大象传媒

An illustration of a young boy thinking.

What is a suffix?

A suffix is a letter or group of letters that goes on the end of a word and changes the word's meaning.

Sometimes they also change the original word's spelling.

When adding a suffix you might have to double the last letter. For example, when adding -ed to 'drop', you need to double the 'p'.

drop 鈫 dropped

Some suffixes have specific uses.

Adding -ing can change a noun into a verb.

garden 鈫 gardening

While -ed can put a verb in the past tense.

jump 鈫 jumped

An illustration of a young boy thinking.
Back to top

Watch: Using the suffixes -ed and -ing

Back to top
An illustration of a young girl smiling with question marks around her.

Activity 1

Use the following words to fill in the gaps in the sentences below. The first one has been done for you.

  • playing
  • played
  • sitting
  • moved
  • danced
  1. My friend is sitting next to my parents.

  2. I _ _ _ _ _ _ a game with my friends earlier.

  3. I was _ _ _ _ _ _ outside earlier because it was sunny.

  4. Last night I _ _ _ _ _ _ to a new song.

  5. My family _ _ _ _ _ _ house last week.

An illustration of a young girl smiling with question marks around her.
Back to top

Activity 2

First, read the words below.

  • skipping
  • skipped
  • working
  • worked
  • painting
  • painted
  • looking
  • looked
  • dropping
  • dropped
An illustration of a young girl painting a sunflower.

Now choose one word and write a sentence using that word. For example:

I painted a picture of a sunflower.

Try to do three sentences.

Don鈥檛 forget your capital letter to start the sentence and full stop, exclamation mark or question mark at the end.

An illustration of a young girl painting a sunflower.
Back to top
An illustration of a young boy thinking.

Activity 3

  1. Choose one of the root words below and add either -ing or -ed to give it a new meaning.
  • wish
  • sort
  • lean
  • watch

For example, 鈥榳ish鈥 could become 鈥榳ished鈥 or 鈥榳ishing鈥.

  1. Now write a sentence using your new word correctly. For example:

When I blew out the candles, I wished for a new bike.

  1. Can you do this with one more word?
An illustration of a young boy thinking.
Back to top

Karate Cats English game. game

Head to the dojo to become an expert in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Karate Cats English game
Back to top

More on Prefixes and suffixes

Find out more by working through a topic