as with my middle class.  You’ll notice that some of the same words were thought of by students in each class, but then there were words that didn’t appear in the last group’s discussion.  Is that important?  I don’t think so.  We focused on the meaning and structure of the words.  And when we needed it, we went to a resource to find out which language the word originated in and perhaps what other languages had an effect on its spelling.

You will notice that we crossed off the words <sucking> and <super>.  It was in a quick discussion that a student explained why the <suc> in <sucking> couldn’t be a prefix like we see in <success>.  In the word <sucking>, the students recognized that the base was <suck> and that the <ck> was representing one phoneme, /k/.  The students decided that if <super> had an <sup> prefix, that would leave <er> which is a pretty common suffix.  But then there wouldn’t be a base!  As I did with the other class, I had someone look up the word <super> to verify that the <sup> was indeed  part of the base and NOT a prefix.  As it turns out, this word is from Latin super “above, over, beyond.”  This word is a free base and it’s spelling hasn’t changed at all!  We talked about superheros and supervisors and how that denotation of “above, over, beyond” made sense.

That brought us to the word <supper>.  Everyone was familiar with supper being a meal eaten in the evening.  One hypothesis was that the prefix was <sup> and the base was <per>.  Another was that the prefix was <sup>, the base was <p>, and that the suffix was <er>.  I had someone go get a dictionary.  That person reported that the base was <sup> with a denotation of “dine.”  That meant that the <er> was a suffix and the second <p> was the doubled <p> from when the vowel suffix was added.  They were not familiar with the base <sup>, so I reminded them of the base <hap> that we see in <happy>.  A very similar thing happens in that word.  So even though the <sup> in <supper> is followed by a <p>, that doesn’t mean it is a prefix.  In this word, the <sup> is the base!  It’s a third word we could have crossed off.

Since we had just found a word in which the <sup> was a base and the <p> that followed it was the doubled <p>, someone wondered if the same thing was happening with <supply>.  They asked if <sup> was the base and there was an <ly> suffix.  But then someone else pointed out that <ly> is a consonant suffix and wouldn’t cause doubling.  (It is so amazing and wonderful to watch one student’s understanding broaden another student’s understanding!)  So then the student who had raised the question went to get a dictionary to find out whether or not the base was <ply>. The student found out that in this word, the prefix <sub> has a sense of “up” and that <ply> is from Latin plere “to fill.”  Someone immediately thought of buying school supplies.  Someone else thought of the way the school supplies desks and chairs for the students.  Both are example of items that fill a need.

From <supply> we went directly to <supplement>.  I wondered aloud what a supplement was?  Someone was familiar with a supplement being extra sheets of ads that comes with their newspaper.  I mentioned that I sometimes take a supplement.  I sometimes take a vitamin C tablet.  Several students nodded and shared that they sometimes do too, like when they have a cold.  So we came to the understanding that a supplement is something added to something else.  When a student looked in the dictionary, the student found out that <supplement> is from Latin supplere “to fill up.”  Then the entry said, “See supply.”  Aha!  This is the same Latin base we saw in <supply>!

Another interesting word was <submarine>.  The students were pretty confident that <sub> was the prefix here because they knew that a submarine was a vessel that went under the water.  So I asked if they thought <marine> would be the base or whether it could be further analyzed.  It was quiet for a bit while everyone gave it some thought.  Then someone said, “Could the <ine> be a suffix like in <saltine>?”   I added, “And <routine>.”  Hmmm.  A student once again offered to look up <marine> to see what evidence there was to help us with identifying the base.  The student found out that it was from Latin mare “the sea”, which really made sense to everyone seeing as a submarine goes under the sea!  Could we think of any other words with <mare> as its base?  I thought of <maritime> which I explained as having to do with the sea.  I could say that a dolphin is a maritime mammal, meaning it lives in the sea.  Then, when I was just about to move on, someone suggested a student’s name.  Marissa.  I had no idea if that would share the base or not.  It shares spelling, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they share meaning.  So I told Marissa to get a Chromebook and find out what her name meant.  Sure enough!  It comes from the Latin maris “of the sea!”  How about that?

Reflections …

In each of my three classes we started the same way, but then followed the path led by their questions.  Over and over we talked about the prefix <sub> and the sense it brought to each of the words it was part of.  We made great discoveries about some unfamiliar bases, both bound and free.  We even talked about twin bases when the opportunity arose.  They eagerly jumped up to get a dictionary when we were ready to understand a word’s structure better.  We connected the literal meanings of the base and prefix to what we understood the words to mean in our daily lives.  We stretched that understanding to other words with the same base when we could.  Most importantly, the students looked critically at the words and determined for themselves whether or not there was an <sub-> or other assimilated form of an <sub-> prefix.  When the letters at the beginning of the word were found not to be a prefix, the students could explain why that was.

This kind of critical thinking, this kind of scientific inquiry comes without judgement.  Students offer suggestions without the fear of being wrong and the embarrassment that goes along with that.  Everyone has the same pursuit, which is to make sense of a word’s spelling.  And everyone participates in that common pursuit.  Some think to themselves.  Some think out loud.  Some ask questions.  Some jump at the chance to look something up in one of our dictionaries or at Etymonline.  The engagement is high and the delight in discovering something about a word or a connection being made is often audible.  (And usually accompanied by a sweet smile!)  This is what I have always imagined learning to be like!  As Malina said at the end of the second video, “Every single time that someone comes up with an idea, we should put a little light bulb above their head.”  Man would there ever be a glow coming from our room!

 

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“Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking.” ~ Antonio Machado

Last fall Daniel came into my classroom with writing that was almost indecipherable.  Even the most common words were misspelled.  When asked to read his writing, he stumbled, often saying, “I don’t know what that says.”  But he had a lot to say.  His head was full of humorous stories and his life was full of interesting moments.  This was fifth grade!  I wondered, “How did he get this far with such an obstacle?”

Knowing that whatever happened or didn’t happen in his previous years of schooling wouldn’t help me now, I put that on the back burner in my brain.  The only consideration given to those thoughts was the recognition that I had something to offer Daniel that hadn’t been offered to him before.  Orthography.  Perhaps this would be the year when misunderstandings about English would stop blocking his ability to express his ideas in written form.

All you need to do is read back through this blog to see the kinds of activities and explorations that happened in my class during the last year.  Beyond what I’ve posted about, we spoke ‘words’ every day.  Often I pulled misspelled words from student work, and we talked about them.  I wasn’t looking to spot out “wrong” spellers, but rather what the student might have been thinking about as he/she spelled the word.  What strategy was being used?  How might this misspelling benefit us?  What might we all learn from it?  Often times it was this activity that dictated the direction we needed to take next.

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at the suffixing conventions.  We started with knowing when to replace the final non-syllabic <e> and when not to.  I used a flow chart so that they could see the predictability of this convention.  It didn’t take long before the majority of the students were writing <making> instead of  *makeing.  We looked at the other suffixing conventions in the same way.  There was always an immediate effect in their writing.

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at the use of <k> and <ck> in words.  Students made a list of words whose spelling included <ck>.  They compared that to a list of words whose spelling included a <k>.  When comparing, they looked at the position of the phoneme within the base (initial, medial, final).   For instance, the <ck> in <picking> is not medial, it is final.  The base is <pick> and the <ck> is final in the base.  When they got the hang of keeping their focus on the base element, they found that <ck> is most often found in the final position of a base and is never initial.  The next thing to compare were the letters immediately preceding the <k> or <ck>.  They noticed that a single vowel always preceded the <ck>, and it was always short.  They also noticed that when <k> was final in the base, there were either two vowels preceding it or a consonant (usually <r> or <n>).  Students conducted research in the same way for <ge> and <dge>.  This particular research felt so scientific that I had the students calculate percentages to represent how often they found certain things (<r> before a final <k>, for example).

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at the phonology of <c>.  Students made lists of words in which the grapheme <c> represented /s/ and /k/ in words.  We made lists for several days in a row, until students could confidently explain why the /s/ or /k/ pronunciation was used.  Knowing that there was a reliable way of knowing how to pronounce the grapheme <c> in a word was a light bulb moment for my students.  “Why didn’t we know this in second grade?  It would have been so helpful!”

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at the phonology of <t>.  Students made lists of words in which the grapheme <t> represented /t/, /ʃ/, or /tʃ/.  Students who have already memorized the spelling of <motion> know that *moshun is wrong, but they don’t understand that the mistake is related to the phonology of the <t>.  In order to talk about these three phonemes, I needed to explain that the IPA symbol /ʃ/ represents the pronunciation of <t> in words like <lotion>, <action> and <edition>, and the IPA symbol /tʃ/ represents the pronunciation of <t> in words like <creature>, <actual>, and <question>.  This inquiry really made the students slow down and think about pronunciation.  It also made them aware of what is really going on in the spelling of the word – especially since they wrote the words in the lists as word sums.  They began to realize that pronunciation of a final <t> in a base element can change depending on the suffix that follows it.

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at assimilated prefixes.  In groups of three, students were assigned a prefix group to explore.  For example, one group looked at <con->, <com->, <cor->, <col->, and <co->.  Another group looked at <in>, <il>, <ir>, and <im>.  Once they realized that many prefixes have variations in their spelling, the students slowed down and spent a moment considering when making hypotheses about a word sum.  I began seeing <immature> instead of *imature, <illegal> instead of *ilegal, and <corrode> instead of *corode.

Because of looking at misspellings, we looked at the role of the final non-syllabic <e> in various words.  It didn’t take the students long to be able to share with others at least 6 or 7 reasons for it to be there.  One way of sharing what was learned was to make a video called, “For <e>’s a Jolly Good Fellow“.  Knowing why the final non-syllabic <e> is in a word makes it easier to remember to include it when spelling!  I began seeing <change> instead of *chang and <breathe> instead of <breath> (when breathe was what was needed).

There was certainly much more we learned by looking at the words my students were using and misspelling, but I think you get the idea of how I turned “spelling mistakes” into something rich and useful.  Which takes us back to Daniel.  The orthography we were doing encompassed wonderful things he had never been asked to think about before.  But was it enough?  Will his next teacher wonder about his writing obstacle the way I had last fall?  The truthful answer is, “maybe.”

Daniel made a lot of progress.  He improved his writing in a lot of ways.  Besides looking at orthography, we studied grammar and writing.  There was a lot of practice at all of it.  But when I ran into Daniel’s mom a week after school was out,  I offered to tutor him for the summer.  Why had I done that?  What did I think I could accomplish in a few sessions that I wasn’t able to accomplish in a school year?

Some things that I learned about Daniel during the school year:   He is a dodger.  Anytime he is in a group, he counts on someone else to take the lead and he waits for their direction. He does what they tell him.  He writes what they tell him. It’s easier that way.  He pretends to be listening in class, but isn’t always.  He does not ask questions when he is confused.  His misspellings and poor writing have been pointed out so many times that he accepts failure as the norm.  He is not angry, just accepting.  He sees no point in trying to fix something that is part of the definition of who he is.  The strategy that he sticks to (that gets him into more spelling errors than not) is to “sound it out”.

I knew he “hid” in a larger class.  If I worked with him one-on-one, I felt he stood a better chance.

I started our first session by asking him to write a few sentences about his summer.  As usual, I was looking for mistakes he was making in his writing.  As it turned out, he wrote great sentences and there was only one word misspelled.  It was *calfes.  This led to a great investigation of pluralizing words such as <wolf>, <wife>, <half>, <knife>, and more.

After that I pictured a spelling error I had seen him make during the school year.  He had used the letter sequence ‘ints’ when he should have used the suffix <-ence>.  He was trying to sound out the word and spell it according to what he though he was hearing.  So he and I made two lists.  We made a list of words with the <-ence> suffix and a list of words that had a final ‘nts’ letter sequence.  The first list included words like <difference>, <reference>, <influence> and <evidence>.  The second list included words like <cents>, <quotients>, <agreements> and <payments>.  When asked to compare the two lists, Daniel recognized that the second list of words were all plural!  Then we went through each word, identifying its morphemes and talking about how it is used, and then spelling it out.  By that I mean he wrote it down, and then spelled each word aloud with a pause between each morpheme.  By doing this, he saw that <-ence> was consistently a suffix.

During the next session we reviewed the phonology of <t>.  We made lists and he spelled the words out.  We talked about the morphemes, their sense and meaning, and any related words.  We also reviewed <wolf> to <wolves>.

At the most recent session, we went back to the <-ence> suffix.  I wanted to fluctuate between <-ence> and <-ent>.  So I asked him to spell <evidence> and then <evident>, <influence> and then <influential>  (Reviewing the phonology of <t>).  We talked about them, and then I had him spell them out.  When we came to <dependence>, we paused to talk about the bound base <pend>.  We talked about a pendulum and a pendant and how they relate to being a dependent child.  Daniel spelled the word on paper and then out loud.  Thinking about another related word, I threw out the word <independence>.  Daniel quickly explained how the prefix <in-> brought a sense of “not” to the word before he proceeded to write the word on his paper.  When he spelled it out, I was surprised.  He had spelled <in – du – pend – ence>.

Interesting!  I asked him why the spelling of the prefix <de-> changed when we added the prefix <in-> to the word.  He said, ” I don’t know.  It just does?”  Interesting.  So even as I’m training him to spell out with morphemes, he’s still listening to the Queen of Hearts in his ear bellowing, “Sound it out!”

It was time to switch gears and talk about stress and the schwa.  When we pronounce the word <dependence>, the stress is on the second syllable.  Even though the first syllable is unstressed, the <e> is still pronounced clearly as a long <e>.  When we pronounce the word <independence>, there is stress on both the first and third syllables.  Some might consider the third syllable to be the primary stress in this word and the first to be secondary stress.  Either way, the second syllable becomes even more unstressed than it was in <dependence>, and the <e> in <de-> is pronounced as a schwa <ə>.  In this word, the schwa pronunciation is similar to the way we pronounce a short <u>.

To illustrate the point better, I brought up the word <chocolate>.  I asked him to say it.  We both noticed that when you say the word, there are two syllables, but when you go to write it, you think of three.  That <o> in the middle is a schwa with zero pronunciation when this word is spoken!  He played around with this idea for a bit and smiled as he spoke and the schwa syllable disappeared.

This discussion led us back to the first time Daniel spelled <dif-fer-ence> as *dif-r-ints.  I showed him both spellings and asked why he might have missed the <e> in the bound base <fer>.  The idea of written syllables versus spoken syllables was becoming slightly comfortable one.  The idea of a vowel having a schwa pronunciation was almost a relief!  When we meet again, we will pick up where this left off.  I’ll be ready with a list of words in which the schwa has altered the way the letter used might typically be pronounced.

*** Note to reader:  Daniel is a real student.  Daniel is not his real name.

 

 

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Reviewing a Word’s Structure While Getting Better Acquainted with its Family

Almost all of the students have presented the Latin verb poster they put together.  We have had wonderful and rich discussions with each one.  And as we talked we noticed that not all Latin etymons became productive modern English bases.  Some of the bases we identified are found in a remarkable number of words while others are found in only a few.

For example, the twin bases <mote> and <move> are two that have become very productive in English.  My students can easily name words like remote, demote, promote, motion, emotion, motor, motel, movement, remove, moving, removal, movable and immovable.  That is certainly not a complete list, but it does demonstrate how common these two bases are.

Some of the Latin etymons became modern English bases that have not become very productive.  Take the Latin verb frango, frangere, frego, and fractus for example.  By removing the Latin suffixes on the infinitive and supine forms of this verb, we get the Latin etymons <frang> and <fract>.  The modern English bases that are derived from those etymons are spelled exactly the same!  You will no doubt recognize the following group of words with <fract> as the base: fraction, fracture, fractal, refractive, diffraction, and infraction.  But the only words my students found that share the <frang> base are frangible and refrangible.  See what I mean?  In English <frang> has not become a very productive base.

Since we have lined our hallway with Latin Verb posters, all we had to do was take a walk in order to identify those very productive modern bases!  We chose ten.  Some are twin bases and some are unitary.  We have decided to spend time looking at the words in these ten families and seeing what else we can notice.

We began with the bases <lege> and <lect>.  The denotation of these twin bases is “to gather, select, read”.  I asked the students to get out a piece of lined paper.  I read some words from this family and asked them to do two things. They were to write the word and they they were to write the word sum, keeping in mind that the base would either be <lege> or <lect>.  Some of the words they wrote down were lecture, select, lectern, collection, election, legion, legible and legibly.  The next step was for the students to come to the board and write the word and word sum up there so we could look at it and talk about it.

One of the first things I noticed was that someone wrote the word sum for <lectern> as <lect> + <urn>.  I wonder if that is a result of misguided practice in which students have been asked to search for a word within a word.  If this word was split into syllables, it might just be seen as ‘lec – turn’.  Anyway, I adjusted the suffix to read <ern>.  Then the students helped me list words with that suffix.  I got them started with lantern and cavern.  They added eastern, western, govern and modern.  Even though most knew that the suffix in <lecture> was <-ure>, we still brainstormed other words that use that suffix like treasure, pleasure, measure, nature and capture.

A third interesting thing to discuss was the way most students used an <-able> suffix in <legible> instead of an <-ible> suffix.  One certainly can’t choose which to use based on pronunciation!  I asked for  <-able>/<-ible> to be written on the Wonder Wall.  I have more information in a Smartboard presentation and will show it next week.

The most important thing of all, though, was how the students felt when they saw that they could spell these words when they concentrated on the morphemes.  They didn’t have to struggle with thinking about all the letters at once!  Instead they focused on each morpheme as it came and the spelling fell into place!

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Yesterday when the students walked in the door, I had <scribe / script> on the board with its denotation “to write”.  I didn’t even have to ask them to get out paper.  They sat down and quickly pulled out paper and pencil.  I read words like describe, subscription, prescriptive, scribble, scripture, subscribe, and scriptorium.  More students volunteered to write their word sums on the board than had volunteered yesterday!  They were enjoying seeing what they could figure out.

With this collection, we had the opportunity to talk about the way the <t> (final in the base <script>) represented a different sound in <prescriptive>, <subscription>, and <scripture>.  I’m sure that in their minds (until yesterday) the letter <t> represented only one sound – /t/.   When I saw that a boy in the front row had spelled <subscription> as ‘subscripshen’, I said out loud, “Wouldn’t it make sense for someone who has been told to sound out words when spelling to use an <sh> in <subscription>?  But look what is really happening.  The pronunciation of the letter <t> can be altered by the first letter of the suffix.”  We all said the three words so that we could feel the difference in pronunciation.  We talked about how some people pronounce <scripture> as if there is a <ch> following the <p> and some people pronounce it as if there is a <sh> following the <p>.  Another great opportunity to prove to the students that spelling is not about pronunciation.  It is about meaning!

An additional highlight with these particular twin bases (besides the students smiling at their increased level of successful today!) was the word sum for <scriptorium> that someone had written on the board.  It was written as <scriptorium> –> <script> + <or> + <i> + <um>.  I wasn’t so sure about there being a connecting vowel between two suffixes, and when I mentioned that, the students thought that made sense.  But instead of leaving it at that, we scheduled a Zoom session with our favorite French friend, Old Grouch!

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He helped us understand the Latin stem suffix <-i>, the Latin suffix <-um> and the present day English suffix <-ium>!  He showed us his own scriptorium and the students decided that a person who does the writing would be called a scriptor.  This recognition also lead to a discussion of agent suffixes (those that indicate the noun is a person).  That discussion led to a review of using the agent suffix <-or> instead of <-er> if the base can take an <-ion> suffix.  The examples Old Grouch used was profession/professor and action/actor.  Later, the students added animation/animator, instruction/instructor, and division/divisor!  My personal favorite is one that I noticed at an airport I visited in November.  The pair is recombulation/recombobulator!  If I was in the recombobulation area after going through security, and I was getting all of my things back in order, then I was a recombobulator!

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We are so grateful to be able to ask Old Grouch questions.  We always walk away smiling, and with a head full of interesting information to ponder!  Knowing that we began our Zoom session at 8:20 a.m. and knowing that it was 3:20p.m. where Old Grouch lives, one of the students asked if he had a nice siesta.  When he was remarking that he had, he also asked if we knew the word <siesta>.  We did not.  He explained that it is from Spanish for six.  Siesta is held six hours after daybreak!  Like I said, we always walk away smiling, and with something interesting to ponder!

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Generating Word Electricity!

Preface:  Turning a magnet inside a generator makes the electrons flow, which in turn creates electricity.  Yes.  There is a parallel to be drawn here.

I had an amazing mother!  My favorite parts of me were influenced and/or nurtured by her.  I see that so clearly with every moment I spend remembering her.  One of my favorite memories involves our weekly trip to the library.  We each (five children and one mom) brought home a carefully selected stack of books.  The anticipation of getting home and reading those books was magical!

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Here is what I picture:  We all have our own spot in the living room, each with our stack in front of us.  We dig in and read.  It is electric in that room.  I can feel the words in everyone’s head leaking out into the room.  There is occasional laughter and it is noted by all.  There will be a request to pass that book around later.  After a lunch break, my brother pulls out one of his choice books and we all beg my mom to read it.  But what we really mean is for all of us to sing it.  It is one of those stories that is also a song.  It is called The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night.

That is how I learned new words.  We all read constantly and reveled in it!  We talked about what we read and recommended books to each other from our weekly choice stacks.  Unfortunately, that routine changed when I turned six and went to live with my dad.  BUT the love for words and books was embedded deep inside me where it resides still!

The current investigations my students are engaging in create that same atmosphere in our classroom.  I hear it when I listen to the videos.  At times everyone is chiming in at the same time with enthusiasm and enlightenment!  Students are redigesting familiar words and welcoming many new words.  They are seeing the true sense of what a word family is.  They are recognizing the role of a prefix in contributing to a word’s sense and meaning.  It is electric in the room.  I can feel the words in everyone’s head leaking out into the room!

Learning about the four principal parts of a Latin verb and how to remove Latin suffixes to reveal the etymon continues to lead to some of the richest discussions in my classroom!  In this first video, we look at the Latin verb Spondeo, Spondere, Spepondi, Sponsus.  One of the first questions that comes up is in regards to the potential <e> in the final position of the bases.  I love that the students challenge each other to explain why or why not we might consider adding one.  When considering the base <sponse>, Shelby points out that in the word <response> we see that final non-syllabic <e>.  That is evidence that it belongs on our base.  When considering the base <spond>, Kaeleb points out that it is not a 1-1-1 word.  What he means by that is that although it is a ONE syllable word, it doesn’t not have ONE final consonant with ONE vowel preceding that consonant.  Many of the students know that if a word has one syllable (or the stress is on the syllable to which suffixes will be joined), and has a single final consonant with a single vowel preceding that consonant, the final consonant will be forced to double when adding a vowel suffix.  It was a delightful bonus to hear Kaeleb also give more evidence supporting the final non-syllabic <e> in the base <sponse>!

The second student on this video looks at Frango, Frangere, Fregi, Fractus.  As she was reading through the words in this family of twin bases, I noticed that she had a “dictionary definition” for fraction.  I wanted to hear how the students define that word.  Then we talked about adding a word that we explored the previous day.  It was part of another student’s investigation of these same twin bases.  The word was <fractal>.

Fractals have always fascinated me, and I thought they might fascinate my students as well.  We began by watching a short Youtube video explaining what they are.  Then we drew a triangle fractal and a tree fractal.

A basic shape repeated over and over, each time the shape is smaller in size.  The students have been drawing both ever since!

In the next video, a student looks at the Latin verb Moveo, Movere, Movi, Motus.  As is becoming usual, the students ask the same questions I would.  One of the first questions was in regards to the word <smote>.  The students had never heard of it before.  I questioned the <s> representing a prefix.   We put it on our Wonder Wall for the time being.

The discussion about the words <promote> and <demote> also created a deeper understanding of both.  I try to ask often, “How do you use this word?  How else can we use this word?”  I want the students to be able to understand these words in several circumstances.

And then, of course, someone contributes another reason that the base <move> will have a final non-syllabic <e>!  Brilliant!

One of my favorite discussions has been regarding the word <commotion>.  It is becoming obvious to me that the students still do not automatically wonder what effect the prefix has on the base’s denotation.  Once I steered the discussion in that direction, there was quite a commotion as “light bulbs of recognition” went off all over the room!

In the next video, the first student looks at the Latin verb Tracto, Tractare, Tractavi, Tractatus.  This family of words led to some great discussions as well.  Parker was able to share his personal experiences working with bees to explain an extractor.  Ilsa was able to jump in when we used extract as a cooking ingredient in the kitchen.  We had an equally interesting look at the different circumstances in which we use <contract> and <contraction>.

The second student looked at the Latin verb Struo, Struere, Struxi, Structus.  I noticed right away that this student included <struthious> as a word that shared the <stru(e)> base.  When I saw the definition she included on her poster, I knew it didn’t belong.  She wrote, “resembling or related to the ostriches or other related birds”.  While I am surprised that she didn’t recognize that this word and this base don’t share meaning, I am used to seeing this kind of thing.  Even this far into the school year, my students need to be reminded that spelling represents meaning, and that in order for two words to be in the same family, they need to share spelling and meaning.   I need to remind myself that spelling and meaning have often been considered separate tasks in their past.  Making sense of spelling is new to them.  But as you can plainly hear in their voices, their enthusiasm and confidence is intensifying as they learn to question and search!

Turning a magnet inside a generator makes the electrons flow which in turn creates electricity.  Yes.  There is a parallel to be drawn here!

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You Say Spelling Makes Sense? Show Me.

A new group of fifth graders.
A promise to prove that that spelling makes sense.
Skeptical looks.
An introduction to the matrix.
Smiles and head-nods.
The evidence begins stacking up.

Our mission today was to build a matrix using the base word <hope>.  I began by asking students to suggest words built from that base.  Here is the list we ended up with.

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Next I moved to a clear area of the board and wrote the base word.  I spelled it out loud as I wrote it.  I told the students that when working with words on a matrix or in a word sum, we always spell out the base and the affixes.  The look on their faces told me they needed to know why.

I moved to the side and wrote the base <sign> on the board.  I said, “This is a free base.  It is a word by itself.  It does not need an affix to be a word.  If it is used all by itself, how is it pronounced?”  The students read it as you might expect – /saɪn/.  Then I wrote the following word sum:  <sign> + <al>  –> signal.   I said, “Look carefully at what I did.  I added a suffix to the base <sign> and the pronunciation of the base changed!  In the word <sign>, the <g> represents no sound at all.  In the word <signal>, the <g> represents /g/.  Now look what happens when I add the prefix <de> to the same base.”  I wrote the word sum <de> + <sign> and asked someone to tell me what word we just made.  The students now had a look of understanding on their faces when they read the word <design>.  The pronounced /s/ in <sign> was now a pronounced /z/.  Three words.  Three different pronunciations of the base.  No change to the spelling of the base.  We must spell out morphemes until our word is finished.  Then we can look at pronunciation.

Now I went back to building our matrix.  I asked for suffixes that could be added directly to our base.  Students suggested <-ed>, <-ing>, <-ful>, <-s>, and <-less>.  I arranged them in a column since they could all be added directly to the base.

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On the matrix you can see that I drew a vertical line to separate <-ful> and <-less> from <-ness> and <-ly>.  That is to show that <-ness> and <-ly> would never be added to the base directly.  They would only be added to the suffixes <-ful> and <-less>.  In this way we can make the words <hopeful>, <hopefulness>, <hopefully>, <hopeless>, <hopelessness> and <hopelessly>.  The horizontal line is drawn separating <-ed>, <-s> and <-ing> from <-ful> and <-less> because the suffixes <-ness> and <-ly> cannot be added to the top three suffixes.

Next it was time to talk about writing word sums.  What you see below would be read as, “h – o – p – e   plus   e – d   is rewritten as   (check the joins) … [at this point the student pauses and checks the places where the two morphemes, in this case a base and a suffix, are being joined.  Because we are adding a vowel suffix, the <e> in <-ed> will replace the final <e> in the base.  The final <e> in the base then gets crossed out and the reading out loud continues.]  … h – o – p –  (no   e)  –  ed.”  It’s important to say “no <e>” because in doing so we are acknowledging that the final <e> on the base is being replaced. The student realizes it is part of the base, and when deconstructing the word <hoped>, that final <e> needs to resurface.

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The plot thickens and so does the understanding.

Next I posed this question to the students.  “Why is there only one <l> in <hopefulness> and two in <hopefully>?

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There was no hesitation.  Using the matrix, the students easily explained that there was one <l> in the suffix <-ful> and one <l> in the next suffix <-ly>.

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I used this opportunity to ask if anyone ever had to ask themselves if a specific word had one <l> or two.  Many hands went up.  We talked about the difference between the free base word <full> and the suffix <-ful>.  I asked someone to tell me if <really> had one <l> or two.  I said, “This is how you will always know.  Simply ask yourself what the base is.  Then ask yourself what the suffix is.  As you get more and more familiar with suffixes, you will see how they are used over and over with many different bases.  And you will begin to realize that unfamiliar words are often made up of familiar parts.  So far, you’ve been taught to listen to what words sound like.  Now we’re going to add to that and learn to see what words are made of.”

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As a final piece I wrote the word <doeing> on the board, pointing out that this was how one of the students had spelled this word yesterday.  I asked, “Why is it logical that this student inserted an <e> into this word?”  The students recognized that there is an <e> in the related word <does>.  I asked for the base of this word and together we built a matrix.  With this example I was again able to reiterate what I had said earlier.  “You don’t ever have to wonder how to spell <doing> again.  Think of what the base is and what the suffix you are adding is.  We don’t randomly add letters and we don’t randomly drop them.”

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Twin Base Investigations Always Reveal So Much!

Working with Latin twin bases is a lot of fun. In the following video, Kyla and Aevri looked at Invado, Invadere, Invasi, and Invasus.  They began by practicing probable pronunciations of these four principal verb forms.  They looked at Latdict for a definition of this verb and then determined whether or not they were dealing with twin bases.

I liked the way Aevri and Kyla used color to indicate a word sum of sorts when listing their words.  The base was written in purple and the suffix(es) were written in green.  We talked about the fact that the <e> seen in the base <invade> gets replaced by the vowel suffixes <er>, <ing>, <ed> and <er> + <s>.  If the suffix(es) are removed, then the single nonsyllabic <e> makes its appearance once more.

When Cooper suggested that perhaps <evade> was related to these words, I was thrilled.  As soon as we were done filming, Aevri went to Etymonline and looked up the word.  Its structure is <e>(a clip of <ex>, meaning ‘out’) + <vadere> (from Latin, meaning ‘go, walk’).  On the very same page was the word <invasion>.  Its structure was listed as <in>(meaning ‘in’) + <vadere>(meaning ‘go, walk’).  Another word that could be added to a matrix with <vade> as a bound base would be pervade, meaning ‘to spread or go through’.

 

In this next video, Cooper and Haley looked at Frango, Frangere, Frangi and Fractus.

This investigation brought some interesting words to our attention.  Refractory and diffract were two of those.  It was interesting to find out that refractory prisoners in the late 1800’s were subject to a frog march.  This meant that they were carried face down by four people, each carrying a limb!  So if your behavior is refractory (stubborn, obstinate), you are breaking away from what is expected.

When we discussed <diffract>, we noted that the prefix <dif-> was an assimilated form of the <dis-> prefix and that they both mean ‘apart or away’.  Diffraction is a noun that is typically used in science when talking about what happens when an obstacle is placed in the path of a light or sound wave.

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“Orthography Makes Spelling Less Complicated”

This year I had a high school student who came to my classroom every day to help out.  The other day while she was here, two 5th graders shared their poster about the digraph <wr>.   They were listing words that began with <wr> and had something to do with twisting and turning.  (Wringing, wrench, wrinkle, wrist, …)  After the bell rang and the 5th graders left, she turned to me.  “Every time I’m in here and these students present like this, I am blown away.  This stuff is so cool and interesting!  Do they have any idea just how lucky they are to be learning this stuff?”  I had to admit that I’m not sure my students realize how unique their situation is.

So today I gave them the opportunity to reflect on our study of orthography.  Each student spent 5 or so minutes writing down some of the things they learned.  Then I asked them to share.  Some were comfortable letting me record their thoughts.  Others preferred to give me their thoughts on paper.  Here is what some of the students had to say:

~Orthography makes spelling less complicated.
~I used to just write the word.  I didn’t know nothing about the word or the base of the word.  Not even the prefixes or suffixes.  Some words are hard to understand, but this way helped me.
~I learned that the <carn> in carnival has the same meaning as the <carn> in carnivore.
~Syllables are not word sums.
~Orthography is not just learning the meaning of a word.
~Instead of learning how to spell words we learned their history and how they were made, allowing us to sort of understand what they mean.
~Word sums are not found in a dictionary.
~Yes!  There were no spelling tests!  We worked on something new almost every day!  I now know new and harder words.
~I don’t like spelling, but I like orthography.
~Words have connections to other words that we don’t always recognize.  Example:  lavendar and lava.
~It helps me because I can remember the morphemes, and they help me remember how to spell the word.
~Lots of words have histories and were spelled different back then.
~Words have not just one meaning but multiple meanings.
~Back when some words were spelled a little different, they also had meanings that were a little different than their meaning today.
~Orthography helps you find bases so you know if the words have something in common like in sign and signal.
~I liked this more than spelling because it had more thought in it rather than just memorizing the spelling of a word.
~There is actually a reason words are spelled the way they are.
~I always used songs to remember how to spell words.  Now I just need to break them down into morphemes and I can spell the words I don’t know.
~In the past we’d just get words and the teacher would be like, “Make sure to study!”  But none of us did.  Now we don’t have to study.  It just kind of sticks.  I can spell much better.

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Shedding Light on Plant Processes

Wow!  It’s been a very busy eight days since I first handed out the scripts for our Photosynthesis Follies.  Yesterday and today we performed for twelve different audiences!  They included almost all of the students in our building and lots of parents and family members.  Over and over again we explained the process of photosynthesis to all those who came to listen.

Back in our classroom, in the chunks of time between those performances, the students took a closer look at the words photosynthesis and transpiration.  They began with basic definitions and then created word sum hypotheses.  Watching the videos it is obvious there is more to discover.  In the first video, Jacob’s research took him in many directions!  He was one of three who rather excitedly asked if he could work on this at home too!  This was the first time the students were off on their own to explore.  The lists of words he found to prove the <ic> suffix and the <photo> prefix are impressive.  He had come across many examples of <syn> as a prefix as well, but didn’t have them all written down.

 

 

In this video Zoe is also looking at photosynthesis.  She has found evidence to support her word sum hypothesis  <photo> + <syn> + <thesis>.   Next up is understanding what each morpheme means and how they help us uncover a deeper sense of what photosynthesis is.

 

 

In the next video this team of girls came up with some interesting ideas.  It is so second nature for the students to begin with the notion of sounds in words.  I found it interesting that this was one of the few groups that recognized that there is an <e> that was dropped when the suffix <ion> was added.  More investigating will uncover the other morphemes in this word.

The boys in the second half of this clip made a great discovery minutes after my camera battery gave up.  They had found the word <expire> and were comparing it to <transpire>.  I can’t wait to see what comes of this!

 

 

What an exciting time.  The students are ready for the challenge of figuring things out on their own.   This is going to be a wonderful year!

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Evaporation; Condensation – Don’t Get All Misty-Eyed!

I decided to give a quiz of sorts on Monday of this week.  I asked the students to write the word <prejudice> on one side of the paper, and <segregation> on the other.  These are words that we have investigated in the last two weeks.  For each I wanted:

1)  the definition
2)  a word sum
3)  two other word sums showing the base with other affixes
4)  two words with related meanings

I learned much!   The vast majority of the students spelled both words correctly, but the vast majority did not write an accurate word sum for that spelling.  For some of my students the tendency is to divide words by syllables rather than bases and affixes.  This makes for some random word sums as their hypothesis!  Even though they have knowledge about certain prefixes and suffixes, they aren’t applying that yet on an automatic basis.  I’m confident that as the investigations continue, and they talk about why they are making the choices they are making, that this will all come together.

Today we split into four groups.  Two groups investigated <evaporation> ,and two groups investigated <condensation>.  Rather quickly, both groups looking at <evaporation> found the base element to be <vapor>.  We all found out that <e> is from the prefix <ex> which means out.  That really helped with picturing evaporation!  Students used their hands to describe the vapor moving in an outwards direction.

 

 

The suffixes <ise> and <ize> in the matrix for the base <vapor> reminded us of the books we read by Roald Dahl earlier in the year.  As we read we collected spellings that were slightly different than what we were used to.  We remembered the word <realise>, which we knew was a British English spelling rather than what we are used to – American English spelling.

The two groups investigating the word <condensation> approached it quite differently.  The first group began with a pretty accurate word sum hypothesis.  Then they looked up <condensation> and <dense> to find out more.  With prompting they added the meaning of the prefix to their understanding of the base.

The second group was trying all sorts of random letter combinations as part of their word sum hypotheses.  At first it didn’t seem as if they had a plan, meaning a logical order for how to proceed with their investigation.  When I asked if they had looked on their list of proven prefixes to see if anything matched what they were seeing in the word, things began to click.