The Suffix -NESS: A FREE Morphology Lesson
- Cate O'Donnell
- Mar 19, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 28, 2024
Morphology is a powerful tool for teaching older students both decoding longer words and understanding new vocabulary words. We use the suffix -ness to change the meaning of a word. Adding the suffix -ness to a base word changes an adjective into a noun. For example, sad becomes sadness. Less commonly, you can also turn a verb into a noun. For example, forgive becomes forgiveness.
Adding a suffix to a word may change the spelling of the word. Here are the rules for spelling words with the suffix -ness.
for most words, simply add -ness to the end of the word
if a word ends in consonant + y, drop the y and add -iness
It is helpful for students to know the parts of speech as they work on morphology. If your students need to work on parts of speech, I highly recommend this writing program. It teaches writing complete sentences based on parts of speech. If you need to, you can even use these two programs at the same time.
Teaching the Suffix -NESS
To teach your students about the suffix -ness, display the presentation below. You can access the presentation from this website for free. You can also purchase the slideshow for use at school.
Suffixes change both the spelling and meaning of words. I recommend following this routine to practice both spelling and meaning.
You display a base word from the presentation.
Students write the word with the -ness suffix in their writing notebooks or on a whiteboard.
You display the words with the -ness suffix from the presentation (the next slide).
Students check their spelling.
Students say or write a sentence using the base word. Then, say or write a different sentence using the word with the suffix.
This lesson is designed to last one week. You also get 25 mixed review practice slides to use later in the year.
Check out this list of words with the suffix. You can use this list to build your own activities for your classroom. You can also get a printable .pdf.
Do you love this lesson? You can access all of the morphology lessons for FREE on this website! You can also purchase the presentations!
