Read the diagram below out loud with your tutor.

DIALOGUE

Practice by reading the dialogue with your tutor. After you are done, switch roles and do it again! (Note: The bolded words are all examples of suffixes.)

• Kevin: Dorothy, you have a beautiful dog. Does he provide protection for your family as well?
• Dorothy: Yes, we feel safer with him around. He’s also an excitable and playful dog, to say the least. Sometimes he can be a handful.
• Kevin: I’m sure he can be a distraction when you are trying to work from home.
• Dorothy: He wants my attention all the time. At times, I want to medicate him to calm him down, but I wouldn’t really do that to him.

NEW SKILLS

Read the new skills below out loud with your tutor.

Inflectional suffixes

Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. The suffix is added simply to match the plural, the tense, or etc. Look at these examples:

		example
suffix	grammatical change	original word	suffixed word
-s	plural	dog	dogs
-en	plural (irregular)	ox	oxen
-s	3rd person singular present	like	he likes
-ed	past tense past participle	work	he worked he has worked
-en	past participle (irregular)	eat	he has eaten
-ing	continuous/progressive	sleep	he is sleeping
-er	comparative	big	bigger
-est	superlative	big	the biggest

Derivational suffixes

With derivational suffixes, the new word is “derived” from the original word. The new word now has a different meaning. There are several hundred derivational suffixes. Here are some of the more common ones:

suffix	making	example original word	example suffixed word
-ation	nouns	explore hesitate	exploration hesitation
-sion		persuade divide	persuasion division
-er		teach	teacher
-cian		music	musician
-ess		god	goddess
-ness		sad	sadness
-al		arrive	arrival
-ary		diction	dictionary
-ment		treat	treatment
-y		jealous victor	jealousy victory
-al	adjectives	accident	accidental
-ary		imagine	imaginary
-able		tax	taxable
-ly		brother	brotherly
-y		ease	easy
-ful		sorrow forget	sorrowful forgetful
-ly	adverbs	helpful	helpfully
-ize	verbs	terror private	terrorize privatize
-ate		hyphen	hyphenate

Note: The following website provides more suffixes, their meanings, and examples: https://www.learnthat.org/pages/view/suffix.html

EXERCISE

Identify the words ending in a suffix in the following paragraph. (1)

Sunset is the time of day when our sky meets the outer space solar winds. There are blue, pink, and purple swirls, spinning and twisting, like clouds of balloons caught in a blender. The sun moves slowly to hide behind the line of the horizon, while the moon races to take its place in prominence atop the night sky. People slow to a crawl, entranced, fully forgetting the deeds that still must be done. There is a coolness and calmness when the sun does set.

Fill the blanks in with one of the following words: works, teacher, sadness, terrorize, taxable

• A cashier works with a machine that adds and subtracts numbers.
• People who (2) _________________ others need to be put in prison for their crimes.
• Everyone in the USA must report all (3) ________________ income at the end of the year.
• The (4) _________________ fell upon the losing football team towards the end of the match.
• A (5) _____________ has to know how to be compassionate.

      

Write a sentence using the word.

• creative –  A creative person finds inspiration in the work they do.
• private – __________________________________________________.
• forgetful – _________________________________________________.
• arrival – ___________________________________________________.
• sadly – ____________________________________________________.

Discussion Questions (try to use some suffixes you just learned)

1. Talk about a time you hesitated in making a decision. Did the hesitation help you or hurt you?
2. What gets you excited? Do you consider yourself an excitable person?
3. When was the last time someone persuaded you into doing something? Did the persuasion help you or hurt you?
4. What is one way you are different from most people? How do you behave or think differently?
5. When was the last time you helped somebody? Do you consider yourself a helpful person?

(Image source: 1. http://www.classroomfreebiestoo.com/2012/10/free-mini-prefix-and-suffix-posters.html, 2. https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/suffixes.htm, 3. https://www.pinterest.com/jul7788/adjectives-and-adverbs/, 4. http://e-ducativa.catedu.es/44700165/aula/archivos/repositorio//1750/1943/html/SUFFIXES.png, 5. http://e-ducativa.catedu.es/44700165/aula/archivos/repositorio/1750/1951/html/ADJECTIVE_SUFFIXES.png, 6. http://patternbasedwriting.com/elementary_writing_success/paragraph-examples/)

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Answer Key:

(1) outer / winds / swirls / spinning / twisting / clouds / balloons / blender / moves / slowly / races / entranced / fully / forgetting / deeds / done / coolness / calmness / does

(2) terrorize

(3) taxable

(4) sadness

(5) teacher