Research School Network: Roots with reach: morphology as a cross-curricular connector Ahead of our free webinar, Steve Trafford explains why harnessing the power of morphology can benefit pupil understanding.

Despite what some corners of social media may have you believe, teaching is actually a job packed with moments of sheer joy, excitement and satisfaction: a pupil might suddenly ​‘get’ something after struggling, show a spark of creativity, or put into practice exactly what you’ve taught them to do. One such moment occurred in a recent Year 8 lesson of mine.

Pupils were discussing a passage from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: ​‘The thunder ceased; but the rain still continued, and the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness’. I had asked pupils to work together to try to clarify the meaning of the word ​‘impenetrable’ using the surrounding context as well as breaking down the morphology of the word.

As I was circulating, I overheard a pupil explaining the word to their talk partner, making a link to the word ​‘impermeable’ that they had recently learned in Geography. She described how the prefix ​‘im-’ in both words means ​‘not’, and so it must mean that nothing can get through the darkness.

It reminded me of the power of word roots to act as a cross-curricular connector, a node that brings together concepts and ideas from different subject disciplines.

The power of root words

Take a root like ​‘bio-’, meaning life. We might see this in the words ​‘biodiversity’ in Geography, ​‘biodegradable’ in Chemistry, and ​‘biography’ in English. Supporting pupils to see the patterns that make up words can help tame the challenge of new disciplinary vocabulary that they face as they move into and through secondary school.

Patterns within subjects are also useful. Mathematics is littered with word roots of Greek origin, for example ​‘tri-’, meaning three. This is seen in words like ​‘triangle’, ​‘trigonometry’, ​‘trilateral’ and ​‘trivariate’. Another Greek root ‘-logue’, meaning ​‘speech’, appears throughout the English curriculum in words like ​‘dialogue’, ​‘prologue’, ​‘epilogue’ and ​‘soliloquy’.

The EEF’s Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools Guidance Report outlines the power of morphology instruction to help pupils remember new words, deepen their understanding, and improve their spelling.

Pupil participation

Whilst direct, teacher-led morphology instruction will be helpful, we also need to consider pupil participation, so that they can recognise and use patterns and networks of meaning when learning new vocabulary.

Activities like morpheme webs and matrices can help pupils to break words down and see how they are constructed, while matching prefixes and suffixes to definitions can help cement key knowledge.

Short, game-like tasks reinforcing morphological patterns can work with pupils of any age. For example, giving one minute to write down as many words as they can beginning with the prefix dis‑, and then discussing what the words have in common.

Teacher think alouds during reading can also help to reinforce the benefits and uses of morphology. We might encounter an unfamiliar word and narrate our thought process out loud: ​‘I know the prefix ​‘sub-’ means ​‘under’, so it must mean…’

Ultimately, harnessing the power of morphology and its associated patterns helps us to see vocabulary teaching as a task not just about teaching pupils new words, but about teaching them how to learn new words.