Derivational Morphology Sorting
Sort words by part of speech from the same root: act/active/activity/actively.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Sort by part of speech across families rather than family by family. Putting activity, creation, decision and competition together makes -tion and -sion visible as noun makers, which is the pattern worth having. Then give a root and ask for the family — decide, and what is the noun — since production is where the sound changes bite: decide to decision shifts both the spelling and the stress. Twelve minutes covers the set.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentPresent the item and wait 5 seconds of quiet before helping.Log as correct
- HintStress the part of the sentence that changes, or point to the word ending.Log as cued
- Sentence starterSay the first half of the sentence and let the student finish it.Log as cued
- ModelSay the correct form in the whole sentence; the student repeats it.Log as cued
Adjust it
Give a sentence starter every time, and do fewer cards.
Ask for a new sentence of the student's own with the same form, with no card to lean on.
Matching IEP goal
Given sentence cards, Student will produce the target grammatical form in sentences in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than an indirect cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Twelve word families with each member's part of speech marked: act, active, activity, actively; teach, teacher, teaching; create, creative, creation; decide, decision, decisive; science, scientific, scientist; compete, competition, competitive. One root generates three or four words, and a student who sees that has multiplied their vocabulary without learning anything new.
What to listen for
Listen for stress shifts. Compete and competition put the stress in different places, as do photograph and photographer, and a student who says PHO-to-graph-er has the morphology and not the phonology. Watch for the irregular members — govern gives governor rather than governer, and science gives scientific with a spelling change that is not predictable.
Carrying it home
When a new word comes up in reading, ask what other words are in its family. It takes ten seconds and turns one word into three — decide gives decision and decisive, and a student who gets into the habit is building vocabulary without anyone teaching it.
What's in this activity
- act (verb) / active (adj) / activity (noun) / actively (adv)
- teach (verb) / teacher (noun) / teaching (noun)
- create (verb) / creative (adj) / creation (noun)
- help (verb) / helper (noun) / helpful (adj) / helpfully (adv)
- decide (verb) / decision (noun) / decisive (adj)
- beauty (noun) / beautiful (adj) / beautifully (adv)
- science (noun) / scientific (adj) / scientist (noun)
- govern (verb) / government (noun) / governor (noun)
- danger (noun) / dangerous (adj) / dangerously (adv)
- compete (verb) / competition (noun) / competitive (adj)
- music (noun) / musical (adj) / musician (noun)
- photograph (noun) / photographer (noun) / photographic (adj)
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Fifth through eighth, where academic vocabulary starts arriving in families rather than as single words.
- Do I need to sign in?
- No, all twelve families play free.
- Why does this help more than learning words one at a time?
- Because one root gives three or four words. A student who knows decide and the pattern gets decision and decisive without being taught them, which is a much better return than memorising three separate items.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.