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How to Teach Suffixes

Welcome to our mini teaching guide on suffixes! In this post, you’ll find many different tools to help you teach suffixes to your child, as well as downloadable resources and activities. Let’s dig in!

What Is a Suffix?

A suffix is a word part that is placed at the end of a base word. Common suffixes include ED, ING, and EST. Take a look at more suffix examples below.

Suffixes Table 1

A suffix often transforms a word into a new part of speech. In the examples above, baby (a noun) is changed to babyish (an adjective); run (a verb) is changed to runner (a noun).

The Four Most Common Suffixes

The most common suffixes are S, ES, ED, and ING. These four suffixes are the most useful for beginning readers and spellers to learn because they appear frequently in words, and their meanings are easy to understand and remember.

-s and -es suffixes

Suffix S and ES indicate plurals.


-ed suffix

Suffix ED indicates past tense.


-ing suffix

Most often, suffix ING is added to verbs to indicate that something is happening in the present.

Interested in seeing more suffixes? Here’s a list of 30 common suffixes you can download and print.

click to download a list of 30 common suffixes

Adding Suffixes Is Different from Adding Prefixes

When adding a prefix to a word (Check out our mini guide on teaching prefixes!), you simply add the prefix to the beginning of the base word (as in unhappy). The spelling of the base word never changes. Super easy, right?

But adding a suffix to a word isn’t quite as straightforward. That’s because when you add a suffix, the base word often changes. For example:

Suffixes Table 2

Thankfully, there are some solid guidelines to follow when adding suffixes to words. Before we dive into those rules, though, let’s take a quick look at the two types of suffixes.

Two Types of Suffixes

You may have noticed on the free download that the suffixes are divided into two categories.

Two Types of Suffixes

It’s important for kids to recognize whether a suffix is a consonant suffix or a vowel suffix since the rules for adding them to base words are different.

Rules for Adding Suffixes

Rule 1: Add a consonant suffix directly to the base word.

The word 'mouthful'

Rule 2: Check the base word before adding a vowel suffix.

Here are the first three guidelines we teach for adding vowel suffixes.

  • If the base word ends in two consonants, just add the vowel suffix.
The word 'jumping'
  • If the base word has 1 syllable, 1 short vowel, and 1 final consonant, double the final consonant before adding the vowel suffix. (We teach this as the “1-1-1 Rule.” Although it may sound complicated, this rule is actually quite easy to follow when you have an understanding of syllable division rules.)
The word 'winning'
  • If the base word ends in a Silent E , drop the E before adding the vowel suffix. (Again, this is an easy rule to understand: you don’t want to have two E’s in a row, so you have to drop the first E.)
The word 'smiled'

Rule 3: If the base word ends in a single Y, change the Y to an I before adding the suffix.

(This rule applies to both consonant suffixes and vowel suffixes.)

The word 'silliness'

There are more rules regarding vowel suffixes, but they apply to a smaller number of words. We teach them thoroughly and incrementally in All About Reading and All About Spelling, with plenty of hands-on practice.

What does hands-on practice look like? We use letter tiles for demonstration, and then we move on to interesting activity sheets! 

Printable Activities for Learning about Suffixes

Would you like to see some examples? Here are a few great suffix activities from All About Reading and All About Spelling.

Go Nutty activity cover

Go Nutty Activity

Sort suffixes into vowel suffixes and consonant suffixes with this hungry elephant.
Download this activity from All About Reading Level 3 (Lesson 15).

Sleeping Mice activity cover

Sleeping Mice Activity

Practice locating the base word by covering the sleeping mice with a blanket.
Download this activity from All About Reading Level 3 (Lesson 15).

Suffix Word Flippers activity cover

Suffix Word Flippers

Practice reading words with two suffixes with these Word Flippers .
Download this activity from All About Reading Level 4 (Lesson 4).

Word Trees activity cover

Word Trees

Use Word Trees to create longer words by adding prefixes and suffixes.
Learn more in this blog post, and download this activity from All About Spelling Level 7 (Lesson 17) to let your child practice building words with Word Trees.

Have you started teaching suffixes to your child yet? How is it going? Let me know in the comments below!

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Brenda

says:

I am working on Level 3 with my daughter. On Level 3, Step 16, Word Analysis we divide the word lucky into two syllables, luck y. This doesn’t seem to follow the Syllable Division Rules #1-4. Can you explain why we divide the word before the y.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Brenda,
I’m happy to help.

Rules #1 and #4 obviously don’t apply, since lucky is not a compound word and does not end in a consonant plus LE.

Rule #2 may look like it might apply, but we don’t typically split consonant teams for syllable division. The would could be divided as luc-ky, which gives you the same sound, but splitting that CK isn’t the best.

Rule #3 is the one that applies, counting the CK as a one consonant and based on the “usually” part of that rule. If you recall from All About Spelling Level 2, if dividing a word with one consonant between two vowels with the consonant going with the second vowel does not form a real word, the consonant should be moved to the first vowel. So, the word becomes luck-y.

Also, if you refer to Step 12 in AAS 3, page 69, you see that it teaches “Sometimes the friendly vowel suffix runs off with the last consonant.” Lucky is one of those times that the vowel suffix doesn’t take the consonant, but just stays alone. Luck-y.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you need more information, though.

Peggy Ullery

says:

Fabulous resources to pair with AAS-Thanks!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Peggy! The teaching in this blog post is just a taste of the more in-depth teaching All About Spelling does for suffixes.

Ann

says:

Thank you! I will be tutoring a child this summer and these activities will be helpful!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Ann!

ALICE

says:

GREAT CHART!!!!! BEST I’VE SEEN.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Alice!

Lynn

says:

Thank you. Most helpful–even for struggling learners!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Lynn!

e

says:

The downloads are clear, informative, and very helpful. Both the teachers and the students are very grateful for your help and great downloads!

Melanie England

says:

Great Lessons!

shana

says:

thanks!!

bassem younsi

says:

really interesting. I would be thankful (see the suffix ful !! i’m just joking) if you don’t mind providing more printable activities.
best regards

Arielle

says:

Is there a printable visual for the 1-1-1 Rule somewhere like the other posters?

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Arielle,
I’m sorry, no. We do not have a poster for the 1-1-1 Rule. There is a chart (not colorful) for the rule included in All About Spelling Level 3 though (the level the rule is taught).

Maria Sangiolo

says:

Please add me to your mailing list to receive your blog.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

I signed you up, Maria. You should have received a welcome email.

Karen Mahon

says:

Almost ready for my young students to start spelling dictation. Your rules and teaching materials explain the why and how words accommodate suffixes and how the doubling rule works. You know the t in kitten is doubled because when you break kitten into syllables you hear two soft vowels i and e. Short vowels are closed vowels so, kit and ten to give both vowels soft sound. Then, there is to confirm, your 1-1-1 rule. “ If the base word has 1 syllable, 1 short vowel, and 1 final consonant, double the final consonant before adding the vowel suffix. (We teach this as the “1-1-1 Rule.”).
We have the above rules, the alphabet sounds and a sound wall posted to help word pronunciation and spelling. Thank you for all your help.
What is so easy to one, is true work for another. Understanding sound is essential.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you for such a detailed comment, Karen! I love that you have things posted on the walls for easy reference.

ohene

says:

magnificent stuff

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you!

alice

says:

Great stuff on prefixes and suffixes. I love the rules!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Alice! Glad you like it.

Wimasha Wijesinghe

says:

Thank you. It’s very helpful to me.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Wimasha. I’m glad this was so helpful.

Chevanise coburn

says:

Hello

Sol

says:

I loved ALL of your activities! Thank you SO much for sharing them!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Sol. It’s wonderful to hear that you appreciate the activities so much!

Julia

says:

I can’t wait to use some of the games on here! We will be doing them this summer.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Glad you like them, Julia!

Sonia

says:

This would be awesome!!

Jasleen Johal

says:

Thanks for the wonderful resource!!

Brianna

says:

Thank you for this!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Brianna!

Sarath Ratnayake

says:

very clear. Thanks.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Sarath.

Bronwen Bell

says:

Thank you for an excellent read. Very informative

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Bronwen! I’m glad you found it informative.

Tambra Phillips

says:

new information.

Katie

says:

I love how this is so clearly taught to the student (and teacher!). It gives them the background knowledge needed to be able to tackle unknown words as they become independent readers. As a mom with years of elementary school teaching experience and a master’s in literacy education, I’m looking forward to beginning this program with my child!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Katie! We appreciate your experience and insights on this.

sharmain

says:

Hello Marie, I truly like like your activities. they are very interesting and seem pretty engaging for the kids.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Sharmain!

Cheree

says:

This info is great and I’m definitely downloading the activities on this page to do with my 1st grader!!

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Great! Glad this will be helpful for your student, Cheree.

Cathy Carter

says:

This looks like a really great site to use to teach suffixes and prefixes, but I am unable to download the many activities. Do you have any suggestions on how I can download these wonderful activities.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

I’m sorry you are having problems downloading our activities, Cathy. What device and browser are you using? What is happening when you try to download them?

I’m happy to help you figure out why it isn’t working. However, sometimes the easiest thing is to try a different device or a different browser.

sajjad

says:

anyone can teach me english personaly