Power Up Vocabulary Muscles With Affixes

Mastering vocabulary can be a piece of cake; however, for some of us, it's quite challenging. Quoting Henry Ward Beecher, "All words are pegs to hang ideas on", it follows that the more words we know, the more ideas we may have. True or not, it is hard to argue that a good vocabulary is an asset in life. Therefore, searching for ways to help young etymologists foster their understanding of words in an interesting manner becomes a responsibility of both parents as well as teachers.

Prefixes, suffixes, and roots are the essential building blocks of all words and, hence, serve as tools needed for decoding various words. An understanding of different prefixes and suffixes, which is one of the most essential strategies for unlocking the meaning of new words, is important to create better readers. The idea behind the concept is that if you break down a word like indecision into its parts: its prefix in- (meaning "not"), its root decide (meaning "to choose"), and its suffix -sion (indicating that this word is a noun), you'll be able to infer that indecision means "not deciding". As renowned reading researcher Steven Stahl explains:

While words like geologist, interdependent, and substandard can often be figured out from context, decomposing such words into known parts like geo-, -logist, inter-, depend, etc., not only makes the words themselves more memorable, but, in combination with sentence context, may be a useful strategy in determining the meaning of unknown words.

Prefixes and suffixes are linguistic elements that never stand alone; they must be attached to a word that makes sense, either in the beginning or at the end. Prefixes commonly augment the meaning of the words to which they are attached while suffixes commonly change the part of speech of the words to which they are attached. It is important to understand that prefixes come at the beginning of a word while suffixes are added at the end.

To help children demystify the process of spelling and reading by making them master prefixes, suffixes, and root words, Vocab Tunes, an online initiative, caters to vocabulary needs of kids from preschool to eighth grade. With exceptionally structured workbook w/CDs and 21 fun music videos based on affixes and root words, this program will surely reinforce your kids’ vocabulary learning strategies and accelerate their all-round development.

Vocab Tunes, a father-daughter duo S.R. Kaura and Manisha kaura initiative, helps kids enrich vocabulary through fun activities such as singing and dancing.