FAQ
Can Bug Club Morphology be used in higher grade levels?
Although Bug Club Morphology is intended for elementary and middle school students, the series can be appropriate for students as high as grade 12. It is purposefully designed to be used by students in higher grades who may face reading challenges and would benefit from explicit morpheme instruction. The student cards do not list grade levels and the non-fiction images are an entry point for older students. There are 76 lessons in the series, which provide teachers with more variety (text forms, STEAM focus) and engaging topics that can appeal to all students.
Do you need a screener to use Bug Club Morphology?
There is no need to use a diagnostic screener to start using Bug Club Morphology. In most situations, we suggest starting at the beginning of the kit designed for the grade level you teach and working your way through to the end. The reading passages within the student cards were written to align with grade level text: Kit A - Grade 3, Kit B - Grade 4, Kit C - Grade 5, and Kit D - Grade 6. Each lesson is an in-depth dive into the focus morpheme. Even if students have encountered the morpheme before, they likely have not had an explicit lesson, a shared reading opportunity, and related word study activities on that morpheme as provided by the kits. Teaching the lessons in order is most effective when possible as the lessons build on each other and sometimes refer to an earlier lesson. Also, every sixth lesson (6, 12, 18 in every kit) reviews the previous five.
What makes Bug Club Morphology (BCM) different from other morphology resources currently available?
Bug Club Morphology is unique: each kit includes both explicit teacher support (a teacher's guide, 18 lessons, and reproducibles) and authentic student cards (reading passages) for students.
Rather than teachers having to search for texts containing morpheme(s) they wish to teach, the student cards in BCM were written specifically around target morpheme(s). The cards include vocabulary with the focus morpheme(s) and feature engaging cross-curricular content. These comprehensive kits therefore address many curricular outcomes.
The lessons provide teachers with the background knowledge necessary to teach each morpheme. Every lesson is grounded in the other strands of language learning: reading, writing, and oral language.
BCM differs from other resources by featuring diverse Canadian and Indigenous content throughout. All Indigenous content was written by Indigenous authors.
How else can Bug Club Morphology be used in the classroom?
The Bug Club Morphology student cards can be used to meet objectives other than those directly connected to morphology! Consider these possibilities:
Use the student cards to support your teaching of content-area curriculum. By reading, viewing, and discussing the content, students will build background knowledge and vocabulary of the STEAM concepts addressed.
Revisit the cards during related units of study as review.
BCM student cards are written in a variety of text forms and genres. Note these forms and use them as mentor texts for student writing.
The content and concepts of the Indigenous student cards often support curricular outcomes in language, science, and social studies.
The activities on page 4 of each student card can serve as inspiration for your own word-study activities for other vocabulary you are teaching.