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Children’s spelling of base, inflected, and derived words: Links with morphological awareness

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Abstract

Two studies examined whether young children use their knowledge of the spelling of base words to spell inflected and derived forms. In Study 1, 5- to 9-year-olds wrote the correct letter (s or z) more often to represent the medial /z/ sound of words derived from base forms (e.g., noisy, from noise) than to represent the medial /z/ sound of one-morpheme control words (e.g., busy). In Study 2, 7- to 9-year-olds preserved the spelling of /z/ in pseudoword base forms when writing ostensibly related inflected and derived forms (e.g., kaise-kaisy). In both studies, the children’s tendency to preserve the spelling of /z/ between base and inflected/derived words was related to their performance on analogy tasks of morphological awareness. These findings add to the growing body of evidence that children recognise and represent links of meaning between words from relatively early in their writing experience, and that morphological awareness facilitates the spelling of morphologically complex words.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted while the author was a doctoral student in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and was funded by a Commonwealth Scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Locked Bag 30, 7001, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Nenagh Kemp

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  1. Nenagh Kemp
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Correspondence to Nenagh Kemp.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Study 1: Experimental Words

Base words, with s: noise, rose, nose, lose, wise, chose; with z: breeze, freeze, sneeze, buzz, froze, fizz. Derived words, with s: noisy, rosy, nosy, loser, wisest, chosen; with z: breezy, freezer, Sneezy, buzzer, frozen, fizzy. Control words, with s: daisy, easy, busy, poison, pleasant, raisin; with z: crazy, bulldozer, wizard, razor, dozen, dizzy.

NB. Four ‘Control’ words are related to other words: crazy to craze, razor to raze, easy to ease, and pleasant to please. However, craze, raze, and ease are much rarer than their derived forms, and seemed unlikely to␣be known by most of the children tested. Please is relatively frequent, but its connection to pleasant was thought not to be obvious to young children.

Study 1: Sentence Analogy Task of Morphological Awareness

Practice analogies

a. The sun is shining. It’s a sunny day.

There’s fog all around. It’s a ______ (day).

b. Betty is good at cooking. She’s a good cook.

Sue is good at reading. She's a good ______.

c. Ben likes building things. He wants to be a builder.

Laura likes nursing sick people. She wants to be a _________.

Test analogies

1. That man comes from France. He is French.

That man comes from England. He is ________.

2. That lady is good at dancing. She's an excellent dancer.

That lady is very good at acting. She’s a famous __________.

3. Everyone talks about how good Bill is at music. They say he is very musical.

Everyone talks about Angela’s beauty. They say she is very __________.

4. He’s going to count along two. It’s the second one.

He’s going to count along four. It’s the __________ (one).

5. I sometimes feel full of anger. Then I am angry!

I sometimes feel full of fury. Then I am ________!

6. John likes to cycle in the park. He’s a keen cyclist.

Jack likes to run in the park. He’s a keen _______.

7. Tim is better at maths than anyone else in the class. He’s the best at maths.

Jill is faster at running than anyone else in the class. She’s the _______ (at running).

8. Mum told me about all the colours in the painting. She said it’s very colourful.

Mum told me about the dangers if you climb that wall. She said it’s very _______.

Study 2: Experimental Words

Clue words (in parentheses) and pseudowords presented in each sentence context type. The spellings given for the pseudowords are just one possible way of representing their sounds.

‘Base provided’ sentences, inflected words, with -s: (mease) meases, (pluse) pluses, (ploze) plozes, (coize) coizes, with -ed: (jaise) jaised, (drease) dreased, (oze) ozed, (wuze) wuzed. Derived words, with -y: (kaise) kaisy, (glise) glisy, (boze) bozy, (fruze) fruzy; with -er: (taise) taiser, (hise) hiser, (moize) moizer, (woze) wozer. ‘Copy word’ sentences, inflected words, with -s: (zoses) zoses, (oises) oises, (fizes) fizes, (reazes) reazes, with -ed: (chised) chised, (steesed) steesed, (bazed) bazed, (neazed) neazed. Derived words, with -y: (thaisy) thaisy, (toosy) toosy, (tazy) tazy, (moozy) moozy; with -er: (beaser) beaser, (cluser) cluser, (pazer) pazer, (bleezer) bleezer. ‘Pseudoclue’ sentences, inflected words, with -s: (noses) jises, (roses) doises, (dozes) bizes, (sizes) foozes, with -ed: (pleased) mosed, (closed) preased, (amazed) truzed, (sneezed) fozed. Derived words, with -y: (busy) naisy, (easy) nisy, (breezy) foizy, (lazy) wuzy; with -er: (loser) keaser, (laser) voser, (buzzer) aizer, (bulldozer) drazer.

Study 2: Tasks of Morphological Awareness

First practice item of each task shows full analogy format. Subsequent items show sentence frame, followed by Puppet 1 target word, Puppet 2 response, Puppet 1 target, Child response.

a.

Plurals

Practice analogies

a. I want to see the big mountain. I want to see the big mountains.

I want to see the big hill. _________________________.

b. Look at the ________ over there. (children - child, trees - ?)

Test analogies.

1. I found the pretty ________ in the woods. (leaf - leaves, box - ?)

2. I like the ________ from next door. (cat - cats, mouse - ?)

3. The __________ cooked a cake. (women - woman, boys - ?)

4. I hurt my ________ on the way here. (feet - foot, teeth - ?)

b.

Verbs

Practice analogies

a. I talk to my friends. I talked to my friends.

I play with my friends. __________________.

b. I ______ a bird in the tree. (heard - hear, saw - ?)

Test analogies

1. He _______ a long way. (walks - walked, runs - ?)

2. Jane ________ the ball over the wall. (threw - throws, kicked - ?)

3. The dog __________ the chair. (scratched – is scratching, chased - ?)

4. Bob _________ the ball to Anne. (gives - gave, sings - ?)

c.

Nouns

Practice analogies:

 

Test analogies:

a. teacher teach

b. reading reader

1. act actress

singer _______

cooking _______

dance _______

2. runner run

3. ballerina ballet

4. serve servant

cyclist _______

musician _______*

build ________

  1. *musician-music involves two noun forms, because we could not find another type of word-ending. However, it still tests the ability to manipulate grammatically appropriate noun endings.

d.

Adjectives

Practice analogies:

 

Test analogies:

a. wonder wonderful

b. luck lucky

1. wooden wood

fame _______

hope _______

dirty _______

2. happiness happy

3. warm warmth

4. danger dangerous

strength _______

high _______

colour ________

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Kemp, N. Children’s spelling of base, inflected, and derived words: Links with morphological awareness. Read Writ 19, 737–765 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-006-9001-6

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