Suffixes Worksheets
Third graders read suffixes as meaning clues and start weighing pairs like careful and careless, where both are real words and only the sentence tells you which fits. Spelling shifts appear too: happy drops its y in happily, mud doubles its d in muddy.
By grade
What students need to know
A suffix is glued to the end of a word and changes its job: care becomes careful, careless, or carefully.
This skill runs from 2nd grade through 4th grade. Pick a grade above for level-matched sentences, teaching notes, and worksheets.
Suffixes across the grades
2nd Grade
A suffix is a word part attached to the end of a base word. Second graders start with the friendly five: -ful (full of), -less (without), -er (a person who), -ly (in that way), and -y (like or covered with). Mud becomes muddy, teach becomes teacher, slow becomes slowly.
3rd Grade
Third graders read suffixes as meaning clues and start weighing pairs like careful and careless, where both are real words and only the sentence tells you which fits. Spelling shifts appear too: happy drops its y in happily, mud doubles its d in muddy.
4th Grade
Fourth grade brings the noun-makers (-ness, -ment, -ion) and the heavyweight adjectives (-able, -ous): kindness, excitement, celebration, washable, dangerous. Students learn that a suffix sets a word's job in the sentence, which makes even unfamiliar long words predictable.