Alison Clarke

Manipulating Morphemes: Using Manipulatives to Build Words with Prefixes and Suffixes

A Talk by Alison Clarke OAM (Spelfabet)

About this Talk

When building words with prefixes and suffixes, it's often necessary to adjust junctures - doubling final consonants (run-running), dropping final e (hope-hoping), changing y to i (cry-cried) or assimilating the last sound/letter of a prefix (in+mature=immature). It's also important to know when NOT to make these changes e.g. jump-jumping (not jumpping), open-opening (not openning), hope-hopeful (not hopful), cry-crying (not criing) and in+considerate = inconsiderate (not icconsiderate).

Wordy rules with lots of 'if-then' and 'all except' type language tend to be poorly understood by young children and children with language difficulties. This session will discuss strategies for showing learners how juncture changes work, and how we stack prefixes and suffixes to build long words, without lots of wordy metalanguage. Here are some videos which give you an idea of this approach: https://youtu.be/kC_9gwehT4k, https://youtu.be/QIrEmy4agpw, https://youtu.be/kMGClqzCoO8

26 June 2025, 11:00 AM

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

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About The Speaker

Alison Clarke

Alison Clarke OAM

Spelfabet