Phoneme and phonological awareness have had a center place in education over the past decade especially. To close the vocabulary gap, morphological awareness is also critical. Morphological awareness refers to recognizing the presence and of morphemes (the smallest meaning units in language) in words. An example of morphological awareness is knowing that the meanings of the following words are related: create, creation, creative, creator, recreate.
Kuo and Anderson (2006) summarize research that shows that morphological awareness makes a difference in decoding of morphologically complex words and to comprehension of text. As students move through the grades, morphological awareness increasingly predicts students’ reading.
Kuo, L., & Anderson, R.C. (2006). Morphological awareness and learning to read: A cross-language perspective. Educational Psychologist, 41 (3), 161-180.