UFORA- Syllables and Morphology

Syllable

Unit of spoken language with one vowel sound.

Syllabication

Dividing spoken or written words into syllables to support pronunciation or decoding.

Closed syllable

Syllable ending in consonant sound/letter pattern with usually a short vowel; cat.

Open syllable

Syllable ending in a vowel with usually a long vowel sound; me.

Vowel-consonant-e syllable

Syllable with a vowel, consonant, and final silent e; make.

Vowel-team syllable

Syllable with a vowel team spelling, such as boat.

R-controlled syllable

Syllable containing a vowel followed by r that changes its sound; car.

Consonant-le syllable

Final syllable ending consonant + le, as in -ble in table.

CLOVER

Mnemonic for six syllable types: Closed, consonant-Le, Open, Vowel team, silent-E, R-controlled.

Multisyllabic word

Word containing more than one syllable; elephant.

Syllable division

Applying word patterns to locate syllable boundaries in longer words.

Morphology

Study of meaningful word parts and how they combine to make words.

Morpheme

Smallest unit of meaning in a word; un-, help, and -ful are morphemes.

Morphemic analysis

Using roots and affixes to figure out a word's meaning or structure.

Base word

Word that can stand alone and receive affixes; play in replaying.

Root

Core meaningful part of a word; may or may not stand alone, as in struct.

Prefix

Meaningful part added to beginning of a word; re- in rewrite.

Suffix

Meaningful part added to end of a word; -ful in helpful.

Affix

Prefix or suffix attached to a base or root.

Derivational affix

Affix that changes meaning or often word class; happy → happiness.

Inflectional suffix

Suffix marking grammatical information such as tense or plural; -ed or -s.

Word sum

Representation of a word's meaningful parts, such as re + play + ing.

Word matrix

Graphic organizer showing how prefixes, bases, and suffixes combine into related words.

Etymology

Study of word origins and how meanings and forms change over time.