PQRST Mnemonic: Word-Part Strategy

What a wonderful weekend. My Saturday after noon has involved sitting outside on the porch, using our newly built benches to lounge while reading educational magazines and a new book. I love my life.

I decided to grab my computer and use it to document my findings and do further research. In the April 2012 edition of The Reading Teacher there is an article called Word Detectives: Using Units of Meaning to Support Literacy. It discussed the need to explicitly teach students to use and manipulate units of meaning such as prefixes, suffixes and root words. I do this in the classroom but now, because of this article, I have an easy way to help kids remember the system fro affix use. PQRST is an easy tool to use and I wanted to share what I learned. I know I will be using it in the classroom soon, maybe even next week.

• P-find the prefix and identify its meaning
• QR- identify the queen root (the root which is the queen of the word) and determine meaning
• S- find the suffix and identify its meaning
• T- put together the meanings of the units to gain the total word's meaning

After a quick google search, nothing came up related to this strategy. I think the next steps would be creating a visual helper for my students. Stay posted.