How I do It: Teach Prefixes and Roots

Like me, you already know that teaching prefix and roots can help improve vocabulary. Do you ever wonder how much to teach-or worry that you are just doing the same things as the language arts teacher? What specific skill set do we bring in as speech language pathologists when thinking of vocabulary? That’s the question I’m going to (try) to answer today.

Focus on Vocabulary Strategies

I spent a few years trying to teach curriculum vocabulary.  What better way to meet educational need?  I asked teachers to send me vocabulary lists, I scoured textbooks and searched for grade level vocabulary checklists.  I relearned a bunch of biology and geometry terms.   

It was overwhelming.  I didn’t have time to try to find the vocabulary and I still needed to teach each individual word.  Plus, I felt like I was doing the classroom teacher’s job-they were introducing the units and teaching the same vocabulary.    Jenn from Crazy Speech World turned me on to tiered vocabulary instruction-and that has made a HUGE difference in the words that I choose to teach in my speech room.

I decided that I wanted to focus more on strategies that allow my clients to learn new vocabulary on THEIR own-without me by their side.  Teaching about prefix and root words is ONE of those strategies.

Introduce Prefix and Root words

I can’t teach every single instance or idea so I usually like to write a goal for them to learn 25-50 root words, prefixes and suffixes by the end of the year.   I also want them to know what a prefix, suffix and root word means.  I start each session by having them define the words together in a group-or individually.  We do this until they can tell me the meaning independently.

What to teach

I’m usually working with prefixes in suffixes in middle to high school.  In regular education, most students start learning about prefixes around second grade.   I generally introduce easier prefixes such as un- and re- before moving to more advanced prefixes.  You can find a lot of grade level resources online-I used this one from the Duval schools.

I also consider frequency when I am choosing my stimuli.  There’s no point in teaching something that is obscure.  Scholastic has a great resource for the most common prefixes and suffixes.

The last thing that I consider is how easy it is to teach the prefix, suffix or root.  For instance: aqua as a root is fairly easy to learn.  The suffix -ous which means characterized by is more abstract and doesn’t necessarily help too much when thinking about decoding and defining words.  Suffixes are hard.  I generally only teach the basics (-ed, -ing, -s, -ly) and how they change the meaning of the word.

Speech Therapy Prefix and Roots

So how do we differentiate our instruction from what is typically happening in the classroom?  Are we just using the same strategies but in a smaller group?  Here is how I introduce and use affixes in my speech room.

• Sorting tasks:  Students will sort words based on prefix, suffixes, root words or by types of prefix, suffix, root words.  (Ex. sorting into number prefixes VS time prefixes.)
• Receptive identification tasks:  It’s hard to define a prefix if you don’t know it’s there: 
  • Highlight the prefix/root/suffix in a word list
  • Find words with prefix/root/suffixes in a text
  • Identify the prefix/root/suffixes given a set of 3, 5, 10 words
  • Identify the prefix/root/suffixes within a word given a definition of the prefix.
  • Find the word given a definition.
  • Choose a prefix, suffix, root word to change a base word when given a definition.
  • Identify the meaning of words given a closed set of choices
•  Expressive tasks
  • State the meaning of a prefix
  • Define words using prefix, suffix, roots
  • Break apart words to show the meaning
  • Create nonsense words using prefix, suffix, and roots.

Teaching Activities

I use music, videos, drawing, acting out to help teach and reinforce my targets.  Here are three activities, games you can use right now to teach prefixes and suffixes in your speech room:

Mr./Ms.  Disagreeable:

There are A LOT of prefixes that mean not/anti/ or opposite.  (un, in/im/ir/il, mis-, anti-, de-, dis-).  Have your students use them to “disagree” with whatever you say.   For instance:

Speech Pathologist:  I am agreeable. 

Student:  You are DISagreeable.

Speech Pathologist:  She is mature.  

Student:  She is IMmature.  

Create the Disorder:

Teach your students about “phobias.”   It’s interesting to look up different phobias-such as “octophobia” (the fear of the number 8.)  Have them use roots to create a list of things that could “frighten” someone and create their own phobias.  Ex.

• Bibliophobia: fear of books
• Spectophobia: fear of glasses?  

Super Hero Roots:

Aquaman is a superhero that likes and lives the water.  Have your students create a list of superheroes using common roots.  For example:

• Geoman:  Loves and protects the earth
• Quadrogirl: Has four arms

Question: Have you every worked on prefix and suffixes in your speech room?  What was your favorite activity or resource?  I can’t wait to see what you’ve used!  

Check back soon for some of my favorite online resources for teaching prefix, suffixes and root words.  I’d love it if you would take a few seconds to share this post on your favorite social media outlet by clicking on the buttons below.