What is the justification that literacy instruction should teach about etymology?
Pete Bowers, PhD
April 13, 2017
The question in this title grows from Jan’s reflection on my
listserve post (shared by Marcia Henry) and my article in
Educational Psychologist (Bowers, & Bowers, 2017) that
addresses structured word inquiry (SWI) (Bowers & Kirby,
2010). SWI can be described as word-level literacy instruction
in which teachers and students take a scientific inquiry
approach to understand English spelling by looking at how it
represents the interrelation of morphology, etymology and
phonology. Jan pointed to the fact that there is little or no
empirical evidence from instructional research documenting
the benefit of teaching etymology, especially for struggling
readers and writers (spellers). She explained that for this
reason, “SPELL-Links does not explicitly teach etymology
(word origins, histories and evolutions).” The question to me
then is: what is the justification for teaching about etymology?
Those guiding their instruction with research are asking if they
should add etymology to their current instruction. But I am not
suggesting that we should just “add” etymological content to
any existing instructional practice. Etymology is not an
appendage to how our writing system works that can be
included or removed without affecting understanding of the
whole system. The influences of etymology on English
orthography can only be understood in combination with
morphological and phonological influences. Thus, I reframe the
question posed to me in this way:
What is the evidence that understanding the role of
etymology in orthography could help me to reframe my
instruction such that I could reasonably expect it to
improve literacy learning - especially for younger and
struggling students?
Beginning with a theoretical framework
A crucial starting point to this response is found in Jan’s post
where she describes what she sees as a common foundation
of SPELL-Links and SWI:
…[B]oth SWI and SPELL-Links acknowledge that spellings
of words are highly logical and regular when all sub-lexical
constraints are considered in combination.
Indeed this premise reflects a guiding principal of SWI, that
instruction should accurately reflect how our writing system
works. As linguist Richard Venezky (1999) pointed out:
English orthography is not a failed phonetic transcription
system, invented out of madness or perversity. Instead, it
is a more complex system that preserves bits of history
(i.e., etymology), facilitates understanding, and also
translates into sound” (p. 4).
I assume there is no debate about whether etymology has an
influence on English spelling. Rather, the question being posed
is whether we should we teach about it. That question begs
another that I encourage educators to consider:
If you agree that English more logical and regular when all
sub-lexical constraints are considered in combination,
what is the justification for not addressing the role of one
of the three foundational influences on English spelling?
Instructional research is hugely important, but is it really
the necessary threshold for instructional choices?
Instructional research does not happen in a vacuum. If it is to
advance, it needs to look beyond current evidence to search
for promising practices that have not yet been empirically
tested. How do we judge what practices have this kind of
potential? Two obvious sources are, (1) a logical basis in
theory, and (2) anecdotal evidence from those who have
already been engaging in the as-yet-untested practice.
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The inclusion of etymology in SWI more than meets both of
these criteria. In fact, the history of instructional research with
regard to morphological instruction offers a clear cautionary
tale about waiting for evidence from instructional studies rather
than building on strong theory that suggests rich instructional
innovations to study.
Morphological instruction has become a major focus for
instructional research recently. The publishing of metaanalyses and reviews of morphological instruction beginning in
2008 has helped spark this interest.
Consider the point Carlisle (2010) made in her review of
morphological instruction lamenting the lack of attention to the
instructional suggestions in Carol Chomsky’s classic (1970)
work. Carlisle wrote,
In rereading Chomsky (1970), I realized that I had
forgotten how detailed and thoughtful her suggestions
were for ways that students might benefit from
instruction in morphological awareness. I was further
struck by how little has been done since 1970 to
investigate the nature and value of instruction in
morphological awareness. (p. 481)
Chomsky didn’t offer evidence from controlled instructional
studies. Instead, her instructional suggestions drew on deep
insights of how the writing system works based on on linguistic
research. But educators or researchers tied to the view that we
should not recommend instructional practice unless we have
evidence from enough controlled instructional studies had a
long wait before that work was done. Thirty years after
Chomsky’s highly cited paper, the National Reading Panel
(2000) did not mention the word morphology. It was 40 years
before we had meta-analyses that confirmed Chomsky’s
linguistically based instructional suggestions. In fact, those
findings countered common (but untested) recommendations
from researchers that morphology should not be taught for less
able and younger students. The evidence from the metaanalyses is that those groups gained the most!
But it is worth asking why it took so long for morphology to
feature in the instructional research, given how long it has
been known that “... the present orthography is not merely a
letter-to-sound system riddled with imperfections, but instead,
a more complex and more regular relationship wherein
phoneme and morpheme share leading roles” (Venezky, 1967,
p. 77).
With that history, I would council extreme caution before
sending the message that we should avoid teaching about a
key linguistic feature that makes sense of our spelling system
simply because we don’t have instructional evidence yet.
We should work to understand etymology before rejecting
it as a feature of instruction
In this document, I offer an introduction to how etymology
works to show that it is essential to any instruction that hopes
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to have children begin their literacy learning journey with the
sense that English spelling is a highly logical and ordered
system that they can understand. I share examples that touch
on what this can look like in a classroom or tutoring situation,
but this is not a document on “how to teach etymology”.
Instead, my focus is to give you enough of an understanding of
etymology that you might be motivated to study more about it
and look at ways to bring that understanding into your
instruction.
Synchronic and Diachronic Etymology
Bowers & Bowers (2017) addresses these two dimensions of
etymology. Teaching about synchronic etymology -- the
spelling-meaning connections between words that evolved
together -- is a rich way of making sense of the spelling of
many high frequency words that cannot be understood when
instruction only addresses phonological and morphological
influences.
Learning from the spelling of <two>: You may already teach
aspects of synchronic etymology without knowing it. If you
have drawn attention to the <w> in <two> as a way to link it to
words like <twice> and <twin> and separate it from its
homophones <to> and <too> you have been drawing on this
aspect of etymology. The word <two> also uses an
orthographic structure called an “etymological marker”. These
are letters that are not graphemes as they play no phonological
role. Their sole function is to link words of related meaning.
Teachers who know about etymological marker letters can
make sure that, from the beginning of instruction, students are
aware that pronunciation shouldn’t be expected to explain
every letter in a word and that there is nothing exceptional
about spellings that have no association with pronunciation.
We can reasonably expect that instruction which fosters
understanding of spellings will motivate students more than
instruction that has them rely on rote memorization.
The spelling of <two> also offers the opportunity to teach about
the “homophone principle” which describes the fact that words
have evolved to use distinct spellings to mark that distinction in
meaning (Venezky, 1999). That principle is crucial to
understanding countless spellings.
See THIS VIDEO for a lesson that
explicitly teaches graphemephoneme correspondences in the
context of introducing the homophone
principle and another linguistic
concept (function and content words)
in a grade 1 class with no prior experience with SWI.
Some may be thinking “but I already teach about <w> in <two>
linking to <twice> or some of these other linguistic concepts.”
Great! This means you are drawing on etymology for your
instruction whether you knew it or not. The lack of evidence for
this practice from instructional research should not keep us
from leveraging observations that make sense of the spelling
of words like <two>. But when teachers understand the
linguistic process that gives rise to examples like these, they
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are better prepared to identify and make sense of more
spellings that would otherwise have to be taught based on rote
memory. There is certainly no pedagogical research
suggesting rote memory is superior for learning that
understanding meaningful connections.
Diachronic etymology is about the the influence of word origin
(e.g. Latin, Greek, Old English roots) has on current words.
Teachers draw on diachronic etymology when they use
etymological references (like the excellent and free Etymoline)
to find the roots of words. Words that derive from the same
root will share connections in meaning and spelling. Teachers
who learn how to work with etymological references gain an
incredibly rich tool for vocabulary building and helping learners
understand spelling-meaning connections for countless words.
For example, they can use this knowledge to collect members
of etymological families to investigate. But more crucially, it is
not possible to do scientific morphological analysis without
understanding the interrelation between etymological and
morphological families.
The interrelation of morphology & etymology
Structural analysis with the “word sum” -- a standard linguistic
tool -- is necessary for safely identifying the base element of a
complex word. The word matrix offers a way to see and study
the structural interrelation of morphological families that build
on a common base element. Both of these linguistic tools are
described in detail in Bowers and Bowers (2017). The way
these tools reflect Carol Chomsky’s (1970) concept of a lexical
spelling is described in Bowers and Cooke (Fall, 2012).
Working with these linguistic tools allows teachers and
students to gain greater precision in their understanding of the
meaningful structural relations within morphological families.
But how does that relate to etymology?
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In morphological analysis, we often encounter structurally
plausible word sums that are clearly false. For example, one
could propose this word sum *<broth + er ➔ brother>, but the
lack of any meaning connection between the base <broth> and
the word <brother> makes it easy to reject this hypothesis. But
what about cases with a more plausible meaning link?
Imagine a young class doing a morphological investigation of
words built on the base <play> that brings up words including:
<playful>, <replay>, <display>, and <playmate>. Some might
argue that <display> has no meaning connection while others
argue that “they are related because it is fun to display things.”
How would you confirm or reject that hypothesis so that the the
student and class understood and agreed?1
The following investigation of the word <insect> shows how
etymological knowledge is necessary to resolve this type of
question for any set of words, and many other lessons.
The word sum <in + sect ➔ insect> can be confirmed by
finding the Latin root sec(are) for “cut”. From Etymonline:
insect (n.)
c. 1600, from Latin (animal) insectum "(animal) with a
notched or divided body," literally "cut into," noun use of
neuter past participle of insectare "to cut into, to cut up," from
in- "into" (see in- (2)) + secare "to cut" (see section (n.)).
Aside from the discovery that insects are named for their body
that is “cut” into sections, we also find a link to the word
<section> and other related words. By taking the Latin root
secare that we find in this entry, and pasting it in the search
engine of Etymonline, we find many words that derive from this
root. Words that share a common root are in the same
etymological family. Here are some of the words that
Etymonline brings up in that search: transect, insect,
dissection, intersect, sector, and segment.
Click HERE for an appendix that includes an example of an SWI lesson with young children that resolves this question.
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The bound base <sect> from the L. root secare for “cut” is unrelated to
the free base <sect> from the L. root sequi for “follow”
persecute
persecution
segment
sect
L. secare
"cut"
sequence
consequence
L. sequi
"follow,"
Studying words in the context of morphological and etymological
families helps make sense of grapheme-phoneme correspondences
that can’t be understood otherwise.
sector
section
<e>
/iː/
sequence
/ə/
persecute
/ɪ/
persecution
Grapheme-phoneme
correspondences and morphology
Grapheme-phoneme
correspondences and etymology
The word <section> represents
phoneme /ʃ/ with the <t> grapheme.
While that phoneme is often thought
of as the “sh sound” we can use this
set of words to investigate the
circumstances in which the <t> can
represent /ʃ/. That phonological
understanding is deepened by
encountering it in meaningfully related
words. We don’t spell <section> with
an <sh> as that would hide its
structural connection to <sector> or
our starter word <insect>.
Note that the <e> following the <s>
in all of these words can be traced
back to the spelling of their common
Latin root sequi. This spelling marks
the meaning/history connection in
these words despite the various
phonemes associated with this
grapheme in these related words.
To explore more examples of
classroom based investigations of
the interrelation of morphology,
etymology and phonology, see the
Appendix of SWI investigations I’ve
linked HERE.
All but one of these words can be analyzed with word sums to
show the base element <sect>. Words from the same
etymological family that can be analyzed to reveal a common
base element can be represented in a morphological matrix.
Clearly the word <segment> cannot be built on this same base.
However, we can see that it has a meaning connection to the
sense of “cut” that we get from the root. Thus we can
understand that <segment> is in the same etymological family
as those words with the base <sect> even though it is not in
the same morphological family (not in the same matrix).
The diagram to the left reflects this interrelationship. Words
represented within the oval (whether they are in a matrix or
not) share a root, and are therefore in the same etymological
family. Words represented by a matrix must be in the same
etymological family (share a root), but they must also share a
base element as evidenced by a word sum. Bowers and
Bowers (2017) describe the process of testing hypotheses of
morphological and etymological relationships between words
as the “structure and meaning test.” (See this Appendix for a
description of this process with the example investigating the
relationship between <play> and <display>.)
Given a matrix that represents <section>, <insect> and other
words has a base spelled <sect>, it is a very tempting
hypothesis that this is a free base as in a “religious sect.” This
hypothesis is structurally plausible (“structure test”) and the
sense that a religious sect is “cut off” from the rest of society
seems to be supported by a meaning connection.
But testing that hypothesis with an etymological reference
shows this to be a common, but false assumption. The word
<sect> derives from a different root, The Latin sequi for
“follow”. So this word carries the sense of people who have
“followed a specific path or way of thinking”. Searching that
root introduces us to other words with that echo this sense and
meaning of “follow” that links back to this Latin root sequi.
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Knowing how to test and reject a tempting hypothesis like this
can be a rich source of discussion for vocabulary development.
Consider the language that is encountered and studied
because of a question about the word <insect> that may have
come up in the context of a science lesson.
describes instruction in which learners work present and
discuss plausible explanations for why a fact could be true.
Word-level literacy instruction which does not include
etymology is less able to maximize these suggestions from
instructional and psychological research.
The process of being able to distinguish morphological foils
was part of the instruction in four of the studies in our metaanalysis of morphological instruction (Bowers, Kirby, &
Deacon, 2010). Morphological problem-solving in general was
a focus of 6 of the studies we looked at. But we know what
happens to the motivation for inquiry when we reach questions
that simply have no possibility of resolution. The nature of the
interrelation of morphology and etymology means that if
instruction fails to address etymology, we remove the
possibility of falsifying or confirming hypotheses about
morphological relationships. Without instruction about
etymology, the full logic and order of the writing system cannot
be revealed. We should expect students’ motivation for
investigating the spelling-meaning connections of words to
drop if instruction make it seem like there are many spellings
that just can’t be understood.
I will end by pointing to one research article that explicitly
looked at the effect of SWI based instruction. Devonshire,
Morris and Fluck (2013) taught the interrelation of morphology,
etymology and phonology with the use of word sums and
matrices to 5-7 year olds in an experimental condition and
compared that to research based phonics instruction in the
control condition.2 This instructional study found significant
gains in standardized measures of reading and spelling for the
SWI condition. We cannot conclude what role the etymological
instruction played in that outcome, but it was clearly part of a
rich instructional intervention for young students.
While we don’t have direct instructional evidence showing the
effect of etymological instruction, the kind of problem-solving
described here is supported by research showing vocabulary
instruction should be deep and rich (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan,
2002). Bowers and Bowers (2017) highlights long established
research showing that information is better remembered if it is
encoded in an organized manner (Craik and Tulving (1975)
and when words are presented in a format that highlights the
relations between items (Bower et al. (1969). We also point to
the evidence from Roediger and Pyc (2012) about the
effectiveness “explanatory questioning” has for learning. This
It is a non-controversial fact that etymology is integral to
English spelling and how it evolved to represent meaning.
Hopefully these few examples signal explicit ways that this
linguistic content can be effectively leveraged for instruction.
Given that linguistic evidence, the question we should be
asking is not: What is the evidence we should include
etymology in literacy instruction? Rather, the question we need
to ask is: what is the evidence that we can ignore taking the
time to understand etymology so that we can offer our students
a clearer understanding of how their writing system works?
Feel free to email questions directly to Pete at
[email protected]
Devonshire et al., explicitly identify the use of word sums in the article but they do not mention the matrix. In an email correspondence, Devonshire confirmed
that they did use the morphological matrix as well.
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