Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth-grade students

This study explored the effects of instruction in morphemic analysis (select prefixes) and contextual analysis (select context clue types). Four classes of fifth-grade students were assigned to a morphemic-only, context-only, or combined morphemic-context experimental group or to an instructed control group, Following twelve 50-minute lessons, students were tested on their ability to recall the meanings of words used to teach the morphemic and contextual analysis skills (lesson words), to infer die meanings of uninstructed words that contained taught morphemic elements or words that were embedded in text that included taught context clues (transfer words), and to comprehend text containing transfer words. The results indicated that (a) there was an immediate and delayed effect of morphemic and contextual anlysis instruction for lesson words; (b) there was an immediate effect of morphemic and contextual analysis instruction for transfer words; (c) there was no evidence that instruction in morphemic or contextual analysis, either in isolation or combination, enhanced students' text comprehension and, (d) students were generally just as effective at inferring word meanings when the morphemic and contextual analysis instruction was provided in combination as when the instruction was provided separately.