Word Form Charts

This blog post was first written for a collaborative group for writing teachers led by Sara Lee and Renée Pinchero of Literacy Dr. If you like the content, join our Facebook Group, Writing in the Trenches.

When I was teaching English Language Learners, one activity I found really helpful in the teaching of vocabulary was the generation of a word form chart. Word form charts can look different depending on who’s using them and what they want to highlight, but the idea is to provide a visual representation of a word family, highlighting the possible parts of speech that the family can take on. 

Here is a traditional word form chart showing the word act and some other words in the family:

Here is the format I often use:

I modified the chart to the second example because I like highlighting the morphological differences in the words, particularly the fact that adverbs are often built from adjectives by adding an -ly. Sometimes, I further simplify the chart for younger students or for students who only need certain parts of speech spotlighted. 

These charts have proven to be very helpful for students as we’re learning vocabulary terms because we study a whole family, not just a particular word, and often, students know or have heard at least one part of speech to anchor the others to. I let students personalize these as much as they want to. I had a student that wanted to write full (simple) sentences in each box instead of just the words. Here’s what that can look like:

The chart is also excellent for showing morphological patterns we often see in our parts of speech.

They can even highlight how prefixes can alter the meaning of a base:

I've seen these charts help students with vocabulary, wording, and usage. I hope this is a helpful resource for you. Let us know if and how you use it!