Year 4 · SPaG · Word families, prefixes and suffixes
Year 4 word families worksheet and PowerPoint
To identify word families and to see how a suffix can change a root word.
Word families
Words that share the same root word belong to a word family. The meaning stays linked: happy, unhappy, happiness. Sometimes the spelling of the root changes when a suffix is added: happy → happiness.
| root | help |
|---|---|
| family | helpful, helpless, helper, unhelpful |
| spelling change | happy → happiness, make → making |
Examples
- Care: careful, careless, carefully
- Act: action, actor, active
Key words
- root word
- the main part of a word
- prefix
- letters added to the start of a word
- suffix
- letters added to the end of a word
- word family
- words that share a root
What is on the worksheet
Every sheet for this lesson has a short teaching box and 12 questions that get gradually harder: 8 fluency questions, then 4 reasoning questions that ask pupils to explain or choose. A writing challenge follows. The questions use the same styles as the key stage 2 grammar and punctuation test (circle, underline, tick, fill the gap, add punctuation, rewrite, explain). They are written for this website, not copied from past papers.
All the answers are on the last page of the same editable Word file. New questions are made every time, so you can print a different sheet for every group or for homework. The same sheet code always gives the same sheet.
Writing challenge: Choose a root word such as play or friend. Write as many words from its family as you can and use three in sentences.
Pupil target: I can find the words in a word family.
The PowerPoint
A 20-slide lesson deck for the same lesson: a starter that revisits earlier learning, key words, an I do and a You do question on each slide with a countdown timer, answers that appear one click at a time, and a challenge. Download the word families PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 54 of 60 in the Year 4 SPaG scheme, in the block “Word families, prefixes and suffixes”.
Other lessons in this block
- Prefixes dis-, mis- and re-
- Prefixes in-, il-, im- and ir-
- Words ending -sure, -ture and -cher
- Endings -ation, -sion, -ssion, -tion and -cian
- Using suffixes
- Root words together
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