🧭 Morphology Part 4: Where Do We Go From Here?

Next Steps

We’re watching it unfold: National test scores are sliding, reading is not recovering post-pandemic, and leadership at the federal level is shifting, raising questions about long-term priorities for public education. Private schools and Home Educators are trying to do more with less. With school budgets tightening, it is harder than ever to invest in training, curriculum, or support.

Teachers are stretched thin. Students are falling behind, not for lack of effort, but for lack of time-tested, research-driven, doable solutions that fit within real-world constraints.

This is where morphology comes in.

Not as a silver bullet, but as an under-leveraged tool in literacy instruction. That’s why we chose this topic to kick off this In Focus series! Morphemes (the smallest units of meaning) give students a way to tackle unfamiliar words and grow vocabulary quickly. When we help students become “Affix Detectors”, we’re not just building decoding skills. We’re giving them access to meaning. And in a climate where comprehension gaps are widening, that matters.

We can’t afford to wait and see what’s going to happen.

Here’s the good news. You can begin now. Morphology instruction doesn’t require a big budget. It’s built on knowledge and intentional practice, not expensive materials. Start with what we know works. You don’t need a perfect system. You need a first step, such as:

• Introduce one morphology game a week

• Post an anchor chart that shows common affixes

• Start calling attention to prefixes and suffixes in your read-alouds

• Explore 🔴The Six! —an affordable, ready-to-teach resource that helps students build real reading momentum, simultaneously equipping and training the trainers so literacy gains can scale.

The point isn’t to overhaul. Or give up, or wait it out. It’s to begin.

🔔 Your Turn

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the big picture, start small. Choose one thing you can implement this week that helps your students build awareness of how words work. Morphology is teachable. And it’s powerful.

Let’s move forward, one morpheme at a time.

Let us show you how 🔴The Six! can support your students. Grab a sample and learn more here. Or contact us directly.

Up next In Focus: Spelling and Reading Connections