Lessons · Teaching · prefix, root and suffix
Prefix, root and suffix
Long words are built from parts that carry meaning: a root in the middle, a prefix in front of it, a suffix behind it, and knowing about thirty of these unlocks thousands of words.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A reader meets something like ten thousand new words a year and nobody can pre-teach that many. What can be taught is the parts, and a reader who knows un and port and able can read and understand a word they have never seen in their life.
How to think about it
Break the word into parts, say what each part does, then put the meaning back together in ordinary English. Then change one part and read the whole family aloud.
Worked example
unbreakable = un + break + ableThe root is the part that carries the thing itself.
un means not, able means can beEach part named on its own before anything is reassembled.
Family: breakable, unbreakable, breaking, breaksOne root, four words, one lesson.
transport = trans + port, across + carryA root that is not an English word on its own, which most of the useful ones are.
Your turn
Break rebuilding into its parts and write how many parts it has.
re + build + ing = parts
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Teaching prefixes as a list to memorise. A prefix learned away from a root is one more thing on the desk; taught inside a word family, it is a tool that gets used.