Evidence-Based Practice in Literacy: A Morphological

Intervention Case Study

Lisa Phillips, M.S. CCC/SLPLaura Green, Ph.D., CCC/SLP

Evidence-Based Practice

• The use of only those treatment methods that are supported by controlled and replicated research evidence.

• Requires an integration of best evidence for diagnostic and treatment methods with sound clinical expertise/judgment

• Takes into consideration what is best for an individual patient and his/her preferences

What is Outcome-Based Intervention?

• Process of systematic collection and reporting of client outcomes of our management

• Special research methodology all it’s own• Our responsibility• Begins with careful analysis of the use of a

theoretically sound treatment approach in a clinical setting

Morphology

• Knowledge of the word structure of our language

• Involves inflections (to change number and tense) and derivations (to change word forms)

• Incorporates principles of phonology and orthography

Reading-Morphology Connection(Theoretical Support)

• Morphological knowledge increases vocabulary skills which, in turn, contribute to successful reading comprehension.

• Knowledge of morphemes and their spellings fosters quicker recognition of word parts and, thus, more efficient decoding.

Treatment Rationale• Students need to understand the concept of changing

meaning and be given the morphological tools to do so• Students need intervention that incorporates all three

literacy codes (phonemic, orthographic and morphological)

• Students need repeated practice with newly learned information

• Students need to apply newly-learned morphological skills in functional reading comprehension contexts

Description of Participants

• 2 Caucasian males age 10;8 (Student A)& 11;1 (Student B)

• Both students presented with a Specific Learning and Communication Impairment

• Inclusion level of support for 3 years while on an Individualized Education Program

• Weekly Speech/Language Service Delivery - 2 x 30 Inclusion & 1 x 30 pullout

Participants: Clinical Issues

• Various attempts to improve spelling, decoding and vocabulary understanding were implemented.

• Both students plateaued in their application of “spelling rules,” which often focused on phonological awareness & memorization of weekly spelling lists.

• Both students had specific difficulty with narrative and expository comprehension of texts, understanding of mathematical vocabulary within word problems and challenge with content-specific language (e.g. social studies, science)

Treatment Objectives

1. Increase knowledge of base words and 18 target derivational suffixes

2. Increase reading comprehension abilities through the application of morphological analysis strategies.

Assessment Measures

• Syntactic Task:• Morphology Probes:

Lesson Format

Students participated in 2 50-minute sessions weekly for 6 weeks. Each session included:– 10 minutes: Explanation of concept/Introduction of new

suffixes and their meanings and spellings/Review of previous suffixes

– 25 minutes: Students complete 3 practice worksheet-based activities with discussion scaffolded by the clinician

– 15 minutes: Students complete a reading comprehension activity that utilizes words from the current and previous lessons and encourages use of morphological strategies to ascertain word meaning.

Morphological Explanation

“We are going to be learning about words and word parts in a way that will help you become a better reader and speller. Words can be broken up into parts that have meaning and we call those parts morphemes. ‘Morphing’ words means changing them to change meaning. Have you heard of base words and suffixes before? A base word can stand all by itself and has meaning. It’s the power of the word and tells us what the word is about. A base word might be “read”. Then we can add a suffix to that base to help us change the meaning a little bit. The suffix can make a change. An example would be –er, so we change ‘read’ to ‘reader.’”

Example Activity: “Word Detective”

See if you can find the base word and the suffix (-ive, -ful, -er) in the following words. Underline

the base and circle the suffix. Then, read the word.singer painterprotective joyfulhopeful creativeteacher carefulwishful drummerselective active

Example Activity: Reading Comprehension

“Look at the passage below and underline the words with the –or, -able, and –ation suffixes. Read the passage to yourself. Then, we will work together to answer the questions.”

Sarah had a wild imagination. She liked to daydream. Sometimes she was a brave warrior. Other times she was a sailor on a boat in the ocean. There was always the temptation to daydream at school. Her teacher said this was not acceptable. He wanted Sarah to pay attention in class. Sarah did want to learn. She was agreeable and tried to listen carefully to class information. Her teacher helped her use her imagination in different ways. He let Sarah be the illustrator of class stories. He let her be a lead actor in the school play. Sarah had to do a lot of preparation for these jobs. But she thought it was fun. She even had the admiration of her friends. She enjoyed daydreaming at home and trying new things at school.

  

Example Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What did Sarah daydream about?  2. Why was it not acceptable to daydream at

school?  3. How did Sarah use her imagination in

different ways? 4. Why did she have to do a lot of

preparation?

Example Activity: Build the Word/Use the Word

Add –y to the words below. Then put those words in complete sentences that make sense. The first one is done for you.

Base Word: New Word: Sentence:

1. powder: powdery: The new snow was very powdery 2. cheer: __________:_________________________ 3. grass: ___________:_________________________ 4. sweat: ___________:_________________________

Example Activity: “Mystery Word”

See if you can use the clues to figure out the mystery words described below. All of the words have a suffix that we’ve learned and were somewhere in today’s lesson.

Who am I? I work at a place where people deposit their money and cash their checks.(banker)

What am I? You could describe me with this word because I always tell things the way they really happened and I don’t lie. (truthful)

What am I? You could describe me with this word because I am from Sweden. (Swedish)

Who am I? I am someone who has my nose in a really good book. (reader)

Results 10;8 y.o. Male Pre- Post Test Data

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Syntactic Task (PreTx)Syntactic Task(Post Tx)

Results 11;1 y.o. Male Pre- Post Test Data

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Pre-Probe (Pre Tx)

Pre-Probe (Post Tx)

Syntactic Task (PreTx)Syntactic Task(Post Tx)

Conclusions

• Both students demonstrated improvement in their ability to utilize morphological understanding to increase reading fluency and comprehension.

• Via teacher consultation, students demonstrated maintenance of skill within core curriculum areas in the classroom setting.

• The program’s review and repetition as well as interactive elements were beneficial to both youngsters in learning the material.

Directions for Future Research

• Increase intervention time-line so that the entire treatment program can be completed

( )• Allow for collection of additional pre- &

post-test data regarding key language and literacy skills