Students should be taught that words are composed of meaningful parts. Starting students out with the idea of a base is one of the simplest methods to build morphological knowledge. A base is an English word in its most basic form that can have prefixes and suffixes (affixes) added to modify its usage or meaning.
Generally speaking, morphology instruction should be explicit, involving direct instruction of prefixes, suffixes, and bases. Students should learn the pronunciation, spelling, and meaning of these units of language.
Early morphology instruction should focus on inflectional suffixes. These are endings, including -ed, -s, -ing, that don’t change a word’s part of speech, but instead signal a change in tense or number, a comparison, or possession.
As students build more understanding of morphology, they can be explicitly taught additional prefixes, bases, and suffixes. This may be especially helpful in junior, intermediate, and senior grades when phonics instruction has stopped. As words get longer and more complex, phonics and phonemic awareness are no longer fully sufficient to read, spell, and understand words. With morphology instruction, students are able to meaningfully explore the pronunciation, spelling, and meaning of complex words across a variety of content-specific texts.