This turnip's not for turning: Children's morphological awareness and their use of root morphemes in spelling

Abstract

We report on a study designed to examine children's understanding of (1) the connection between root morphemes and the spelling of inflected words and (2) the role of morphological awareness in this understanding. Seven- to 9-year-old children were given clues (e.g. turn) to the spelling of inflected and control words (e.g. turning and turnip). While the use of the clue was not specific to inflected words, spelling was better of the first segments (e.g. turn) of the inflected than of the control words. This difference suggests that children appreciate the role of root morphemes in spelling of inflected words. Further, it seems that morphological awareness is employed in the spelling of a wide range of words. These results are placed in context of current theories of spelling development.