Lesson video

Hello, everybody, I'm Miss Chamberlain Weber.

I'm going to teach you spelling.

But first, spelling is such an exciting thing to study.

Because the English language can at times be quite unpredictable.

So what we do is we look at patterns and we look at rules to try and help us make decisions about the spellings of words a little easier.

Today, we're going to look at two different suffixes, which are quite difficult because they sound so similar.

Ant and ent.

But hopefully, by the end of the lesson, you'll have a few more tools that you can use to decide the correct spelling.

Let's get started.

Firstly, we'll look at some key vocabulary we're going to need for this lesson's learning.

Then we're going to look at some spelling rules and patterns for our two suffixes.

And at the end of the lesson, I'll set you 10s spelling words.

Please make sure you have some paper and a pencil.

Try and be in a quiet and calm space for your learning, so that your brain is switched on and ready and not distracted at all.

If you haven't got a pencil or paper, please pause the video here and get them now.

Key vocabulary.

Our first word.

Noun, what is a noun? A person, place or thing.

Objective.

What's an adjective? A describing word.

Verb.

What's a verb? A doing or a being word.

Suffix.

A suffix is a group of letters at the end of a word, that changes the meaning of that word.

We'll be looking at two different suffixes today.

There is a term to describe these groups of words, a noun, adjective and verb.

Do you know what that is? A word class.

If a word is a noun, it means it's the noun word class.

We're going to be looking at these three different word classes during the lesson today.

Time to investigate further.

Here we have the word brilliant, recent.

What is the same and what is different about these words? We can see that the suffix has been added to the end of each word.

But what's different about these suffixes? It's difficult because they sound so similar, brilliant, recent, but they are spelt differently.

Can you point out how they're spelled differently? Brilliant spelt, A-N-T at the end.

Recent, spelt with which suffix? E-N-T at the end.

So, choosing the right ending is not easy, as they both sound the same in many words and are often unstressed.

They're unstressed because we can't clearly hear the vowel sounds A or E in either of these suffixes.

But do not fear, the spelling lesson is here to help you with that.

Let's have a look at our general suffix spelling rules.

You can just add the suffix.

This is particularly important when we have a vowel and a Y at the end of a word.

Sometimes we remove letters before adding suffixes.

Can you point at the letters that we sometimes remove? Y and change to I or E and add the suffix.

And finally, if there's a short vowel sound at the end of a root word, we must double the consonant.

Pause the video here, if you would like to look at this further or to write down any of these rules.

Let's look at a rule to help us remember the suffix ant Starting with the root word, radiate.

Can you read radiate for me? He radiates confidence.

When it's used as a verb, radiate, it means that someone is releasing or showing a lot of something.

So in this instance, it's a person showing a lot of confidence.

What happens when we add the ant suffix to this word? It becomes, radiant.

I wonder if you can tell me, what word class radiant is.

Let's look at it in a sentence to try and help us.

The bride looked radiant.

So this is talking about someone on their wedding day, Looking radiant and lovely, full of energy, cheerful and can be used to describe someone who actually looks very attractive and lovely.

Okay.

Pause the video here and think about how the word class has changed.

I'll give you the second example to help you too.

Let's look at hesitate.

To hesitate, means to hold back and not do something straightaway because maybe you feel a negative emotion like nerves.

Don't hesitate in a test and you won't complete it.

And what's happened when we've added the ant suffix? It's become hesitant.

The little girl was hesitant.

Can you tell me what word class radiant and hesitant are.

They're adjectives because they're describing a noun.

The bride is being described as radiant and a little girl is being described as hesitant.

That means she's a little bit guarded and holding back.

Okay, maybe we've noticed a pattern then.

Let's look at one more example.

Our verbs have changed to adjectives.

But does this always happen? Your turn.

Let's start with the root word, vacate.

To vacate means that you completely empty something.

For example, the guests requested to vacate the room.

They asked," please can we leave." Now, I want you to pause the video here and write down, the new spelling of the word with a suffix ant on the end.

Try and think about the meaning of the word and how the word class has changed.

Vacate becomes vacant.

vacant in a sentence looks like this.

The seat next to him was vacant.

It means empty, nobody there.

So, what's happened to the word class please? The same things happened.

We had a verb and it's changed to an adjective.

Great.

So now we can remember, our ant suffix often changes our word class to an adjective.

Time for you to show me what you've learned.

I want you to point to the correct spelling of hesitant.

Of we go.

It's with the A-N-T.

How about this word? Vacant.

Which is the correct spelling of this word? A-N-T also.

Excellent.

What helped you know about these spellings? Well, the root words before actually ended in A-T-E.

and with verbs.

But changing them to the word class, an adjective, we need the suffix we're using today, A-N-T.

Let's sum up what you've learned so far.

Read this sentence please.

I want you to pause the video and choose which keywords should go in the missing spaces.

Let's read the sentence together.

Removing the.

Suffix ate and adding the.

Suffix ant often changes the meaning of the word into an.

Adjective.

So perhaps you hadn't spotted that ate is also a suffix.

That's very similar ate and ant, apart from the fact they change the word into a different word class.

I wonder if anyone's spotted the grammar hint for our last key word.

There was an an before the key word, which means there needed to be a key word with a vowel at the beginning adjective.

Time to look at rules for our second suffix.

Can you remind me what that is? E-N-T, ent.

Our first word, my turn your turn.

Government.

Government is a group of people in charge of making decisions for a country.

The government made an announcement.

Environment.

The environment is the surroundings around us.

It's important to care for your environment.

Parliament.

Parliament, you can visit this but it's also where our government works and makes decisions.

In London there's a place called the Houses of Parliament.

We visited the Houses of Parliament.

Have you? I wonder if you can spot a pattern within these three words.

Not only has the E-N-T been added to our word, what letter has come before it.

Can you point to it? And so in fact our suffix is extended to M-E-N-T.

E-N-T is good friends with the letter M.

Your turn to tell me then, which of these Spellings are correct? For disappointment.

Can you point to the correct one? M-E-N-T.

Let's try the second one.

Appointment.

which is the correct spelling? M-E-N-T also.

Have you noticed anything about the words with M-E-N-T at the end? Let's look at these two.

Disappointment.

That means a word used for something that's really not great thus let you down.

And appointment, is the thing we make when we need to add something to our schedule.

For example, a dentist or a doctor's appointment.

These are both what word class? A noun.

So, the suffix E-N-T when paired with M, changes our word class to a noun.

There's also something helpful about the sounds in the words that can help us choose between ent and ant.

So, repeat after me each of these spellings, starting with the ent spellings and see if you notice anything about the sound.

Decent, magnificent, diligent, intelligent.

What is similar about these words? That there are consonants before our E-N-T.

What two consonants come before? a C and a G.

Okay, let's look at our ant spellings to see if this helps us further.

Applicant, significant, elegant, arrogant.

Pause here to think more about the sounds and patterns in each of these lists of words.

Let's start with our ant spellings.

Decent and magnificent have a C before the E-N-T.

But you don't say it in the usual way you say C.

In fact, the C in decent and magnificent sounds more like an S.

We call this a soft C sound.

Can you tell me about the sound of the G, in diligent and intelligent? It sounds a bit more like the letter, J.

We also call this a soft sound.

What's different about our suffix ant.

Applicant and significant have hard C sounds.

Hard like this rock.

Elegant and arrogant, also have hard G sounds.

Okay, let's look at all the things from this lesson that we've learnt about the suffix.

And look at the picture what's happened to our poor armadillo? He's hesitant.

So hesitate is the verb and with our suffix A-N-T, the word class is changed to? An adjective.

Can you remind me of the spelling sounds now that helps us.

Remember the ant suffix.

Hard sounds are hard C sound and are hard G sound.

Let's review what we know about the suffix and pause the video and tell me what sounds and what letters It likes to.

It likes the soft, C and G sound and is friends with the letter M.

Why? Because it forms a longer suffix ment in government, environment and parliament.

Excellent.

Now we know so much about these two suffixes.

It can really help us to make word map about words.

For example, here we have a word hesitate.

Now, if I was to add a suffix to the end, for example, ant, it changes the word class.

But this is so amazing because I've actually noticed that hesitate means to left something undecided.

So this word from Latin, undecided, tells us more about the meaning of that word.

If I add the suffix L-Y to the end of hesitant, you can see here it forms the word hesitantly.

This is an adverb to describe someone who is undecided about something.

You remember our armadillo, in the picture, he hesitantly stood at the end of the diving board.

Here is a list of more suffixes.

Let's find out if hesitate can have any other suffixes added on to the end.

Let's start with the plural suffix S-O-E-S It works.

Hesitate become hesitates E-D, will that one work? Hesitated.

Now our word has changed the tense to the past tense.

I-N-G also works, hesitating.

How about our suffix A-L? Oh no! Hesital is not a word.

This suffix doesn't work.

I'll try hesitation.

Great and hesitance.

Hesitancy, also is a word.

How exciting that from one word, we can have so many different forms. I want you to have a go at making a word map now.

Have a go at this word, radiate.

Remembering the list of suffixes we can use.

First, I'll let you know a bit about where the word's from.

It's from Latin.

The word R-A-D-I-A-T, meant to emit in ray.

Give out light.

Okay, pause the video here and have a go at adding the suffixes in the list on your left to this word.

An added challenge is to write down or think about the word class of each word as you write it.

Radiates, radiated and radiating.

These are all verbs to describe something letting off a lot of light.

Or sometimes it's used to describe heat, radiation, radiance and radiancy.

These are all nouns.

They are forms of how something is radiant or they describe a state.

This time the suffix A-l did work.

Radial.

Now, this one's a bit difficult to know what word class this one is.

It's an adjective.

It describes something that is set out in a circle.

So, how interesting is that English language? When from one word, we can have so many different forms and word classes.

Next, I'm going to give you your 10 spelling words.

If you like, after the lesson you can make a word map for each one of those spellings.

Here are your 10 spellings.

I'm going to go through each one individually.

Be ready to write them down, as I go through them one by one.

Number one, hesitant.

This has the suffix A-N-T.

The poor hesitant armadillo, stood at the end of the diving board.

Number two, radiant.

The sun outside is radiant today.

What suffix does this word have? A-N-T.

Number three, vacant.

Now we know we're going to choose the A-N-T suffix because of what sound in this word.

A hard C sound.

Number four, relevant.

What's the meaning of this word? Relevant means something that's suited for a purpose.

For example, I must use the relevant rules to help me with my spelling.

Number five, consonant.

A consonant are word letters in the alphabet.

All the letters except vowel letters.

Now, this also has the suffix A-N-T.

Number six, government.

We talked about E-N-Ts friend.

What letter does E-N-T like? can you point at it? M, forming the letter string ment.

Now, as a letter in this spelling that I find really tricky.

I can't hear it when I say government, you know what letter I'm talking about.

The N.

Make sure you've got an N, before the M, in government.

Number seven, parliament.

Another spelling M-E-N-T.

And this also has a tricky letter in it.

Can you spot the letter that you can't really hear when you say the word, Parliament? The A.

So make sure you've got an A before the ment.

Environment.

E-N-T, with its friend M.

And once again, this has a tricky letter that I can't hear either.

Can you point to which one that is? It's the N, environment, you can't hear the N.

So these group of words with ment at the end, all have some tricky letters.

Frequent.

What do we need to remember with the letter Q? It often is paired with a U, QU.

And finally, apparent.

What's the meaning of apparent? If something's apparent to you, it means it's obvious.

You can see and tell the meaning of it easily.

Apparent has the suffix E-N-T.

But the tricky part may be the P consonant.

There are a double consonant.

Please pause the video here if you need to finish writing down your 10 Spellings.

Before we finish, our rules for ant, can you remind me of them? Ant, follows the hard C and G sound and also changes words from eight suffixes, which are verbs into words with ant suffixes which are adjectives.

And our rules for ent.

Ent, follows soft C and G sounds and is best friends with the letter M, forming the letter string ment.

Congratulations and well done for your hard work today.