Inflectional Endings: -ing

First Grade, Second Grade Reading

Use a silly movie clip and fun activity to teach your second graders how to spell and recognize words with the
inflectional ending -ing.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to recognize and write words that contain the inflectional ending -ing.

Materials and preparation Key terms

Pencils inflectional ending

Document Projector base word
Whiteboard or Chart paper present tense
Drop the E, Add -ing worksheet (one per
student)
Add -ing worksheet (one per student)

Attachments

Drop the E, Add -ing (PDF)

Add -ing (PDF)

Introduction (5 minutes)

Gather your students together.

Review short/long vowel sounds and the idea of spelling patterns (th, ing, two vowels, etc.).
Explain that today you will focus on something called an inflectional ending. Define an inflectional
ending as a group of letters that are added to the end of a word to change its meaning.
Tell your students they'll be learning about the inflectional ending -ing.
Give your class an example of how to take a base word, a word that gives another word its basic
meaning, and change it using -ing. For example, when play becomes playing, it's something that you do
in the present tense, or right now.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling (10 minutes)

Choose volunteers to tell you which words they heard and saw in the clips. Review base words with the
class (such as sleep, grow, chew, burn, and fight) by writing them on the whiteboard or chart paper.
Add -ing to each word and review how it changes the meaning of the base word to active present tense,
or what is happening now.
Explain that if there is a silent e at the end of a base word, then students must drop the e when adding
the -ing. Write words on the whiteboard or chart paper to illustrate, such as shake, come, wake, and
bake.
Add -ing to each of the base words, demonstrating how to drop the e when adding the -ing.
Explain that there is one more spelling rule to know about adding -ing to a word. If a word has a short
vowel sound and follows the vowel + consonant ending, then you need to double the consonant before
adding -ing.
Give your class some examples to help them understand this rule. For example: swim to swimming, tap
to tapping, etc.

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Guided Practice (10 minutes)

Write the following words up on your whiteboard or chart paper that follow the three patterns discussed
in the previous section: play, dress, jump, shop, hope, dance.
Ask students to pair-share with a partner how they would write the words play and dress with an -ing
ending.
Go over each word with your students and practice changing the ending to -ing.
Write a sentence (with input from your students) using each new word in the present tense. For example:
"I am running" rather than "I run."
Tell the students that they will now practice using inflectional endings on their own.

Independent working time (15 minutes)

Go over the instructions for the Drop the E, Add -ing worksheet with the class and answer any questions
about it.
Pass copies of the worksheet out and have students work independently.
Circulate around the room and offer support as needed.

Differentiation

Support

Gather students who need additional support understanding the different spelling rules associated with
adding -ing and work with them as a small group going over base words together.
For additional support, write base words on index cards and provide students with small whiteboards to
practice writing the base word and the new word that includes the inflectional ending -ing.

Enrichment

For additional practice for students who quickly finish the practice worksheet and/or need a more
challenging activity, have students go on an “ing” word hunt using books in the classroom library. See if
students can identify the base word (did it contain an e or a single consonant?) before the -ing was used.

Assessment (5 minutes)

Collect the worksheets and assess whether students were able to correctly spell each word using the
inflectional ending -ing.

Review and closing (5 minutes)

After the 15 minutes of independent work time has concluded, ask students to return to the rug with their
worksheets.
Review -ing word rules as a whole class by writing words on the board and having student volunteers say
each word aloud and explain what needs to happen when adding the -ing. Discuss student questions as
needed.

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 Drop the “e” when you add “ing”
Safety at School
Name:____________________________________

When there is a silent “e” at the end of the verb, drop the “e” when you add
an “ing.”

1. love + ing =

2. choose + ing =

3. give + ing =

4. come + ing =

5. make + ing =

6. bake + ing =

7. hope + ing =

8. use + ing =

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 Drop the “e” when you add “ing”
Print the word cards on card stock and have students work by themselves or in
pairs to add -ing to the verb base word. Students can record the new word with
the -ing ending on the recording sheet.

give love

come make

have use

bake choose

ing ing
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worksheets, games, Copyright
lessons & more © 2016 Education.com LLC All Rights Reserved
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2007Education.com
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Drop the “e” when you add “ing”

Get more lesson plans at https://www.education.com/lesson-plans/

FindFind
worksheets, games, Copyright
lessons & more © 2016 Education.com LLC All Rights Reserved
worksheets, games, lessons & at education.com/resources
more at education.com/resources
More worksheets at www.education.com/worksheets
© 2007© - 2021
2019
2007Education.com
- 2021 Education.com
 Add -ing
Safety at School
Print the word cards on card stock and have students work by themselves or in
pairs to add -ing to the verb base word. Students can record the new word with
the -ing ending on the recording sheet.

Jump ing

talk say

go open

sleep play

do look

walk read
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 Add -ing
Name:______________________________________

Add -ing
base word -ing ending

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