Profile of Dr. Kirby   Profile of Mr. Bowers   Research Spotlight: Morphology improves literacy development

The papers on the What Works website are research summaries written by scholars at Ontario universities that highlight teaching practices at the classroom level that have been supported by research. 

Morphology Works explains how classroom teachers can use morphology to develop word knowledge in children who need it most (morphology explains how morphemes, the smallest parts of words that carry meaning, are assembled to make words). The paper includes an overview of the important points in the research literature, implications for classroom practice, and examples of morphological instruction practices such as employing the "word detective approach" and using Smart Boards. 

Dr. Kirby and Mr. Bowers have been working as a research team for the past seven years. Prior to starting the interview for this story, it was clear from their conversation that they work collaboratively.  They exchanged news, spoke of a conference they had recently attended, and talked about their research before answering my questions about why they were such a great match as supervisor and student.  

Mr. Bowers explained that not only had he always been a terrible speller, but that over a decade of teaching he had never encountered an approach to spelling instruction that seemed to be effective or engage children with words. It was always about memorization. In his tenth year, however, he started to work with a resource called Real Spelling that made sense of how spelling works through an emphasis on morphology. Suddenly he and his students started to understand how the English spelling system worked by investigating it like scientists. The affect on his students’ interest and his own discovery that English spelling made sense so late in his career convinced him to begin a Master’s in Education with Dr. Kirby. Soon thereafter he started his own literacy consultancy business, the WordWorks Literacy Centre .  

"I came to Queen's knowing exactly what I wanted to investigate - morphological instruction - but knew little about reading research.  After talking with John [Kirby], it was clear that he knew about the research methods and research on cognitive processes in morphological processing. Critically, he was willing to expand that into looking at morphological intervention research.” 

Dr. Kirby responded that he was more than willing to take on the role of supervisor because Mr. Bowers’ experience as a teacher and his knowledge of morphology complemented his own research on the cognitive processes involved in learning to read and reading to learn. 

Mr. Bowers is currently completing his PhD with Dr. Kirby and through WordWorks Literacy Centre has worked as a consultant for international schools in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. He delivers workshops to school administrators and teachers on how to understand and teach the writing system. The workshops are designed on the basis of Bowers’ research findings and, at the same time, they provide rich material for his PhD research. 

While common interests, personality, and countless other factors are important to collaboration between supervisor and student, the character of the Faculty also plays a role in shaping the relationship. Dr. Kirby and Mr. Bowers offer an interesting example of the type of supervisor/student collaboration that would be more difficult at a larger faculty.  Mr. Bowers explained:

“After I started here, I became involved in different research projects and worked collaboratively with various faculty members and students.  At the same time, I was always able to walk across the hall from my office to John's and rarely needed to schedule a meeting."

Dr. Kirby summed it up nicely when he said that "the smaller size of our Faculty, combined with our focus on quality research facilitates close relationships between supervisors, students, and their colleagues in the field."  

Congratulations to Dr. Kirby and Mr. Bowers on their most recent publication and on their continued success as a research team!