Morphology in Unfamiliar Words

1. Write "port = carry" at the top of the board. Underneath, write six words in a column: export, import, transport, portable, report, porter.
2. Ask: "What does every one of these words have to do with carrying?" Take answers for three of them. Fish for: a porter carries bags, something portable can be carried, a report carries news back to someone.
3. Ask which one is hardest to connect. Most will say "report." Leave it as a puzzle: "re- means back, so a report carries information back." The point is that the root still carries meaning even when the word has drifted.

“Six words, one root. If you know what the root means, you have a head start on every word it lives inside — including words you have never seen.”

1. Write this sentence on the board: "The storm was so unpredictable that the ferry stayed in the harbor all week." Underline "unpredictable."
2. Read it badly on purpose — "un-pre-dick-tuh-bull" with every syllable flat — and ask what went wrong. Fish for: "You read the bits but not the word."
3. Now split it with slashes: "un / pre / dict / able." Label each part underneath: un- = not, pre- = before, dict = say, -able = can be.
4. Read each part, then blend at speed with the stress on "dict": "un-pre-DICT-a-ble." Have the class echo it twice.
5. Build the meaning from the parts out loud, in reverse order: "can be — said — before — not. Not able to be said before." Then ask: "What would that mean about a storm?" Fish for: "Nobody could say beforehand what it would do."
6. Put the meaning back into the sentence: "The storm was so hard to tell in advance that the ferry stayed in." It fits, so it stands.
7. Now show a word where the parts mislead. Write: "The children were restless all through assembly." Split "re / st / less"? Ask what goes wrong. The word is "rest + less," not re-. Then "rest + less = without rest" — and the sentence corrects it further: restless here means fidgety, not tired.
8. Write the routine on the board as three lines to stay up all week: "1. Split it. 2. Say it. 3. Build it and check it in the sentence."

“The parts get you to a meaning. The sentence tells you whether it is the right one. We do both, every time — reading the word and building its meaning are the same job.”

1. Give pairs six sentences on a card, the target word in bold: "The bridge was a huge construction of steel." "The fire alarm interrupted the spelling test." "Ana was a keen spectator at every match." "The old radio was not portable — it weighed as much as a chair." "The inspector looked closely at every crate." "Please do not contradict your sister while she is explaining."
2. For each word, pairs write the split on a whiteboard ("inter / rupt / ed"), read it to each other at speed, then write a built meaning ("broke in between").
3. Then they reread the sentence with the built meaning swapped in. If it sounds wrong, they check a "parts misled me" box and rewrite the meaning.
4. Circulate and listen for the read-aloud, not just the writing. A pair who splits "spectator" correctly but reads it "spec-TAY-tor" has done half the job.
5. Stop the class after four minutes on "contradict." Ask: "contra means against, dict means say — so what does contradict mean?" Fish for "say the opposite of what someone said." This is the one where the built meaning and the sentence meaning match almost word for word, which makes it a good model to show.

“Read it to your partner before you write anything. If your partner cannot hear the word, you have not read it yet.”

1. Students complete the morphology page: for each word, mark the split, name the root and write a meaning built from the parts.
2. Ask them to star any word where they had to change their meaning after rereading the sentence. Those stars are the most useful thing on the page for planning tomorrow.

1. Write "transportation" on the board. Ask one student to split it, one to read it, one to build a meaning.
2. Target: "trans / port / ation — carry across — the act of carrying things from one place to another."