Add a Prefix!

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell your students that a prefix is a word that is added to the beginning of a word and changes the meaning of the word.
• Explain that some examples of prefixes are re, dis, mis, un and pre.
• Tell them that "re" means again. An example of a word that contains this prefix is "retry." Explain the meaning of "try" and then the meaning of "retry".
• Tell them that "dis" and "un" mean not. Examples of words that contain these prefixes are "disorganized" and "undo." Explain the meanings of the words.
• Tell your students that "mis" means wrong. An example of a word that contains this prefix is "misunderstood." Explain the meaning of "understood" and show how it changes when the prefix is added. Discuss the meaning of the new word.
• Tell your students that "pre" means before. An example of a word that contains this prefix is "pretest." Ask a volunteer to help explain the meaning of the new word.
• Write the meaning and examples of the prefixes on the board. Ask students to restate the meanings of the examples to a partner.

Guided Practice

• Pick a student and ask him to think of a word that has a prefix.
• Have the student come up and act out the word.
• Ask the rest of the class to guess the word and identify the prefix.
• Repeat the activity with the rest of the class.
• Write the words that the students act out on the board.
• Tell your students that they cannot act out a word that has already been done.

Independent working time

• Tell your students to each write five sentences that contain a word that could be changed to a word with a prefix.
• An example could be, “I took a test yesterday." The sentence could be changed to, "I took a pretest yesterday."
• Tell your students to use each prefix at least once.
• Put students into partnerships and have them share their sentences. Prompt them to explain the meaning of the new word with the prefix and how it changed the sentence.