ASHA Learning Pass

Morphological awareness (MA)–the ability to attend to and manipulate morphemes such as affixes and base words–impacts a variety of reading skills. All students, especially those with weak language and reading skills, can benefit from MA instruction to help them attend to and recognize frequently occurring morphemes in words they read, spell, and learn. This session discusses the implementation of MA instruction for at-risk and struggling readers in the elementary grades using high-utility morphemes through teacher-led and digital-based activities. A list of high-utility morphemes that teachers can use to choose instructional targets for each grade level is provided. This presentation also explores the impact of digital morphology instruction on student reading.

This course was recorded at the 2023 ASHA Convention in Boston (session 2020).

Related Courses

See more sessions from the 2023 ASHA Convention.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• Explain how morphological awareness is related to skilled reading and spelling
• Describe instructional practices that are supported by the research for increasing students’ morphological awareness, reading, and spelling skills
• Develop lessons and activities using high-utility, grade-based morphemes that focus on teaching both spelling patterns and meanings

Presenter Information

Jennifer Zoski, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a Staff Learning Scientist at Amplify Education. Her research focuses on school-age language and literacy instruction and intervention and educational technology. Prior to joining Amplify, Jennifer worked as a school-based speech-language pathologist with a focus on supporting elementary students with language delays and disorders.

Disclosures:

• Full-time employee at Amplify Education
• Involved in the development of the digital literacy curriculum discussed in this presentation, and participate in ongoing research and analysis of the program

Robin Irey (nonpresenting author) is an educational research specialist in the Dyslexia Center at University of California, San Francisco. Her research interests are informed by her previous experience as a special education classroom teacher and include early reading acquisition, reading intervention, metalinguistic underpinnings of reading, cognitive processes of reading, morphological awareness, and assessment.

Disclosures:

• Previously funded and continuing to work unfunded with a team of researchers that is investigating the efficacy of Amplify Reading

Yunyun Shao (nonpresenting author) is a Data Science Manager at Amplify Education.

Disclosures:

• Data scientist for Boost Reading in Amplify Education

Assessment Type

Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

To earn continuing education credit, you must complete the learning assessment by the end date below.

Program History and CE Information

Content origination date: November 2023
End date: June 17, 2030.

This course is offered for 0.1 ASHA CEUs (Introductory level, Professional area).