Year 2 suffixes: making nouns, adjectives and adverbs

Suffixes: nouns, adjectives and adverbs, explained

A suffix is a group of letters added to the end of a root word to make a new word. The root word carries the main meaning, and the suffix changes it or changes what kind of word it is. In Year 2, children focus on suffixes that make three kinds of word: nouns, adjectives and adverbs. A noun names a person, place, thing or idea. An adjective describes a noun. An adverb most often describes how something is done.

Two suffixes make nouns. The ending “-ness” turns a describing word into a name for a quality: kind becomes kindness, sad becomes sadness, dark becomes darkness. When the root ends in y, it usually changes to i first, so happy becomes happiness. The ending “-er” can turn a verb into a noun for the person who does it: teach becomes teacher, and farm becomes farmer. Children also learn compounding, which means joining two words to make a new one: foot and ball make football, and sun and flower make sunflower. The curriculum guidance gives whiteboard and superman as examples, though schools choose their own, and not every compound is written as one word.

Two suffixes make adjectives from nouns or verbs. “-ful” means full of: careful, helpful, joyful. “-less” means without: careless, helpless, hopeless. Children enjoy spotting opposites, such as hopeful and hopeless. The spelling is a common trap, because the suffix is “-ful” with one l, not “full”. The suffixes “-er” and “-est” also work on adjectives, to compare: tall, taller, tallest. Some words change their spelling first: big doubles the g (bigger, biggest), nice drops the e (nicer, nicest) and happy changes the y to i (happier, happiest). A few common adjectives are irregular, such as good, better, best, and long adjectives use “more” and “most” in place of suffixes.

The suffix “-ly” turns many adjectives into adverbs: slow becomes slowly, quiet becomes quietly. Adverbs of this kind tell us how an action is done. As with other suffixes, the root sometimes changes: happy becomes happily, gentle becomes gently, and when the root ends in -ful, -ly is simply added, giving a double l: careful becomes carefully. Not every word ending in -ly is an adverb, though. Friendly, lovely and silly are adjectives, and some adverbs, such as fast and hard, do not end in -ly at all.

In class, children play with word families: pulling words apart to find the root, building new words and sorting them into nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The same work supports the spelling lists for Year 2, which include many of these suffixes. The grammar words the curriculum expects children to recognise and use are noun, compound, suffix, adjective and adverb. Knowing them lets a child say precisely what they have done, for example, “I added -ly to make an adverb.”

Words your child will hear

Root word

The main part of a word, before any suffix is added, such as care in careful.

Suffix

A group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning or its job, such as -ness, -ful or -ly.

Noun

A word that names a person, place, thing or idea, such as teacher or kindness.

Adjective

A word that describes a noun, such as careful or tallest.

Adverb

A word that describes how, when or where something happens, such as carefully.

Compound word

A word made by joining two words, such as sunflower or football.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Year 2 says:

• Pupils should be taught formation of nouns using suffixes such as –ness, –er and by compounding
• Pupils should be taught formation of adjectives using suffixes such as –ful, –less
• Pupils should be taught use of the suffixes –er, –est in adjectives and the use of –ly in Standard English to turn adjectives into adverbs
• Pupils should be taught to recognise and use the grammatical terminology: noun, compound, suffix, adjective, adverb

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: choosing the right suffix

Common mistakes and how to help

How to help at home

• Compound word hunt. Walk around the house or garden and find compound words: toothbrush, bedroom, sunflower, doorbell. Write each one and draw a line between the two parts. Try to invent a new compound and say what it could be.
• Suffix cards. Write root words on one set of cards and suffixes (-ness, -ful, -less, -er, -est, -ly) on another. Match them and check whether each makes a real word. Sort the real ones into nouns, adjectives and adverbs.
• Opposites game. Play with -ful and -less pairs: careful and careless, hopeful and hopeless, helpful and helpless. Ask your child to use each in a sentence.
• Move like an adverb. In a clear space, take turns to call out an adverb such as slowly, quietly or quickly while the other acts out walking that way. Then talk about which word in the sentence tells you how.
• Tall, taller, tallest. Line up three objects, such as three cups or three toys, and describe them with -er and -est words. Then try a few with a spelling change, such as big, bigger, biggest.

Related topics

Everything in Year 2 English