The Language of Construction

Children are naturally drawn towards construction in all its forms. Observing the enthusiasm, expertise and engineering skill demonstrated in early years classrooms we cannot deny that this is an invaluable opportunity to make many rich connections to all areas of the curriculum. As I consider this natural inclination towards blocks of all sizes and how they fit together I am instantly aware of the way in which we can transfer this into the development of spoken and written language. Studying the morphology of words is literally playing with the building blocks of language and just as we allow space for children to physically construct with blocks we must provide opportunity for their ability to do the same with words.

Introducing children to word families that share a base can be done well before children can read by decoding letter sounds. Even multilingual learners can explore the words they are familiar with and grow their vocabulary by realising that they can play with words by adding and removing affixes. Depending on a child's first language this concept of morphology is likely to also apply and so we are building skills across their language profile. One could also say that the concepts of flexibility and change that underpin morphology are also visible throughout the 100 languages of children not only construction.

Of course not all the words children create when learning about morphology may be 'real' but just as we allow them to construct with wooden blocks even though we know they may fall we must afford them the opportunity to play and explore with oral language without a hyper focus on accuracy. As we know, language is constantly evolving. Twenty years ago we did not have the word 'unfriend' however it is now part of our vernacular. Therefore if a child creates a word that is not yet in use it is still valuable to explore its possible meaning.

Below is an introduction into word families I have used to start the journey towards morphological knowledge.

While there are many words presented that connect to the base of friend we might only start with one or two that the children know before introducing more. Another highly relevant base to explore as an introduction is 'play'.

Happy building everyone, whether it is with blocks or words!