Studying Prefixes - Posters, Word Lists, Notebook Pages - Morphology

Prefixes can be tough to learn.

Studying morphology (the study of meaningful word parts in language) with my students is becoming an important part of my reading instruction. These include prefixes, suffixes, and root or base words.

In the realm of prefixes, according to research, we use these four prefixes about 97% of the time in the written English language kids see in school – dis, in, re, and un. Of course, there are other prefixes we use as well. We study these four prefixes a lot in our classroom, and they are displayed in our classroom throughout the year. I also introduce some of the other prefixes in our instruction.

I post the four specific prefixes in our classroom on a bulletin board. I print each set on its own color of paper. Students can work in pairs or on their own to generate a list of words for a specific prefix OR they can use the list included.

Students then work on choosing 10 words to write and define. We highlight the prefix in one color and the root or base word in another color. This can be done with light colored markers or highlighters. We place these sheets into our reading notebooks (we use spiral notebooks for our reading notebooks).

Learning the meanings of these four main prefixes and some others as well helps students figure out the meanings of many different words they may encounter in their reading, research, and writing activities.

Includes these prefixes - de, dis, em, en, ex, il, im, in, inter, ir, mis, non, over, pre, re, sub, super, trans, un, under

This pack is a great way to get started learning these!