Find the Root Word

Nine cards fill this 2nd grade page in three rows. Each holds three related words and an empty stone at the bottom. The first card is worked as an example: cheerful, cheerfully and cheerily have cheer circled in each, and cheer is written in the stone. On every other card the child circles the part the three words share and writes that root word in the stone. On the sheet shown the roots to find are use, play, act, power, joy, care, sleep and rest, in words that run from misuse and replay to enjoyment, restlessness and sleepover.

Finding the root is the reverse of the base page. There the root was given and the child sorted words onto it; here the family is given and the child has to find what holds it together. The words are chosen so that the root is not always at the start: misuse, replay, enjoy and asleep put something in front of it. Card six is a good one to discuss, since enjoy is itself a word, but the part all three of its words share is joy.

One sheet, nine cards, eight roots to find. Some of the words are compound words rather than a root with endings, sleepover and armrest among them, which is worth mentioning if your class has already met compound words. Ask children to add a fourth word to any card they finish early. The prefixes by meaning face comes next and looks closely at the front of the word.