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Guided practice: Guide students in performing the strategy in small groups or in pairs. Un- means ‘not’ and happy means ‘with joy,’ so unhappy means ‘not happy’ or ‘without joy.” Model starting with happy and changing it to happiness, using thinking aloud to explain that the suffix ness was added to the end of happy and changed its meaning to a thing, Repeat the tasks until students achieve proficiency (can add the target prefixes or suffixes to root words and accurately decode and state their meaning). un) to a root word (i.e happy) to create a new word. Model how to add the prefix or suffix (i.e. Explain that the rest of the word to which a prefix and/or suffix is added is called a root word. Using the list, have students identify the meanings of some prefixes and suffixes. Distribute a beginning list of commonly used prefixes and suffixes to use at first, and then gradually lengthen the list. Show a poster defining root word, prefix, and suffix and explain the poster. Explain that some syllables change or add meaning to a word. Activities such as educational games can be used to help students practice decoding unknown words and to reinforce the application of previously taught prefixes and suffixes.Įxplain the strategy. How ToĪside from using explicit instruction to teach structural analysis, the learned prefixes and suffixes should be embedded into texts and spelling instruction. Use explicit instruction (explanation, modeling, guided practice, independent practice) to teach structural analysis to students. Structural analysis is a learning strategy. The decoding strategies in structural analysis aid students in learning parts of words (prefixes, suffixes) so they can more easily decode unknown multi-syllabic words.
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Structural analysis is a strategy that can be used to facilitate decoding as students become more proficient readers. Lists of root words, prefixes, and suffixes (e.g.,Īll students can benefit from this learning strategy, particularly those that struggle with decoding multisyllabic words.
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