Vocabulary · Tier 2: academic words
Morphology and word families
Teach how words are built from roots, prefixes and suffixes, so students can work out new words and choose the right form. One known word can unlock a whole family.
- Bands
- 2 to 5
- Stages
- Upper elementary, Middle school and High school
- Settings
- Mainstream class, Pull-out support and Small group
- Prep
- Low prep
How to do it
- Choose a useful root or affix for the unit, such as -tion, un-, bio- or -ly.
- Show three or four words that share it and ask what they have in common.
- Build a word family table with noun, verb, adjective and adverb columns.
- Practice choosing the right form in sentences.
- Ask students to find the pattern in their reading.
In a lesson
Science (high school)
The class builds a family for react: react, reaction, reactive, reactivity, reactant. Students then complete “Potassium is more ___ than sodium” and “The ___ produced a gas”, choosing reactive and reaction.
What commonly goes wrong
- Lists of prefixes are taught with no link to the words students actually meet.
- Spelling changes are ignored, as in decide and decision.
- Staff assume students know word classes. Teach noun, verb and adjective first if needed.
Adapting it
For a lower band
Focus on one pattern at a time with common words, such as help, helpful, helper.
For a higher band
Explore Latin and Greek roots that appear across subjects, such as graph, therm and port.