Autumn Tree Morpheme Mat

If your learners are ready to work on morphemes, you’ll enjoy this Autumn Tree Morpheme Mat.

*Find the FREE digital download by scrolling down on this post and clicking on the TEAL download button.

What are Morphemes?

Morphemes are the smallest unit of MEANING in words. It can be one letter, like the s in cats {meaning more than one} or a chunk of letters, like the un in unhappy {meaning not}.

As learners get deeper into word study, a study of Greek roots and Latin stems is important. Not only does this help our learners READ longer words by recognizing the chunks in words, but understanding the meaning of these common stems and roots build our learners’ vocabulary, thus supporting comprehension.

A few of the most common Greek roots are: auto, bio, graph, hydr, geo, meter, logy/ology, phon/phone, photo, scope, sphere, tele, and therm.

A few of the most common Latin stems are: audi, dict, ject, port, rupt, scrib/script, spect, struct, tract, and vis.

For more about morphemes, visit my post, Morphology in Structured Literacy.

Autumn Tree Morpheme Mat

Today, I’m sharing an autumn tree morpheme mat. At the bottom of the page, learners can write a Greek root or Latin stem. On the twelve leaves, learners think of words that contain the stem or root.

Take for example the stem port. Learners can work individually or with a small group to come up with other words with the stem such as portfolio, teleport, deport, or support.

Note: I would not require every single leaf be filled with a word, but to ask learners to think of {or find} as many as they can.

You might also like our DIGITAL AND PRINTABLE Latin Stem Cards or Greek Root Cards.

Download the free morpheme mat below:

Enjoy teaching morphemes!
~Becky

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