About this activity
Fourteen suffixed words with the job each suffix does: -ing as happening now in jumping, painting and swimming; -ed as already happened in wanted, washed and planted; -tion making a noun in action, celebration, direction and invention; -able meaning can be done in washable, comfortable, readable and breakable. Suffixes are harder than prefixes because they change what kind of word it is rather than what it means.
How to use it in a session
Sort by job rather than by spelling. The useful question is what does this suffix do — the -tion group all turn a verb into a thing, and noticing that is worth more than reading four words. Then run the reverse: give the base word and ask for the suffixed form, since production is where the spelling changes bite. Swimming doubles a letter, celebration drops one, and those changes are the real difficulty.
What to listen for
Listen to the -ed group carefully. Wanted, washed and planted have three different endings in speech — a full syllable, a /t/ and another full syllable — and students who have been taught -ed as a single ending are often confused about why washed does not sound like wanted. Watch comfortable, which is the one in this set whose stress shifts and whose spelling is not predictable from the base.
Carrying it home
Past tense is worth listening for in ordinary talk. When a child says runned or goed, recast it rather than correcting — I ran too — and carry on, which teaches the form without ending the conversation.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Third through fifth, alongside the prefix board as part of structured morphology work.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all fourteen cards are free to use with no account.
- Why does -ed sound different in different words?
- Because the ending assimilates to the sound before it — washed ends in a /t/ sound, planted adds a whole syllable. It is one spelling and three pronunciations, and saying that out loud clears up a lot of confusion.