What it is. A word part carries a fixed meaning, and it carries it into every word it joins.
Why our test works. Affixes are the highest-leverage vocabulary there is: *inter-* learned once unlocks *international*, *interfere*, *intervene*, *intermediate*. But the leverage cuts both ways, because a confident wrong guess spreads just as fast. Anchoring the test to words the child ALREADY knows makes the meaning evidence-based rather than invented, and gives them a way to check themselves before committing.
Leans on. Grade 6 met words with several meanings. Parts are more reliable than whole words, which is the point.
Watch for. Guessing a whole word from one part is the failure here. The part narrows the possibilities; it does not settle them.
Use 10 school words in sentences of your own, and choose which version suits who is reading. The worked example is built on International trade grew., ringing inter-. The class reads Writing Book 7, p.48 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U17 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, on screen, one click per piece: the word inter- alone first, and you wait — let them look at it before you give them the meaning. Then between arrives beside it, and you point from one to the other with your hand. Then the sentence underneath: International trade grew.. Three clicks, three things said. Do not let the whole slide arrive at once — a slide that arrives whole gives the answer before the question is asked.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class rewrites two everyday sentences into school-word, then judges one case where the everyday version is BETTER. Discuss in pairs using the frames. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 7 to page 48 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone through the five steps — match, choose, frame, write their own. The frames stay on screen while they write: You may use the frame for two of your three. Try the third without it. Say both halves of that — the frame is there if they need it, and it is better writing without it. Walk and note who used it; that is your group for tomorrow, not a mark against them today.
You close on the exit direction — Say one sentence using inter-. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Prove the meaning from words you already know.
Guessing a whole word from one part is the failure here. The part narrows the possibilities; it does not settle them.