Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Teaching Prefixes



Over the past 5 years I have taught 3 different grades, and worked with a variety of students who have special needs. One thing that remains the same, no matter the grade or skill level, is the difficulty with reading vocabulary. I know many times that background knowledge is lacking, but I also think it's because we are raising a generation who has no interest in books. I practically have to beg my 6th graders to pick out a book from the library. It drives me crazy! Okay, off my soapbox now and onto the topic of this post...vocabulary. My students really struggle with almost all vocabulary, but mainly prefixes. Last week, our selection vocab featured three or four words with de- and dis-, so I decided to take it a step further. Below is the anchor chart I made.



The first step I took was to cover the prefixes (in pink) and their meanings. I made sure to stress the important of a base word. For example disappear. Appear is a word on its own, so this is a great example of a prefix. Disgust is not, because "gust" is not a word. After going over and over this, I asked my kiddos to help me come up with correct examples of words using prefixes (in orange). They really enjoyed listing these. Finally, I finished up with a prefix worksheet that I made. It is available at here.

Do you have any great vocabulary strategies for general education or special education students?

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