Language Arts Grade Four

Unit Two, Lesson Four: The -ING Suffix

  1. before
  2. fort
  3. more
  4. chore
  5. core
  6. explore
  7. crime
  8. time
  9. rabbit
  10. kangaroo
  1. mammals
  2. coyote
  3. stone
  4. lime
  5. extreme
  6. heat
  7. temperature
  8. index
  9. humidity
  10. moisture
The -ING Suffix

These examples might be slightly confusing: 


      ROOT WORD			WORD WITH -ING

      play			playing
      ski			skiing
      reply			replying
      spell			spelling
Remember that the letter "y" doesn't count as a consonant (as in "play") and so the single vowel, consonant rule (as in swim) doesn't apply.

How Does -ING Change Meaning?

Take a look at these sentences. 


    The children play in the park.
    The children are playing in the park.

    They hike in the woods.
    They are hiking in the woods.

    The fish swim in the water.
    The fish are swimming in the water.
As you can see adding -ing doesn't change the meaning of these verbs, but when you add -ing you must use a helping verb (like are) in front of the verb you added -ing to. (As you probably already know, verbs are words that represent action. We will discuss them more in future lessons.)

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