Suffix

A suffix is a small unit of meaning which is added at the end of a word to make a new word. 

Adding a suffix can change words in a grammatical way, for example changing the tense of verbs (want – wanted), changing a noun from singular to plural (car – cars, bus – buses) or changing an adjective to a different form (smart – smarter – smartest).

Adding a suffix can change the meaning of the word, e.g. host/hostess, kitchen/kitchenette, duck/duckling.

Adding a suffix can change the word class and alter how a word is used in a sentence.  There are a huge number of suffixes; the list below exemplifies just a few:

-ly can change an adjective into an adverb (brave/bravely, kind/kindly)

-ful can change a noun into an adjective (grace/graceful, beauty/beautiful)

-ness can change an adjective into a noun (sad/sadness)

-er can change a verb into a noun (help/helper, teach/teacher)

-ation can change a verb into a noun (consider/consideration)

The English language is very flexible in permitting these types of constructions, which means we can create new words easily.

Nouns and noun phrases in Year 2

2014 National curriculum requirements for Year 2 children relating to nouns	Terminology used in Year 2
Expanded noun phrases for description and specification [for example, the blue butterfly, plain flour, the man in the moon]	noun, noun phrase, adjective,
Formation of nouns using suffixes such as –ness, –er and by compounding [for example, whiteboard, superman]	compound (noun), suffix
Formation of adjectives using suffixes such as –ful, –less	adjective, suffix
Use of the suffixes –er, –est in adjectives	adjective, suffix
Consolidation of previous learning	Continuing to use terminology from Year 1.

In Year 2, there is much more emphasis on children using the correct terms to understand and develop noun phrases in their writing.  At the end of Year 2, the grammar and punctuation test will use the terminology in questions designed to check children’s understanding of these grammatical features.

However, continuing to develop noun phrases and sentences orally is an important part of the writing process.  Children need to make choices about what words and phrases they will use, so experimenting out loud will help them investigate a number of possibilities and decide what sounds best and communicates their intended message to the reader.  Playing oral games with your children to create noun phrases will help them to try out different ideas for describing people, objects and places.

Adding words to the noun phrase is called ‘expanding the noun phrase’. In Year 2, children should investigate using more than one adjective and again, as in Year 1, should be encouraged to vary the words they start their noun phrases with (these words are called determiners, but this terminology is not required until Year 4).  

Following on from ideas for Year 1 children, pictures can again be used to build description. 

With a picture you can:

• Collect adjectives to describe the noun and play around with combining them.  For example, small, slim, green, white, brown, lazy, patterned, sunbathing. If children write these phrases and they have more than one adjective, they will probably need to use a comma to separate these: that green, brown and white lizard, a small, slim lizard.
• Use two words placed together to act as an adjective.  When we want two words to work together as an adjective, we need to put a hyphen between them, e.g. long-tailed, beady-eyed.
• Play around with alliteration in the noun phrase, e.g. the lazy lizard, the long-tailed lizard.  (Alliteration is the use of two or more words beginning with the same sound, which usually means they also begin with the same letter.)  This can also be carried on in the rest of the sentence: The lazy, long-tailed lizard lay in the sun.

When children have been taught the suffix work in Year 2, you can add these adjectives to your games, e.g. a beautiful lizard, this helpless lizard.  Take any opportunity to talk about other words that are similar to these (e.g. beauty, help, helpful) and how the spelling is different.

With the suffixes –er and –est, you can create sentences in threes and see how imaginative you and your child can be.  For example:

• The small lizard hid inside a watering can.
• The smaller lizard curled up inside a flower pot.
• The smallest lizard slipped inside an empty snail shell.

Sometimes we can’t add –er and –est without changing part of the adjective.  This happens when the adjective ends in –y.  In these cases, we need to change the –y to an –i and then add the suffix: happy, happier, happiest.

We don’t always add –er and –est to adjectives.  With some adjectives we need to use more or most, e.g. more beautiful, most expensive.  Children should learn that we don’t use more and –er together (more slimmer) or most and –est together (most friendliest).

Compound nouns are formed when two existing words join to create a new noun, e.g. super + man = superman, white + board = whiteboard.  You can copy the table below to enlarge, print and cut out cards which can be used in games to create compound words.  You can change the words in the table for new compound words that you find.

Turn all the cards face down and play a type of Kim’s game by remembering where the matching cards are.  Each player turns over two cards.  If they make a compound word, both cards can be kept by that player.  If not, hide the words by turning them down again, but try to remember where particular cards are so you can match them next time.  The winner is the player with the most compound words when all the cards are gone.

super	market	post	man
fire	work	police	woman
hand	bag	grand	father
green	fly	black	bird
play	ground	motor	way
news	paper	flap	jack
pop	corn	leap	frog
lamp	shade	horse	shoe
home	work	rain	bow

Nouns and noun phrases in Year 1

2014 National curriculum requirements for Year 1 children relating to nouns	Terminology used in Year 1
Regular plural noun suffixes –s or –es [for example, dog, dogs; wish, wishes], including the effects of these suffixes on the meaning of the noun	singular, plural
How the prefix un– changes the meaning of verbs and adjectives [negation, for example, unkind, or undoing: untie the boat]

Although children in year 1 are not required to use the terminology noun and adjective, it is likely that teachers will start using these terms to help pupils develop their sentence writing. 

Teachers will focus on building children’s repertoire of nouns, making sure children understand what the word means, and then encouraging them to segment (sound out) the word so that they can use their phonic knowledge to spell the word.  Children will also start to use the terms singular and plural.  The Year 1 requirement to spell plurals correctly will be linked to their learning in phonics, so that they understand that nouns usually end in –s in the plural, but that there are certain nouns that will need –es for their plural spelling.  The rule for this is as follows:  The suffix –es is used after words ending in /s/, /ch/, /sh/ and /z/ and when ‘y’ is replaced by ‘i’.

• bus/buses
• church/churches
• bush/bushes
• buzz/buzzes
• dolly/dollies

When children start to write sentences, there are lots of things for them to remember and try to focus on: forming the letters correctly, choosing the right words, spelling the words correctly, remembering finger-spaces, capital letters and full stops, keeping their writing on the line and the right size, etc.  They may have lots of ideas about what to write, but the quality of what they write rarely matches up to their spoken ideas.  Therefore, their first written sentences are likely to contain very basic noun phrases, often starting with ‘the’ or ‘a’, e.g. The boy, a dog.

During Foundation Stage and Year 1, children will be taught to read and write a number of words which can vary the starts to these noun phrases.  The table below contains many of these words, some of which can only be used with a singular noun, some with a plural noun and some with both singular and plural.  Your child should be encouraged to use these words as these will improve the variety in their writing and also reinforce the spelling of these (often very common) words.

a	an	the	this	that	these	those
my	his	her	our	your	their	some
all	one	two	three	other	many	another

You can use the table to create cards to match up to pictures of singular and plural nouns.  Discussing what the words mean and whether they can be matched with the nouns in the pictures will help your child develop understanding around their use.  Here is a picture to start you off.

flowers	rose
fern	leaves

 

• the flowers
• some flowers
• many flowers
• these flowers
• my flowers
• a rose
• the rose
• one rose
• our rose

The above are all correct, but we couldn’t have:

• a flowers
• many fern
• an leaves

In Year 1, children will also be encouraged to describe people, objects and places.  Much of this description will take place by creating spoken sentences.  Looking at a picture and choosing a noun to describe is a good way to start children build noun phrases.  In the picture above, you could ask your child to describe the rose.  How big is it? What colour is it?  They might describe it as ‘the pink rose’ or ‘the small rose’.  Could they put that noun phrase into a sentence? (The pink rose is in the garden.)

In that example, ‘pink’ and ‘small’ are adjectives, describing the noun ‘rose’.  In Year 1, we want to encourage children to use adjectives to describe the nouns they want to use in spoken and written language, even if they do not use the terms adjective and noun yet.

As children’s understanding of adjectives increases, we can start to introduce the second of the above National Curriculum requirements: using the prefix ‘un’ to change the meaning of an adjective.  For example, kind/unkind, happy/unhappy, sure/unsure.  Discussing these changes to the meaning of words will help children understand that this structure only works with certain adjectives, not all.  As with all work on grammar, it is a good idea for children to practise putting their examples into real sentences.  Teachers will also be linking this prefix to work on verbs.

Sentence elements: the basic building blocks of sentences

To build a sentence, we need the basic building blocks of grammar and we need to put them in the correct order.  These basic building blocks are often called the sentence or clause elements:

• S – subject   (This position or slot in a sentence is usually filled by a noun or noun phrase.)
• V – verb  (This position or slot in a sentence is filled by a verb or verb phrase.)
• O – object   (This position or slot in a sentence is usually filled by a noun or noun phrase.)
• A – adverbial  (This position or slot in a sentence is usually filled by an adverb or adverbial phrase, often giving information about where, when or how the verb in the sentence takes place.  As a very flexible sentence element, adverbials can be added in various positions in these constructions.)
• C – complement  (In primary education, this is not required terminology.  Children will often use adjectives or nouns/noun phrases in the complement position.  For information beyond the curriculum, click here.)

Examples of how these elements can be used in sentence constructions are:

SV                The sword vanished.

SVO             The sword cut the tree.

SVC             The sword was heavy. 

ASVO           With one strike, the sword cut the tree.

SVA              The sword lay on the ground.

ASVOA          At that moment, the knight raised the sword above his head.

For more information about words, phrases and clauses which can fill these sentence element positions or slots, click here.