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Lesson Twenty-five

One Kind of Change: Adding Letters

1. One suffix -er adds the meaning ___________________ to words. Another suffix -er adds the meaning ___________________.

2. The suffix that adds the meaning “most” to words is ___________________.

3. The following rule is called the Rule of ___________________.

Unless you know some reason to make a change, when you add elements together to spell a word, do not make any changes at all. Simply add the elements together.

4. Now we are going to look at one of those reasons for making a change when we add elements together. Read these sentences and sort the seven bold-face words into the groups below:

a. Those are big oranges.

b. They are bigger than the oranges we had before.

c. They are the biggest oranges I have ever seen.

d. That is hot soup.

e. It is hotter than the soup we had before.

f. It is the hottest soup I have ever eaten.

g. She is a good swimmer.

5. In the column labeled “Words” below write the words you found that end with either -er or -est.

Each of these five words is made up of two elements: a free base and a suffix. But when you take the two elements apart, you find an extra letter right in the middle. Divide each of the four words into its two elements and show the extra letter — just as we have done with bigger.

Word Changes

1. Write the word wettest: ____________
2. Take away the suffix. Be sure you also take away the extra letter! ____________
3. Write the word backwards and then put an in front of it: ____________
4. Change the last letter in the word to the letter that comes seven places in front of it in the alphabet: _______________
5. Move the up to the front of the word. Then move the <st> to the end: ____________
6. Take away the second consonant in the word: ____________

Riddle: A dog who has been for a swim is a