“Morphing Into Readers” Grant Expands Literacy Learning in Middletown City Schools

Middletown City Schools is proud to announce its continued partnership with the Middletown Community Foundation through funding for the “Morphing Into Readers” grant. This generous support is helping the district expand professional learning in morphology and strengthen literacy instruction for students across Middletown.

“One of the things I have quickly come to appreciate about Middletown is the strong connection between our schools and our community,” said Elgin Card, Superintendent of Middletown City Schools. “The ‘Morphing Into Readers’ initiative is a great example of how community partnerships can build on the work already happening in our classrooms and create even more opportunities for our students to succeed.”

Morphology instruction teaches students how words are built from meaningful parts, including prefixes, suffixes, and Greek and Latin roots. By understanding these connections, students can unlock the meaning of unfamiliar and multisyllabic words, expand their academic vocabulary, strengthen word recognition and spelling, and develop the deeper word knowledge needed for strong reading comprehension.

The “Morphing Into Readers” initiative provides teachers with specialized training and resources to bring morphology instruction into their classrooms, helping students make meaningful connections among words and apply those connections when encountering new vocabulary.

“Morphology gives students practical strategies for making sense of unfamiliar words and building their vocabulary,” said Terri Vincent, Literacy Coach for Middletown City Schools. “With support from the Middletown Community Foundation, we are able to deepen teachers’ knowledge of this approach and give them resources they can immediately put into practice with students.”

Middletown City Schools looks forward to continuing this collaboration and sharing the impact of the “Morphing Into Readers” grant with the Middletown community. Through partnerships like this, the district is creating meaningful opportunities to strengthen literacy and help every student become a successful, lifelong reader.