In a think-aloud demonstration of a word-learning skill for decoding multisyllabic words, the instructional focus is on which word-structure skill?

• A. Morphology
• B. Structural Analysis
• C. Semantic Mapping
• D. Syntactic Parsing

Answer: (B)

Understanding how to break a word down by its structure is key to decoding multisyllabic words. Structural analysis is the process of looking at the word’s parts and how they fit together—dividing it into syllables, and noticing prefixes, roots, and suffixes—to guide pronunciation and help determine meaning. In a think-aloud demonstration, the teacher would model sounding out the syllables in sequence, pointing out common affixes and how they attach to the base, and then blend the parts to read the word aloud. This approach gives students a concrete strategy for tackling long words by attending to their built structure rather than guessing.

For example, with a word such as disappearance, you can show how it breaks into dis-appear-ance, and how the prefix dis- and the suffix -ance influence meaning and pronunciation, while the syllable divisions help you read it smoothly. While morphology focuses on the meaning conveyed by morphemes, semantic mapping connects words to ideas in context, and syntactic parsing deals with how words function in sentences. The think-aloud focus described here centers on how the word is built and pronounced, which is what structural analysis targets.