Grade 4 Vocabulary, Morphology & Word Study: Suffixes -cious and -tious
144 printable 4th Grade vocabulary & word study worksheets on Suffixes -cious and -tious. 4 activity types: Match Up, Read and Draw, Sentence Scramble, Word Search. The first three are free to download; All Access opens all 144.
Practice pages support a program; they are not the lesson. These sheets reinforce Phonics, Decoding, and Early Fluency — Grade 4, the complete K–5 reading curriculum from Faith Readers. See every program →
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Includes 4 activity types: Match Up, Read and Draw, Sentence Scramble, Word Search.
Teaching Suffixes -cious and -tious
What it is
The endings -cious and -tious both say /shus/ and make describing words: precious, gracious, spacious, cautious, ambitious, nutritious. They sound identical, so the spelling is decided by the base word rather than by ear.
When a child is ready
Teach it once the child reads three-syllable words and knows that both ti and ci can say /sh/.
If they struggle
Look at the relative: space gives spacious, grace gives gracious, caution gives cautious, ambition gives ambitious. A base ending in -ce usually takes -cious and a base ending in -tion usually takes -tious. Keep the handful with no helpful relative, such as precious and delicious, on a short memory list.
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