Transcript How children learn about morphological rules.

How children learn about
morphological rules.
By
Kalliopi Chliounaki
& Peter Bryant
Spelling is a sophisticated system. It
demands knowing two basic
elements of a language.
Morphological rules.
(word formation rule prefixes and suffixes)
Phonological rules.
(systematic use of sound to encode meaning)
Phonology vs. Morphology
Usually, spelling is taught through
explicit instructions on how to analyze
a word into its phonemic elements.
(syllables and phonemes)
In contrast, teachers avoid explicit
instructions about the connection
between morphemes and spelling.
So…..
Why morphological rules?
“As yet, we have not been able to
identify educational contexts in which
children are systematically and
explicitly taught about the link
between morpheme and spelling.”
So, how do children learn
about it?
Since teaching explicit morphological
spelling rules is not likely to happen,
the researchers tend to believe that
children infer their morphological
spelling rules by themselves as their
word specific knowledge increases.
(expand)
The research question is:
What is the connection
between learning
morphologically based
spelling rules and word
specific knowledge?
Real words & pseudo words
Real words are words that actually exist
in the language: trees.
Pseudo words are words that probably
do not exist in the language: “prees”.
Researchers use pseude words to test if
word specific knowledge has any
relation with learning morphological
spelling rules.
The research tested three
hypothesis:
1. children’s spelling of inflections in real
words should be ahead of their
pseudo words spelling.
2. children’s initial success in spelling
real word inflections would predict
their later success in spelling
inflections in pseudo words better
than the other way around.
Hypothesis…
3. Children’s initial success in spelling
real words stems would predict their
later success in spelling inflections in
pseudo words better than the other
way around.
Ninety pupils completed the research
which started at the age of 6 and
ended at the age of 8.
During the research the pupil’s spelling
was tested three times (20 months).
1. At the end of grade one (6y.10m)
2. In the middle of grade two (7y.6m)
3. At the end of grade three (8y.6m)
In each session pupils had
to:
Write 32 real words.
Write 32 pseudo words.
Both tasks assessed children’s spelling of
three vowels in Greek, because they have
more than one way to spell them.
These vowels behave as inflections in Greek
and therefore morphology determines the
spelling in pseudo words.
Words were given in a context of meaningful
sentences which made their grammatical
status clear.
Results.
1. children’s scores for spelling vowel sounds
in real words (stems &inflections) were
consistently better than their scores for
spelling the vowels in pseudo words.
2.children’s experiences with real words may
influence their later success with spelling
pseudo words inflections.
3.No evidence was found that success in
spelling stems in real words affects
children’s spelling of inflections in pseudo
wards later on.
Conclusions.
Word specific knowledge plays a great
role in children’s spelling.
Children's growing word specific
knowledge provides the basis for the
inferences that they increasingly make
about morphemes and spelling.
Children “grasp” the underlying
morphological spelling rules even
though not taught explicitly.
Recommendation.
The writers bring some evidence to
shows us how interesting and
beneficial could it have been teaching
morphological spelling rules explicitly,
and suggest that we should include
explicit teaching of phonological
spelling rules in our curriculum. That
is in order to get better spellers, which
also enjoy spelling.
The end.