tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:08:52 +0000vocabulary learningmorphological awarenessroots and affixesword consciousnessword originsreadfamilies of wordsmotivationprimary gradesteacher knowledgecontent knowledgecontextEnglish language learnersacademic wordsinventing and word playdictionarypovertypreschoolspellingmetalinguistic awarenessreading to childrensurveyCommon Core State Standardsassessmentscience vocabularydigital learningSpanish cognatesspecial needsinterestlibrariesslangcomprehensionconnotationsmultiple meaningsselecting words to teachword listscontent standardsbook reviewfluencylearning to readtelevisionRTIconceptscontractionsdialectsparentssorting pictures and/or wordsfeaturedmythologyBridging the Verbal Divide copyright (c) 2009-2010https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)Blogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-6306419515769867102Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:36:00 +00002026-01-23T09:56:29.272-07:00digital learningEnglish language learnersscience vocabularysorting pictures and/or wordsvocabulary learning post updated 1-20-2026Halfway into the first month of the new year. Hope it’s been happy enough. As for me, I have been exploring Amadine, an art app for doodling around on my iPad, and reading e-books. (Love the George Cross mystery series by Tim Sullivan.) I rarely read a paperback anymore, as that world is fading away. For better or worse, this is the digital age.It’s for the better as https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2026/01/vocabulary-via-images-heyday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-7147167064620701394Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:32:00 +00002026-01-01T11:35:09.083-07:00dictionarydigital learningroots and affixes Happy New Year. Let’s Talk Definitions, Specifically “Artificial + Intelligence + Slop”  Cambridge Dictionary defines intelligence as "the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason." Learning is one key component of intelligence, but it is arguably the least advanced aspect compared with the ability to make judgments and form https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2026/01/word-of-year-2025.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8698742366766756184Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:04:00 +00002025-11-29T08:04:35.445-07:00contractionsspellingGreetings. As discussed in a recent post, many students struggle to correctly position the apostrophe within contractions and possessives. Spelling contractions correctly can be a challenge.Learners do not typically struggle with the meaning of contractions, except homonyms— who's versus whose, it's versus its, you’re versus your and they’re/ there/ their. Contractions (and https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2025/11/contractions-addendum.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-4282649079061453366Sun, 09 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +00002025-11-29T08:12:23.818-07:00comprehensioncontractionsreadspellingword originsApostrophe comes from Greek, according to Etymology Online:apostrophe(n.1)"mark indicating an omitted letter," 1580s, from French apostrophe, from Late Latin apostrophus, from Greek apostrophos (prosoidia) "(the accent of) turning away," thus, a mark showing where a letter has been omitted… In English, the mark often represents loss of -e- in -es, possessive ending. By 18c. it was being extended https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/10/contractions-subtractions-deletions.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-1889353328131935497Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:33:00 +00002025-11-29T08:13:12.390-07:00inventing and word playvocabulary learningHello and happy harvest season. Educators know that vocabulary develops not only through dedicated lessons but also through reading, and thoughtfully chosen daily language. Expand vocabulary by using new words and synonyms for known concepts in discussions at home and school. Add that to wide reading and word study, including morphology lessons, and new vocabulary will take root, https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2025/11/harvesting-bumper-crop-of-vocabulary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-4794215752729471706Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:21:00 +00002025-11-08T23:36:25.213-07:00book reviewfamilies of wordsmetalinguistic awarenessmorphological awarenessroots and affixesvocabulary learning Announcement! Hot off the press! The root CRED (to trust, to believe) and its morphological derivatives illustrate the cover of the newly published 3rd edition of Vocabulary Through Morphemes: Suffixes, Prefixes, and Roots for Intermediate and Secondary Grades, student book (Ebbers, 2025). This is published by Silvereye Learning Resources .Established in 1992, Silvereye Learning Resources https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2025/04/announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8994534446646855889Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:46:00 +00002025-11-17T09:08:23.254-07:00selecting words to teachword consciousness What a fine thing it would be, if students would take note of new and unfamiliar words -- and think about them -- rather than merely skipping over them. This post adds more to the theme of developing word consciousness, including sensitivity to unknown words.  The method described here requires one student to develop knowledge of unfamiliar words within a text, in order to then teach the https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2024/07/sixth-grade-esl-study-promoting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-2817628769692595780Thu, 20 Jun 2024 04:38:00 +00002025-04-08T11:35:06.342-06:00academic wordscomprehensionfamilies of wordsmorphological awarenessAction! Language is wrapped around action. A single word -- a verb -- can stand alone as a complete sentence: "Go!"  In what ways does vocabulary knowledge depend on understanding the basic functions of verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs? How does morphological knowledge intersect with knowledge of syntax, grammatical function, or word class? How does vocabulary knowledge, morphological https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2024/06/open-floodgates-with-morphosyntactic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)Montana, USA46.8796822 -110.362565818.569448363821152 -145.5188158 75.189916036178843 -75.2063158tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8961959552769804376Tue, 21 May 2024 16:24:00 +00002025-11-08T23:35:19.892-07:00comprehensionlearning to readmorphological awarenessprimary gradesspellingteacher knowledgeEnglish words are morphophonemic.  morph + phon Let's break that down quickly. Phon: Phonemes are discrete sounds within a word such as /k/  /a/  /ch/ in catch.  When learning to read, children study phoneme-grapheme correspondence --the sound associated with a particular letter(s), such as in "a is for apple" as the old saying goes.Morph: https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2024/05/teaching-reading-with-thunder-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-1318427532742982946Thu, 02 May 2024 17:25:00 +00002025-11-08T23:32:07.888-07:00families of wordslearning to readmorphological awarenessprimary gradesteacher knowledgeword originsGreetings! Some news:Today, EDVIEW360 published a brief article I wrote on the importance of integrating phonics and phonological awareness lessons with morphological awareness lessons when teaching children to read.  Based on growing evidence from empirical studies, I suggest beginning to teach morphological concepts at a younger age than previously thought. Begin in primary grades, after https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2024/05/thunder-and-lightning-and-this-and-that.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8134362226426532760Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:31:00 +00002024-05-08T16:08:30.650-06:00families of wordsinventing and word playmetalinguistic awarenessmultiple meaningsroots and affixesHello out there. Here’s an idea for those few extra moments in the classroom. It’s a quick verbal exercise for elementary and secondary grades. Engage free thinking to seek connections across words. Generate streams of morphological word families. Morphological reasoning is a Metalinguistic Activity.Pandemic. Epidemic. Hyperglutaminemic. Endemic.  What’s the common element across these https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2020/05/pandemic-v-epidemic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-3163319195935189345Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:56:00 +00002025-11-08T23:37:50.836-07:00contextinterestlearning to readmotivation This post comes to us courtesy of Ally Bush, Marketing/Communications Coordinator at Reading Partners. Reading Partners is a nonprofit dedicated to serving the literacy needs of our nation's students. We envision a future where all children in the US have the reading skills necessary to reach their full potential. By empowering communities through individualized instruction and measurable https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2020/06/using-poetry-to-develop-reading-skills.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-3301382390507870135Wed, 22 Apr 2020 22:37:00 +00002020-04-24T13:27:06.151-06:00morphological awarenessroots and affixesword consciousnessword origins MINDFULNESS is a noun composed of three morphemes, mind + ful + ness. It is an abstract noun, a nebulous quality, a characteristic, a psychological state, and in some sense, an entity. Abstract, invisible, untouchable. But its presence within a group or an individual, and its lack, can feel quite concrete.                   According to&https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2020/04/mindfulness-madness-and-morphology.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-3740414013162034329Tue, 07 Mar 2017 23:30:00 +00002017-03-09T11:13:33.659-07:00book reviewcomprehensioncontent knowledge Drawing from years of research applied to adolescent literacy, Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphy have recently distilled their experimental results and methodology into a practical resource. Published in December 2016, LEADING FOR LITERACY: A READING APPRENTICESHIP APPROACH is designed for teachers and students in secondary and tertiary school. The authors describe an https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2017/03/disciplinary-literacy-webinar-and-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-5309461232017827862Fri, 09 Dec 2016 06:14:00 +00002016-12-09T10:18:08.071-07:00dictionaryvocabulary learningword lists This post is provided by Carla Kessler, Director of Learning at LogixLab LLC, and creator of Word Lab Web. Formerly a Title I Coordinator and Learning Specialist, Carla has been recognized as an Outstanding Educator by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International. As a 25-year veteran teacher of the middle grades, she has been recognized for her skills in implementing innovative curriculum that https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-90-minute-challenge-dare-you-by.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8319976104289685490Fri, 11 Nov 2016 04:02:00 +00002016-11-11T11:23:37.335-07:00interestmetalinguistic awarenessmorphological awarenessword consciousness Metacognitive, Metalinguistic, Metamorphological The purpose of Vocabulogic is to help educators "bridge the verbal divide" that exists between those students who freely use language as a precision tool and those who do not, for whatever reason.  The photo of the Golden Gate Bridge (The Tahoe Guy / CC) is a metaphor for spanning the language gulf. This gulf is deepened by https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2016/11/meta-meta-meta.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-4101284989128968994Tue, 08 Nov 2016 21:23:00 +00002016-11-14T10:17:06.801-07:00morphological awarenessroots and affixesword origins(Thank you for continuing to visit the site despite my absence. Note that I updated the archives link. The widget thingy had stopped working. For links to all posts, see "POSTS" under the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, above.) Just a reminder to go out and vote, and a few words about the Latin root LECT as in elect, electing, elected, election, electives, and the related words select, https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2016/11/election-day-2016.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-7878943745174588404Sun, 07 Jul 2013 12:03:00 +00002016-08-23T20:33:52.421-06:00Common Core State Standardsfamilies of wordsmetalinguistic awarenessmorphological awarenessroots and affixes We strolled the San Francisco wharf, stopping at the National Historic Park Maritime Museum and checking out the ships on the Hyde Street Pier. Near Aquatic Park we approached this refreshingly pungent tree. Click the tree image. It will grow. BIG ★ BIGGER  ★ BIGGEST According to the Common Core State Standards, children in kindergarten and first grade must learn how common https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2013/07/mindful-zen-of-morphology-revisited.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-7245536407792801210Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:38:00 +00002016-11-09T12:08:12.331-07:00Common Core State Standardsfamilies of wordsmetalinguistic awarenessmorphological awarenessroots and affixes Sequestration is upon us. Specific budget cuts will be announced, and for each nonexempt federal program, this will be carried out by some kind of Edward Sequester Hands. The incisions will be felt most by the unemployed and the furloughed, and I expect they won't be happy about it. In fact, the tune might go something like this: It's sequestered we are, and sequestered we stay, Till the debt https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2013/03/sequestration-and-complexity-of-word.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-993495026231064399Sun, 03 Feb 2013 08:17:00 +00002013-07-07T06:05:05.410-06:00Common Core State Standardsfamilies of wordsmetalinguistic awarenessmorphological awarenessroots and affixes Greetings! This month, I wrote a guest post titled Getting "in" to Prefixes for Visual Thesaurus/Vocabulary.com.  If interested, see link below. But first, stay a while and browse. Scroll down for a few posts, dig into the archives (see links above), read an entry from a guest author (see links in sidebar), or explore the dozens of websites listed at the bottom of the page. Getting "in" https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2013/02/getting-in-to-prefixes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8305296921847751786Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:31:00 +00002013-02-03T01:20:38.119-07:00vocabulary learning This post is courtesy of the MCVIP vocabulary research team, which includes primary investigators Jim Baumann (University of Missouri-Columbia), Patrick Manyak (University of Wyoming), and Camille Blachowicz (National Louis University). Mike Graves (University of Minnesota, Emeritus) has been a consultant on the project, and it has been his research and writing that have formed the basis for https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/10/mcvip-multi-faceted-comprehensive.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8106202409671636178Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:59:00 +00002016-11-08T10:49:56.757-07:00Common Core State Standardsconnotationsword consciousnessword origins I begin with Mark Forsyth's entertaining video clip discussing the etymology of a few political terms and conclude with George Orwell's more serious essay on politics and communication. A number of Vocabulogic posts have explored how words tend to change in form, meaning, and usage over time, referencing the study of etymology. For example, in one post I describe how the Common Core State https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-politics-and-word-meaning-with-video.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-2713351837911959680Sun, 02 Sep 2012 05:05:00 +00002012-09-02T13:16:25.865-06:00book reviewdigital learningteacher knowledge Crystal, D. (2010). A little book of language. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. I discuss A Little Book of Language, written by linguistics expert David Crystal, known for The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and The Stories of English.  However, this "Little Book" is written for adolescents, not adults, even though many adults have read it, including teachers, https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/09/summary-little-book-of-language-by.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8161423337171142623Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:12:00 +00002016-11-08T10:51:25.245-07:00dictionaryinventing and word playmetalinguistic awarenessprimary gradesword consciousness In the most recent post, I discussed the minimal reference to studying etymology allocated by the Common Core State Standards, and I attempted to make a case for spending some time on little word histories anyway, regardless of the Standards. Today, a related topic -- lexicography.  Courtesy of TED Talks, I am excited to share Dr. Erin McKean's entertaining yet educational presentation onhttps://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/08/video-joy-of-lexicography-erin-mckean.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115493794020921973.post-8115953125487531063Sun, 05 Aug 2012 07:01:00 +00002012-08-05T15:22:11.819-06:00Common Core State Standardscontent standardssurveyword consciousnessword origins The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) provide learning goals for grades K-12. These new objectives have been adopted by 45 states (see map). In this post, I discuss the CCSS that pertain to etymology and morphology and argue that the Standards do not adequately address etymology. I begin with the survey results and conclude with websites and books for teaching etymology. The survey https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2012/08/etymology-morphology-standards-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Susan M. Ebbers)