Happy Endings- A Story About Suffixes
Happy Endings: A Story about Suffixes
Author: Robin Pulver
Illustrator: Lynn Rowe Reed
Published: 2011
Genre: concept book.
Age Recommendation: 2nd-4th grade.
Summary: This book is about a group of elementary school students who are about to start summer vacation, but first must learn about suffixes. There are also magical talking suffixes on the blackboard who grow scared of the students when realizing the students do not want to learn about them. When the students go off to lunch the suffixes take this opportunity to run away, but this causes a big problem for the students. When the students return from lunch they are informed that they will not be allowed to go on summer break unless the suffixes are found. The students then begin a journey to find the suffixes. Along the way the suffixes begin to warm up to the students and start leaving them clues. These clues end up teaching the students about suffixes without them ever realizing. In the end, the suffixes are returned, the students learn about suffixes, and summer break starts.
How I would use it in my classroom: I would use this book to introduce a lesson on suffixes to my students. This book would be great to introduce suffixes because it teaches children what suffixes are and why they are important. Children learn that suffixes come at the end of words and help us to figure out bigger words that we may not understand. I think starting off the lesson with a book is a good idea because it engages and gets the children’s attention rather than just talking or lecturing the students. The books also have fun and colorful pictures that make learning about suffixes fun and interesting. This book also provides children with great examples of suffixes, many words they are familiar with, but may not have known they were suffixes. This book would lead into an activity about using suffixes to decode bigger words. This book teaches children to decode bigger words like “exasperated” and “protested” by having them us the ending “ed” to help them figure the words out. Using suffixes to help decode words is a very helpful tool for students to have.
Teaching Strategies: According to Cunningham 2011 (page 87) using morphemes or suffixes to decode words is great way to have children figure out bigger words that they don’t know. Children can easily recognize the ending of words to help them figure out bigger words. Teaching children about suffixes is great skill to provide them. This skill can be used throughout their life when they come across a word that they are unsure of.
Cunningham, P. M., & Allington, R. L. (2010). Classrooms that work: They can all read and write. New York: Longman.
Pulver, R., & Reed, L. (2011). Happy endings: A story about suffixes. New York: Holiday House.
Teaching with Children's Literature 