Morphology Unit 3: Inflectional Suffixes

Our first suffixes of the year!

At this point in the year, students learned parts of speech, homophones, and critical foundational terms. We are finally ready to learn some suffixes! This unit complements my -ed x3 phonology Unit. My data demonstrates that the majority of my students don't know the three pronunciations of -ed.

As mentioned in my last Interactive Unit Guide, I think teaching suffixes according to their derivations, rather than their abstract definitions,

 is more meaningful for students.  When planning this curriculum, I asked myself, "What do I actually do in real life? What is realistic for students to do?" I realized that when I came across a word with -ion, for example, I rarely thought, "Oh, this is the state of...". No. I thought, "Okay, this is some kind of thing." That at least gets me in the ballpark, and I think with students, that's my goal. Let's get them in the ballpark when trying to define an unfamiliar word, because honestly, that's what's realistic. If they can at least say, "Yup, I'm pretty sure it's a thing [or action or descriptive]," then they can get the gist of the sentence.

Note that several of these suffixes have more than one meaning. s/-es, -ed, -ing, and -er/or have an inflectional and derivational definition. I am only teaching the inflectional meaning during this unit. The derivational meanings will be taught in subsequent units. See here for my morpheme sequence chart.

You can grab the printable Unit Plan here. While students work independently, I use this time to provide targeted phonemic awareness instruction. Below is the interactive Foundations Unit Plan where you can find tons of helpful links. Each blog post will include the typical grouping, methodology, suggested duration, and rationale. I included the objectives in the chart to give you a quick overview. The PDF column will take you to directly to TPT.

Inflectional Suffixes Mastery Goal: 

Define and identify

morphemes -s/-es, -ed, -ing, -est, -er/or, -less.

Day	Blog Posts	The PDFs	Objectives
tool	None	Word Bank	Provide the instructor with a bank of words for instruction.
		None	Phonology Full Period
1-2	How To: Brainstorm & Flashcards	Brainstorm & Flashcards	Use inquiry to develop shared definitions of targeted morphemes.
3-5	How To: Vocabulary Capture Sheets	Vocabulary Capture Sheets	Identify, define, and analyze terms with targeted morphemes using morphemic segmentation.
6	How to: SLAM!	SLAM!	Enhance comprehension of key vocabulary through word generation, comparison, and contextual application in a competitive format.
7-8	How To: Sort & Sum the Story	Sort & Sum the Story	Apply morphemic segmentation to identify, define, and analyze words with targeted morphemes as they appear in a passage.
9	How To: Morpheme Card Review	Morpheme Card Review	Review morphemes to build automaticity.
10	How To: Word Wars	Word Wars Game & Answer Key	Define vocabulary terms in a competitive format.
11	How To: Match & Fill	Match & Fill	Review morphemes to build automaticity. Apply context clues and morphological knowledge to complete cloze sentences.
12-13	How To: List, Opposite, Sentence (LOS)	List, Opposite, Sentence, Picture (LOSP)	Enhance comprehension of key vocabulary with targeted morphemes through word generation, morphological comparison, and contextual application.
	Phonology Quiz
14	How To: How Many Do You Know?	How Many Do You Know?	Generate concise definitions (1–2 words) for vocabulary terms containing targeted morphemes
15	How To: Jeopardy Quiz Review	Jeopardy Quiz Review	Review content in preparation for the quiz.
15	How To: Morphology Quizzes	Quiz	Assess understanding of the unit objective.
Daily	How To: Phonemic Awareness	None	Develop phonemic awareness.
Any	How To: Bananagrams	None	Apply morphological knowledge to build words.