Root Words with Pictures: Circle the Word

Six cards fill this 1st grade page in two rows. Each shows a picture in a frame at the bottom and three words in boxes above it, and the child names the picture, then circles the one word above it that is built from that picture word. On the sheet shown the pictures are a tooth, a fish, a cloud, a book, a flower and a hand, and the words to find are toothy, fishy, cloudy, booklet, flowery and handy. The other words on each card start with the same letters but are not built from the picture: tomato and toad, fist and first, clown and close.

This is readiness for the root words family, the first time a child sees that one word can grow out of another. The picture gives the root without any reading, and the three choices look alike on purpose, so the child has to check that the whole picture word is inside the longer word, not just its first letters. Most of the answers add -y, and booklet adds -let, so the page also shows that different endings can grow from a word. Hammer and hamster are close traps on the last card, since both start like hand but neither holds it.

One sheet, six pictures, six circles. The flower card is the tricky one, because flour sounds exactly like flower but is not built from it; a child who circles it is listening well and reading less, so ask them to look at the spelling. The find the root word face is the grade 2 version, where the child sees three family members and has to find the root without a picture.