What is morphology and does it really matter? Where does etymology fit into the teaching of spelling? Here are some key takeaways.  

You can read part 1 of this blog series here, part 2 here and part 3 here. 

What is morphology? 

‘Morphe’ means ‘form’ and ‘-ology’ means ‘the study of’, so morphology is the study of how words are formed.  

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. 

For example, in the word ‘transport’ there are two morphemes: ‘trans’ and ‘port’. 

The morpheme ‘trans’ means ‘across’, ‘beyond’, ‘through’ or ‘changing’.  
The morpheme ‘port’ means ‘to carry’.  

1. Look for meaning.  

It’s important to note that with morphology, you are looking at units of meaning within the word. 

When looking at morphemes in words, you are looking at units of meaning within the word that connect to the word. Although we can see the word ‘ran’ in ‘transport’ this does not have anything to do with the meaning of the word ‘transport’.  

2. Exploring shared morphemes helps build connections between words.  

Once you have identified the morphemes, explore what other words share these morphemes. This helps pupils find connections between words.

We can split the word ‘transport’ into the morphemes ‘trans’ and ‘port’.

The morpheme ‘trans’ means ‘across’, ‘beyond’, ‘through’ or ‘changing’. Using morphological strategies, we can start to connect words such as: 

The morpheme ‘port’ means to carry. Using this knowledge, we can connect the words: 

This can support children to connect words when reading or spelling.  

3. Words are like onions. 

Morphologists believe words are like onions, not necklaces!  

Words are like onions. Words have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? They both have layers. Yes, we’re quoting Shrek! 

When you cut open an onion, it has a core with layers adding to it around the outside. This is the same as words.  

In the example above, the core is ‘act’. The core of the word carries most of the meaning. We can add layers to this word to adjust and change the meaning.  

4. Root vs. Base. 

There are lots of different terminology that is used for the core of the word, including ‘stem’, ‘root’ and ‘base’.  

Spelling Shed uses root and base.  

A base word is a word that can stand alone in English when all the affixes have been removed. Examples are ‘play’, ‘run’, ‘help’ and ‘side’. Root words are from the origin language and do not always stand alone in English. Examples are ‘aud’, ‘cept’, ‘mort’ and ‘rupt’. ‘Port’ meaning to carry is a root word as this meaning of it does not stand alone. ‘Scope’ and ‘act’ are base words and root words, as they are from Latin roots, but they can stand alone.  

Although it is important for you to be familiar with these terms, you do not need to identify them all the time.  

5. Words are made up of morphemes.  

Words are made up of morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in a word. In a word, there is a root or base word. Prefixes are added to the beginning of the word and suffixes are added at the end of the word. When these affixes are added, they create new words. 

Fun fact: the morpheme ‘fix’ in the words prefix, suffix and affix means ‘to attach or fasten’. 

The example above shows the word ‘construction’, which has three morphemes.  
The suffix ‘con’ means ‘together’, the root ‘struct’ means ‘build’ and the suffix ‘ion’ means ‘act of’. The word ‘construction’ means the act of building something together. 

6. There are different ways of representing words. 

There are lots of different diagrams that can be used in linguistics to visually represent the structure of words.  

Here are a few examples: 

Word trees, or morphological trees, also show the grammatical class, with the ‘V’ representing verb, ‘A’ representing adjective and ‘N’ representing noun.  

Word sums or word equations are used in Spelling Shed to show children how the word is broken into morphemes to form the whole word.  

7. Compound words are a good way to talk about morphemes.

Compound words are a really good way of introducing the concept of morphemes. We can look at more obvious compound words such as: 

Some compound words are less obvious because of their pronunciation: 

Breaking words into morphemes this way helps children to spell these words correctly.

8. A good way to explore morphology is by using a morphology matrix. 

Morphology matrices are a good way of exploring morphology. These are recommended in the Education Endowment Foundation’s Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 report and more recently in the DfE’s 2025 Writing Framework. They have been used in Spelling Shed’s scheme since 2022.  

In many Spelling Shed lessons, we use a morphology matrix to demonstrate how morphemes fit together. 

In the example above, pupils can create new words by adding affixes to the base word ‘supply’. The prefix ‘re’ can be added to ‘supply’ to create ‘resupply’. The suffix ‘ing’ can be added to the base word to create the word ‘supplying’. Both prefixes and suffixes can be added to the base word to create the word ‘resupplying’. The asterisk on the suffix shows where you might need to talk about adding the affix in more detail. When adding the suffix ‘es’ to the base word ‘supply’, you need to change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ before adding the ‘es’. 

9. The morpheme ‘com’ and the Year 5 and 6 statutory word list.  

The morpheme ‘com’ means ‘with or together’. This morpheme is in a lot of the Year 5 and 6 statutory words, such as accommodate, accompany, committee, communicate, community, competition and recommend. 

Identifying the morpheme ‘com’ in the word ‘accommodate’ explains why there are two ‘c’s and two ‘m’s, which is often the part that children (and adults) struggle with. It also explains why there are two ‘c’s but only one ‘m’ in the word ‘accompany’. When we explore the word ‘committee’, we can identify the morpheme ‘com’, we also explore the spelling pattern of doubling the consonant because the word ends in a short vowel then a consonant.  

Beyond the Year 5 and 6 statutory word list, there are lots of words that contain the morpheme ‘com’ such as compare, compete, combine, companion and compound.  

What is etymology? 

The word ‘etymology’ is from the Greek origin ‘etymologia’, meaning ‘analysis of a word to find its true origin. ‘Etymon-’ means true sense or original meaning and ‘logy’ means the study of. Etymology is the study of history of words – where the origins come from.  

10. The English language has had many influences. 

English has formed its spelling through influences from many different languages. It is a Germanic-based language because of the Anglo-Saxons but has been influenced by Latin, French, Old Norse and Greek. 

11. Etymology explains why. 

Etymology often explains why words are spelled the way they are. Rather than saying ‘that’s just the way it is spelled’, ‘it’s a funny word’ or ‘English is a funny language’, we can look at where the word comes from. This also helps form connections between words. For example, ‘amateur’, ‘chauffeur’ and ‘entrepreneur’ are all French word, so have the French spelling of ‘eur’ at the end.  

12. Etymology and morphology are often connected. 

Although etymology and morphology are separate strands, when looking at one, you often end up looking at the other.  

In the example above, we are looking at where the word ‘pterodactyl’ comes from, but to do this, we need to split it into morphemes. ‘pter’ is from the Greek word ‘pteron’, meaning ‘wing’ and ‘dactyl’ is from the Greek word ‘daktylos’, meaning ‘finger’. If you put together the literal meaning would be ‘wing finger’ which you can see why it would be called that.  

13. Etymology is fun! 

You can have lots of fun with etymology, it can be really interesting and help children connect words. It also often explains why words have silent letters.  

In the example above, the word ‘knight’ was originally spelled ‘cniht’ and the initial /k/ sound was pronounced. This is often the case with words that contain silent letters.  

14. It’s not just about morphology. 

It would be easy to think that you just need to focus on morphology. However, in some words the etymology aids understanding more than the morphology. For example, the word ‘remembrance’ is from the Old French spelling of remembrance. Although, it helps to split the word into the morphemes ‘remember’ and ‘ance’; to spell it correctly, you would need to remember to drop the ‘e’ from the word.  

15. To teach spelling effectively, you need to combine phonics, morphology, etymology and orthography.

Combining phonics, morphology, etymology and orthography enables children to access so many more words than if they are relying on memorisation.  

The table above shows that if you ask children to memorise the word ‘the’, then they know how to spell one word. If you explore phonics, orthographic patterns, morphemes and etymology, it enables children to create connections between words and access so many more words!  

Video Webinar Recording: How to Teach Spelling Effectively – Part Four: Morphology and Etymology 

Watch this free webinar recording for all of the above.