Suffixes and Inferences

What on earth do they have in common? That was a question that I was hoping to answer. As I wrote last time, I'm working with an enrichment group for word study. Right now we're polishing up all of our skills to prepare for state testing. I need to review suffixes, but I also want to make the connection to meaning.

Today I continued to read meta-fiction books. I shared one of my favorites--The Pencil, by Allan Ahlberg. Because I was working with suffixes, we made a list of the words with suffixes throughout the book. (I'd checked for these beforehand!) There were several -ly words, as well as some -ful words. After a quick discussion of the deeper questions of the book (Was the eraser bad, or just acting according to its nature? Why did everything want a name? Where did the illustrator hide a picture of the author?), we looked into the words with suffixes.

And this is where I have trouble with a lot of word work. So many of the worksheets and activities for using prefixes and suffixes are dead end activities. We look at the words, and take them apart, but never really use these words to their fullest potential. So I wondered--why are suffixes important to the reader? What can we learn from suffixes?

Quite a lot, actually. I decided to focus first on the suffix -ly, mostly because it was well-represented in The Pencil (and also because I love to play the game In the Manner of the Adverb). In fiction, -ly adverbs are often very helpful for readers as they make inferences about a character's feelings in a certain situation. Learning to tune into these words as a source of information can be helpful for readers as they tackle more complex fiction. Think about this example: The one word awkwardly conveys a wealth of information about the character's feelings. A reader who doesn't attend to this word may miss the opportunity to make these inferences.

So I made some short little scenarios with -ly words, which we'll talk about and act out.  Just as more practice, I added another simple page. Hopefully it will be word work time well-spent! 

Using the suffix –ly

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