Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is a pedagogical technique involving the scientific investigation of the spelling of words.[1][2][3] SWI considers morphology,[4][5] etymology, relatives, and phonology.[3][6] The guiding principles of SWI are (1) "the primary function of English spelling is to represent meaning"[7] and (2) "conventions by which English spelling represents meaning are so well-ordered and reliable that spelling can be investigated and understood through scientific inquiry."[6][8][9]
Four questions
SWI uses four questions to investigate the spelling of a word:[6][10]
- What is the meaning of a word?
- What are the morphemes of the word?
- What are morphological and etymological relatives of the word?
- What are the letters doing in the word (spelling phonemes, functioning as markers, zeroed)?
The questions must be investigated in order starting with the meaning.
Word sums
A word sum shows how a word is built.[10][11] A word sum is a "necessary tool to allow falsification of hypotheses of orthographic morphological structure."[3][6]
The following are examples of word sums:
- de + sign -> design
- de + sign + ate + ed-> designated
- sign + al -> signal
- sign + ate + ure -> signature
- re + sign + ate + ion -> resignation
Word Matrices
A word matrix is a visualization of the morphology of related words.[10][6][11]
References
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