Inflection Confections: 3rd-4th Grade Language Arts

Sep 11

Lesson Objective:

The New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Language Arts at the third and fourth grade level require students to know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding and encoding words. This involves identifying and knowing the meaning of the common prefixes and derivational suffixes, decoding words with common Latin prefixes and suffixes, and decoding multisyllabic words.

However, students with dyslexia who struggle with phonological and morphological processing may find it difficult to achieve this . This activity is targeted toward helping students grow more comfortable understanding unfamiliar and multisyllabic words through a morpheme-based strategy and art integration practices.

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Materials:

Colored construction paper
Preferred colors: dark blue, red, dark green, orange, purple, light blue, light green, pink, teal, yellow, and brown
If needed colors are not available, use blank paper and color them accordingly
Coloring materials, including at two different colored highlighters
Scissors
Glue
Word cards:

20 green cards - word contains prefix OR suffix
20 pink cards - word contains prefix AND suffix
4 blue “Sprinkle Surprise” cards (optional)

Inflection Bakery Key

“Sample Sweets” provided for parents and teachers to explain

Cupcake template

Download Lesson Materials

Pre-Activity Set-Up (for Parents and Teachers):

Gather and print all materials

Cut out word cards

Note: There are a total of 40 green and pink cards of varying difficulty; it is recommended to select about 10 each time the activity is carried out based on the abilities and skill goals for the individual child

For an extra challenge, mix the 4 “Sprinkle Surprise” cards in the selected group of pink/green word cards

Pre-Activity:

Teach preliminary lesson on prefixes and suffixes and go over meanings of the affixes you are planning on reinforcing
Go over any rules that you may come across using your selected words (dropping or changing a vowel, double consonants, etc.)
Set the scene for the activity! (see sample below)

Frosting and cupcake liners change the way we see cupcakes and make them unique, just like how prefixes and suffixes change the meanings of words

Frosting goes on top of a cupcake, like a prefix at the beginning of word
Liners are added to bottom, like how suffixes are added to end of word
The cupcake itself is the “root word” that prefixes and suffixes modify

People that go to the Inflection Confections bakery have an odd way of ordering their cupcakes, but being the master word-baker that you are, you are able to decode their orders using your knowledge of prefixes and suffixes!

Activity Execution

Choose a word card

Determine the root word and underline it on the word card
Determine if there’s a prefix; if so,

Highlight it on the word card
Find the prefix on the Inflection Bakery Key and note the color
Use the cupcake template to trace and cut out frosting in the color that matches the prefix on the Key

Determine if there’s a suffix; if so,

Highlight it using a different colored highlighter
Find the suffix on the Inflection Bakery Key and note the color
Use the cupcake template to trace and cut out the cupcake liner in the color that matches the suffix on the Key

If the word has no prefix or no suffix, use brown construction paper to create the missing top or bottom half of the cupcake (representing no frosting/liner)
Glue the frosting to the liner; glue the word card in the middle
Verbally use the word parts to infer the meaning of the word and try form a sentence with it
Decorate the cupcake using extra paper/coloring materials!
Sprinkle Surprise Challenge: Think of a word on your own that uses a prefix and/or suffix on the Key, and make a cupcake for it

The Key also includes some extra prefixes/suffixes beyond those on the word cards

Sample

Post-Activity Reflection and Discussion:

Go through the meaning of each word on the newly created “Cupcake Flashcards” once more

Define the root word and the new word; discuss how prefix and/or suffix changed it
Spend extra time on words in which the root word was modified

Facilitate a discussion to reinforce the connection between the activity and the lesson concerning prefixes and suffixes; consider rephrasing Step 2 of the Pre-Activity
Recommended to keep creations as “Cupcake Flashcards” to grow and reinforce student’s vocabulary

Learning More for Parents:

What is morphological awareness?

Dealing with multisyllabic words can be intimidating and even discouraging for young readers, especially those who struggle with text and language processing. Research also shows that students with dyslexia, in particular, struggle with morphological awareness, which involves the ability to understand and manipulate the structure of words as combinations of smaller units, called morphemes. (Melloni and Vender, 2022). Various studies have established that morphological awareness plays a key role in the development of fundamental reading skills and a primary predictor of reading proficiency (Melloni and Vender, 2022). Although dyslexia is primarily characterized by impaired phonological awareness, or the ability to recognize the individual sound structures of a word (International Dyslexia Association), studies have shown that this deficiency extends to morphological and syntactic skills as well.

What can you do to help your child?

That being said, there is also evidence to suggest that “morpheme-based reading strategies” that involve breaking complex, multisyllabic words down into smaller fundamental units can be “instrumental in helping less proficient [students] to overcome difficulties with reading fluency” (Burani, 2010). This research has been corroborated by studies that display how children with dyslexia perform stronger in “base retrieval,” in which they identify the infinitive or “root word” from an inflected or derived word than in producing inflected or derived forms of words starting from the infinitive (Melloni and Vender, 2022). Accordingly, this activity strives to develop students’ confidence in tackling complex vocabulary as well as introduce them to skills and strategies that will ultimately translate to their reading proficiency as well.

Parents and educators can support their child by appealing to their strengths in order to develop their morphological awareness. This involves particularly emphasizing the auditory and kinesthetic aspects of targeted activities. For instance, allowing students to physically “put the word together” by gluing the different parts of the cupcake together can help them gain a deeper understanding of morphemes as the building blocks of words. In the long run, parents and educators can keep the cupcakes their child creates as flashcards to reinforce the strategy and the vocabulary over time. This method of syllabicating big words and decoding their meaning based on their morphemes will ultimately help them as they take on actual reading texts with unfamiliar vocabulary.