What are word families examples

A word family is a group of words with a common base to which different prefixes and suffixes are added. For example, members of the word family based on the headword, base, stem, or root word work include rework, worker, working, workshop, and workmanship, among others. Similar words are called paronyms. 

Polyptoton is the use of more than one of these words together, such as in this quote from the movie «Fight Club»: «The things you own end up owning you.» The repetition can serve as a dramatic effect or for emphasis in writings ranging from plays and poetry to advertising and political speeches.

Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes

Don’t plan to memorize all the word families, though. An analysis of a 1963 dictionary by scholars in 1990 found 54,000 word families. With English users creating new words all the time, it’s better to know how to work with the language and its roots, prefixes, and suffixes than to attempt to memorize it all.

According to Birgit Umbreit, «[L]anguage users are able to analyze complex words and to establish synchronic relations between words both formally and semantically because they have an implicit or even explicit knowledge of word-family organization.» (Birgit Umbreit, «Does Love Come From to Love or to Love From Love? Why Lexical Motivation Has to Be Regarded as Bidirectional,» from «Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation,» edited by Alexander Onysko and Sascha Michel)

Said in a simpler way, language learners can decode many new or unfamiliar words through understanding what different prefixes and suffixes do to a root word. The technique can also help people figure out spellings of words they hear or determine the etymology of a word. Frank E. Daulton wrote, «[M]ost linguists agree that word families should be transparent, in that learning a new item related to one already known should involve a minimum of learning burden…For instance, if a learner knows govern and is familiar with the prefix mis-, then misgovern requires little if any additional learning (Goulden et al., 1990). Derivations that don’t meet the transparency criteria are not included in a word family but given separate listings; for instance, business (busy)…» (Frank E. Daulton, «Japan’s Built-in Lexicon of English-Based Loanwords»)

Breaking Words Into Parts

The roots or stems don’t have to be words on their own to make other words. For example, the root struct forms the base of more than 30 English words; it comes from a Latin word for to build and creates words such as: construction, structure, and constructive. Knowing that con- as a prefix means «with» or «together,» you can see how the words construction and constructive involve the creation of something. Knowing that the prefix de— means the opposite—to reduce or remove—and that the suffix —ion indicates that a word is a noun, you can understand how the word destruction is created—or even the verb to deconstruct.

Following the same pattern, look at contract and detract; a contract is something that joins parties in agreement, while to detract means to draw away from.

Source

• Norbert Schmitt, Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press.

Introduction

Are you struggling to help your child understand how to read? There are many things that you can do to help encourage literacy, one of which includes teaching your child word families.

Word families are the grouping of common letters into similar word lists. In short, if your child understands the word family, they’ll be able to understand a list of words with the word family in common.

This guide will not only explain the various word families in the English language but also give you tips and tricks on how to increase reading comprehension.

A word family is a group of letters that are combined to make a specific sound. For example, -ack, -am-, and -at are all word families.

The purpose of understanding a word family is the notion that if you can identify one word, you should be able to identify many others with the common word family. So, if your child can sound out “back,” then they should easily be able to sound out “smack, tack, and rack” as well.

This is also the foundation of understanding how words work together to create a rhyme. Since these words all sound the same, you can combine them to make them have the same flow and rhyme scheme.

Word families increase with difficulty as children age. The first world families that are taught are generally simple, like “at” (for “cat, bat, and sat”). As children age, they will be asked to identify more complex word families like “ain” (or “rain, refrain, and stain”).

Word families and sight words work together to help children learn how to read. All of these words are high-frequency words, which means that children will see them often. When children can identify them quickly and easily, they can become more persuasive writers.

Examples

According to Wylie and Durrell, there are 37 common word families in the English language. In actuality, there are many more than 37, but these are the highest frequency words.

Many popular nursery rhymes include these 37 word families. They are simple because each letter is pronounced the way it should be. The only time that words are not pronounced as they are spelled is in the event of two vowels being next to each other. When you encounter one of these two-vowel words (like rain), the rule is to pronounce the first vowel only.

Below is a list of examples for each of the 37 most popular word families.

Tips and Tricks for Teaching Reading

When beginning to teach your child to read, you will want to blend information from word families and sight words to help your child start identifying words.

To do this, pick a list of words that matches their age-level and start practicing those words only. When your child can identify these words in a text, it means that they are beginning to see the patterns and identify those high-frequency words in writing.

When you begin teaching word families, start with one of the easier ones first, like am. Once they can identify am, sound it out, and find words that end in am, move to a more complicated word.

Once your child understands how to form these word families into actual words, they will be able to spell and read them!

If your child struggles with some of the foundational skills associated with reading, consider adding a workbook to their daily practice. ArgoPrep has worked with educators to deliver high-quality practice that will entertain, educate, and excite your child. These workbooks are especially helpful for students who might need a little extra attention to reading comprehension, English language skills, and more.

Conclusion

My daughter loves to build things with Magnatiles. She will grab all of the tiles and construct fantastic castles, homes, and more with the simple building tools. But what happens when she builds a weak base? We all know. It can’t stand, it’s not steady, and it falls.

Learning how to read can kind of be similar to building a weak structure. Identifying something as simple as a word family seems like a mindless activity for us. Still, for kids, it’s necessary to understand the increasingly tricky skills that kids learn for reading comprehension.

Taking the time to learn word families will help them identify words more quickly and spell with more accuracy. This list of 37 high-frequency word families is a great place to start, but once your child masters it, consider researching more challenging word families to increase comprehension!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made with suffixes and prefixes^[1] plus its cognates, i.e. all words that have a common etymological origin, some of which even native speakers don’t recognize as being related (e.g. «wrought (iron)» and «work(ed)»).^[2] In the English language, inflectional affixes include third person —s, verbal -ed and -ing, plural —s, possessive —s, comparative —er and superlative —est. Derivational affixes include —able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-, -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize/-ise, -ment, in-.^[1] The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the base word and the affix.
Bauer and Nation proposed seven levels of affixes based on their frequency in English.^[3] It has been shown that word families can assist with deriving related words via affixes, along with decreasing the time needed to derive and recognize such words.^[4]

Effects on learning[edit]

There are several studies that suggest that knowledge of root words and their derivatives can assist with learning or even deducing the meaning of other members of a word family. A study from Carlisle and Katz (2006) comparing separate English word families varying in size, frequency, and affirmation and negation suggests that “accuracy of reading derived words by 4th and 6th graders is related to measures of familiarity, … base word frequencies, family size, average family frequency, and word length”.^[5] It was found that families that were either larger or more frequent (i.e. word families that had more words or were more common) were more quickly read.^[5] Nagy et al. (1989) found that morphologically related families had an increase of reaction time of up to 7 ms compared to those without a morphological relation.^[4] Nagy et al. (1993) summarizes how knowledge of the meanings of common English suffixes underwent significant development between fourth grade and high school.^[6]

Studies on non-native speakers[edit]

There have also been studies on non-native English speakers and learners on their knowledge and understanding of word families. A study of nonnative-English-speaking college students showed that non-native English speakers knew at least some of the four word forms studied (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs).^[7] Out of these four, word families derived from nouns and verbs were found to be the most well-known.^[7] Results showed that in regards to these word forms, ESL students knew the least, MA-ELT (English Language Teaching) students knew more, and native speakers knew the most.^[7] In addition, a study of Japanese students learning English showed poor knowledge of the affixes studied, showing a division between their knowledge of a word’s meaning and a derivative form of a separate word (e.g. stimulate versus similar, disclose and far).^[8] To conclude their study, Schmitt and Zimmerman have provided the following for those teaching word families as a guideline:^[7]

• Introduce derivatives along with their roots.
• Teach more affixes.
• Emphasize adverbs, adjectives, and their derivatives.
• Suggest reading that includes these word families.

See also[edit]

• Headword (lemma)
• Lexeme

References[edit]

There are so many ways a word can be related to another. Understanding these relations between words will help you build your vocabulary. Word families are one such way to explore how words relate to one another. So what is the word family? A group of words that have a common root word with different prefixes and suffixes is known as a word family.

Word families refer to groups of words that follow a certain set of letter patterns with the root word fixed for all words within the same group. This implies that the words belonging to the same group have common characteristics. Word families are also known as chunks, times, or groups.

• Most Common Word Families for Beginners
• Why Focus on Word Families?
• How to Study Word Families?
• Is it important to know about word families?
• How are word families formed?
• What is the order in which word families should be studied?
• How many word families are there in English?

Have a look at the following words:

• Helper
• Helped
• Unhelpful
• Helping
• Helpful

All these words come under a single word family. So what do you think they have in common? These words have the common root word ‘help’. This in turn means that all these words are members of the ‘help’ word family. Suffixes or prefixes are added to the root word to form derivatives of a root word.

Word families most often occur in rhymes and poems. For example:

• Hickory, dickory, dock.
  The mouse ran up the clock.
  The clock struck one,
  The mouse ran down,
  Hickory, dickory, dock.

The following word families are used in the above rhyme:

• ock- dock, clock
• ive- five, hive;
• ine- nine, fine.

You can even try out our other articles on How to Improve Your Vocabulary as well to expand your knowledge base.

There are thirty seven common word families according to the National Council of Teachers of English. Given below is a list of the various word families with examples for each family. So get ready to explore!

• ack: back, crack, hack, sack
• ain: gain, grain, main, complain
• ake: sake, make, cake, fake
• ale: pale, male, sale, scale
• all: all, ball, mall, call
• ame: game, came, lame, same
• an: an, ban, can, pan
• ank: prank, rank, sank, thank
• ap: cap, map, slap, trap
• ash: ash, dash, rash, stash
• at: gnat,cat, fat,pat
• ate: hate, gate, late, mate
• aw: slaw, raw, paw, saw
• ay: lay, gay, may, pay
• eat: peat, neat, heat, seat
• ell: hell, shell, tell, smell
• est: best, chest, vest, quest
• ice: thrice, price, nice, rice
• ick: nick, stick, pick, trick
• ide: bride,glide, side, guide
• ight: tight, fight, tonight, night
• ill: chill, drill, still
• in: inn,tin,kin
• ine: vine, mine, nine, pine
• ing: spring,string,sting
• ink: pink, ink,drink
• ip: lip, ship, skip,dip
• it: sit, hit,quit
• ock: clock, stock, rock,shock
• op: cop, hop, mop, top
• ore: bore, more, sore, tore
• ot: got, hot, not, rot
• uck: buck, duck luck, tuck
• ug: bug, hug, mug, rug
• ump: bump, dump, jump, pump
• unk: chunk, punk, sunk

Few other word families that occur regularly:

• ad- sad, mad, bad
• ar-bar, car, star
• en-men, pen,ten
• ent- tent, went, sent
• oil- oil, coil, soil
• oom-doom, groom, loom

Why Focus on Word Families?

Getting yourself familiar with word families has its advantages. An understanding of different word families will help you learn to read. Building your vocabulary will also be simple with the help of word families. Being able to identify common features and patterns among words is a foundation for developing your speaking skills.

Scholars also suggest that children generally connect what they have already discovered to what they are currently learning. This happens through the process of observing word similarities. Hence knowing the concept of root words and their derivatives will help you infer the meaning of other words in the word family. Familiarity with word families will also increase your pace of reading. You will learn to analyze language and infer common grammar rules.

Let’s take the example of the word family ‘all’. This word family will help you to learn simple spelling words like, ‘call’, ‘hall’, ‘mall’ etc. Later this understanding can be built upon, when you realize how many more words can be framed from the root word ‘all’. From simple words like ‘call’, you move into tougher words like ‘install’, ‘enthrall’ etc.

Read More:

• English Idioms
• Literary Devices

How to Study Word Families?

You can make use of the following key points to learn about word families:

• Begin with one-syllable words.
• Develop a word family chart at home.
• Make it a point to learn one-word family each week.
• Create new words by adding suffixes and prefixes to the root word.
• Engage in reading activities to memorize root words.
• Familiarise yourself with rhymes and poems that make use of word families.
• Engage in games and activities that deal with word families.

FAQs on Word Families

1. Is it important to know about word families?

Knowledge of word families will help you build vocabulary. Instead of simply memorizing words, you will learn to spot patterns and root words. This will in turn increase your reading fluency.

2. How are word families formed?

A word family consists of a group of words that have a single root word with different prefixes and suffixes. The addition of suffixes or prefixes results in the creation of new words(derivatives) that belong to the same word family.

3. What is the order in which word families should be studied?

There is no particular order in which word families should be covered. However the easiest starting point would be the short ‘a’ word family that includes: at, am, an, ab, ag, ap, etc.

4. How many word families are there in English?

There are thirty seven word families in English, according to the National Council of Teachers of English. These word families are ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.

Conclusion

Word families are certainly a productive way to attain a stronger vocabulary. Exposing yourself to various word families, will in turn increase your understanding of language patterns. Reinforcing the information with rhyming games and activities will accelerate your vocabulary acquisition by increasing the number of words you have at your command.

Using the thirty seven common word families, you will be able to learn about five hundred words. If other word families are included, the number of new words you learn can grow dramatically. So make sure that you have a stronghold on the different word families. You can also check out our article on Word Classes to get a grip on the concept.