- Definition
Morphological awareness is understanding how parts of words (like prefixes or suffixes) can be put together to make new words or change their meaning.
A child notices that 'playing,' 'singing,' and 'running' all end with '-ing' and mean something is happening now.
How to teach this in 30 seconds
Try this analogy: Morphological awareness is like knowing that words are built with smaller word parts, just like you build things with Lego blocks.
Ask your child: One dog. Now two dogs. One cat. Now two...?
Common mix-up: Kids may think each word is a whole new thing to learn. The key is to show them that words are often built from smaller parts they already know.
Examples
- Hearing the 'un-' in 'unhappy' and guessing it means 'not happy'.
- Knowing that adding '-s' to 'toy' makes 'toys' and means more than one.
- Seeing 'walk' inside the word 'walking' and knowing the two words are related.
morphological awareness is a term used in Ontario’s Kindergarten to Grade 8 curriculum.
Where this shows up
The descriptions on this page are SmartStudy’s own original, plain-language writing — not the Ministry’s wording. They are aligned to the Ontario Curriculum, © King’s Printer for Ontario. For the Ministry’s official wording, see the source link below. SmartStudy is an independent service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Government of Ontario or the Ministry of Education. Ontario Curriculum and Resources ↗
