Do you need some practice on grade 5 elementary root words? Root words can have prefixes and suffixes added to them to make new words. In this article you will find examples of root words, prefixes, and suffixes, along with online resources and a worksheet for practice.
Grade 5 Root Words
Let’s start by looking at the definitions of some terms before we continue.
- A root word is a word that can have prefixes or suffixes added to it.
- A prefix is a letter or letters that is added to the beginning of a word.
- A suffix is a letter or letters added at the end of a word.
- A word family contains words with the same root.
Let’s look at examples of word families. Not all the possible words are listed.
- happy - happiness, unhappy, unhappiness, happier, happiest
- love - lovely, lovelier, loveliest, unloved, lover, lovely
- friend - friendless, friendly, unfriendly, befriend
- excite - excitement, excitable, unexcited
- use - usable, user, useless, misuse
- believe - believable, believer, unbelievable
- view - review, preview, viewer
- agree - agreement, disagree, agreeable
- decide - decision, indecision, decisive
- care - careful, uncaring, careless
Online Resources for Practicing Root Words
- This game at Harcourt School can accommodate 1 or 2 players. You not only pick a prefix or suffix to add to the root word, but you have to insert it into a sentence where it makes sense. This is really good because it shows the word in context, and the students practice reading as well.
- Fun Brain is a great site because it explains the meaning of the prefixes and suffixes. It has four levels of difficulty and includes number words and the months.
- Gamequarium has interactive games to practice decoding and building words with prefixes and suffixes.
- The Jelly fish game at Sadlier-Oxford is a fun game with really big words. You have to break down the word into prefix, root, and suffix.
- Quia has three games with practice on prefixes and roots. Two of the games give the meaning of the prefix: the matching game and Concentration. The word search puzzle uses prefixes.
Root Word Worksheet
As promised, here is a worksheet for grade 5 elementary root words.
A. Directions - Write the root word on the blank provided.
- disappear __________
- impossible __________
- submarine _________
- excitable _________
- thankful _________
- befriended _________
- unsuitable _________
- misspelled _________
- explosion _________
- rewritten _________
- enslave _________
- replacement _________
- kindness _________
- unfair _________
- nonfiction _________
- description _________
- relaxation _________
- surtax _________
- imaginary _________
- education _________
B. Directions: Pick at least one prefix or suffix to add to each root word to make a new word.
Prefix Root Suffix New Word
con pay er 1. __________
dis port ant 2. __________
ex serve ical 3. __________
il cycle ive 4. __________
pre legal ist 5. __________
re differ able 6. __________
in view ous 7. __________
bi teach ent 8. __________
believe ment 9. __________
danger 10. __________
Answers:
A.
- appear
- possible
- marine
- excite
- thank
- friend
- suit
- spell
- explode
- write
- slave
- place
- kind
- fair
- fiction
- describe
- relax
- tax
- imagine
- educate
B. Answers will vary. Here are some:
- payment
- report
- preserve
- bicycle
- illegal
- different
- review
- teacher
- believable
- dangerous