Building Morphological Confidence with Bug Club Morphology
When staff at Margaret “Ma” Murray Community School in Fort St. John, British Columbia, dug into their district reading assessment data, one trend was impossible to ignore:
Students were struggling to use word-part clues to decode meaning.
They weren't understanding and weren’t able to pull words apart, explains Sara Amiot, a grade 5/6 split teacher at the school. "We did some really direct teaching around it, and they were really, really struggling."
With 27 students in her class reading at kindergarten to Grade 6 levels—and a high concentration of English language learners—Amiot and her partner teacher needed an approach that could support a wide range of learners.
That search led them to Bug Club Morphology.
A Structured, Three-Day Routine That Sticks
Amiot and her teaching partner began implementing Bug Club Morphology three days a week in 2025.
“We chunk it into three days, and it works really well,” she says. "The kids know what to expect.”
Day 1: Introduce the morpheme, build vocabulary, and activate prior knowledge.
Day 2: Read the nonfiction text together and explore word study activities.
Day 3: Consolidate learning through writing and application.
Amiot says this routine integrates vocabulary, reading, discussion, and writing, allowing students to experience morphology in context rather than in isolation.
“I really like the way that Bug Club allows us to be more direct in the teaching of morphology,” says Amiot. “We tried to find some individual resources to teach concepts like parting out words, etc., but Bug Club Morphology is so much richer. There are practice activities, questions, and even support and guidance for teachers.”
Meeting Diverse Learners Where They Are
With 100 of the school's 342 students identified as English language learners, Amiot says Bug Club Morphology plays a big role in supporting students’ vocabulary development.
"That vocabulary piece is huge for us,” Amiot explains. “Especially because we’re working with a varied group of students with diverse needs who are working at different reading levels or may be ELL.”
She also says being able to connect her Bug Club lessons to teaching other parts of her literacy block, like reading and writing strategies, is a huge benefit. “We even create a vocabulary list for our ELL teacher based on our Bug Club lesson so they know what we're going to be working on, and the learning gets reinforced in those lessons."
The nonfiction texts also help build confidence among upper intermediate students who might not feel confident enough to share out about an abstract idea from a fiction text. As Amiot explains, the texts give students concrete knowledge, and they can feel a little more confident talking about them.
“When the topic connects to something they know, they’re much more willing to share,” explains Amiot.
Noticing Growth in Word Awareness
Sara is still tracking the impact of Bug Club Morphology on assessments, particularly with her current Grade 5 students, but she's already observing shifts in how students approach words.
"There is more noticing happening," she says. "They're recognizing things a little bit differently. Problem-solving words a bit differently.”
She sees students understanding where a prefix or a suffix goes in a word, making predictions about word meaning, knowing what word sums are, and even having cross-curricular conversations based on the Bug Club cards.
That growing awareness is exactly what she was hoping to see.
Minimal Prep, Maximum Impact
One unexpected benefit has been time.
"The savings in prep time is huge… It's priceless, really. To me, it's priceless,” says Amiot,
With Bug Club Morphology’s clear scope and sequence and ready-to-use materials, she can focus on instruction instead of building resources from scratch.
“It’s allowed us to keep that word study piece," she says. “Because you often lose that, because you get busy doing other things. But there's still a need for it as they move from primary to intermediate.”
Amiot says that because Bug Club is so easy to use, she knows regular morphology classwork can continue even on days when Amiot or her partner teacher has a substitute leading their classes. "We feel totally comfortable that we could leave this with a TOC and not worry," she says.
For Amiot, Bug Club Morphology has become a consistent part of her literacy block. “It’s a real gift," she says, "and a treat to have in the classroom.”