Spelling: Spelling and word structure
Many common spelling errors occur with double consonants or vowel combinations, as in the following words:
- Double consonants: shipped, sadder, fittest
- Vowel pairs: advantageous, manageable
Sometimes these patterns are difficult to predict. But many letter pairs are predictable if you know how words are constructed out of their ‘building blocks’. These building blocks are called morphemes, and the study of these building blocks is called morphology. We add morphemes to root words (also sometimes called base forms) to create new forms. A morpheme added to the beginning of a word is called a prefix; a morpheme added to the end of a word is called a suffix.
In English, we often use suffixes to show
- whether a noun is singular or plural (typically, add −s),
- to show the tense of a verb (e.g. -ed added to the root for the past tense of a regular verb), or
- to mark comparative adjectives (fast → faster).
Full Preview
This is a full preview of this page. You can view a page a day like this without registering.
But if you wish to use it in your classroom, please register your details on Englicious (for free) and then log in!
- Printer-friendly version
- Log in to view or leave comments