Word Building for Early Readers and Spellers; Using the Power of Morphology

Each week, we will work with a different base word and its prefixes and suffixes to build as many words as we can from that word family. Students will have guided practice in building words together.  As a class, we will share and discuss which words we build as we go. This word building and discussion will help students to practice and develop a variety of skills including:

1. The idea that words come in families linked by a common base.
2. That we can build new words by adding prefixes and suffixes to a base.
3. The impact of prefixes and suffixes on the meaning of the base (𝘥𝘰 vs. 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘰 vs. 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘰, do vs. done)
4. The possible spelling impacts of adding suffixes to the base, including when to drop a silent 𝘦 and when to double a final consonant.
5. That the meaning of the base will be carried into all the new words that are built from it (𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦/𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴)
6. An understanding that spelling patterns and meaning are retained within a word family even when pronunciation shifts. (𝘢𝘤𝘵/𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭/𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘺, go/gone)

This is an ongoing class that meets weekly. Content does not build and learners are welcome to join the class at any time! I will always make sure that new learners understand what to do.

Examples of some of the bases we will build with each week are: use, give, big, begin, do, hop, run, go, act.