

"The dog xarfed all night and I couldn't sleep a wink" is a good example. A good activity for this is to write a sentence with a nonsensical word in it on the board. More-advanced students can learn words from context. What would happen if it started with a different letter? This will encourage children to think about the nature of word formation. So, for early learners, you could say "he opened the." then wait for the students to shout out "door." Next, you can discuss what letter "door" starts with and why it starts with that letter. Read to your students, but occasionally stop to discuss the structural analysis. Encourage discussion as to what the new words are and how their meanings changed. "Clearly" is a different word than "clear," and both are different than "unclear." A good activity is to write a root word on the board, then have students take turns coming up with changes that can be made to it by adding prefixes and suffixes. Affixes change the meaning of a word by attaching to the beginning (a prefix) or end (suffix) of that word.
