20 Most Common Prefixes: Free Printable List

Common Prefixes

This study found that “a handful of prefixes account for a large percentage of prefixed words” (1989, p. 302).

Often referred to as the “Big Four,” the prefixes un-, re-, in-, and dis- account for more than 58% of all prefixes found in words. The same researchers found that 20 prefixes account for approximately 97% of prefixed words in school reading materials.

Because these prefixes occur so frequently, they are an important starting point for explicit prefix instruction. Graves (2004) recommends that students receive explicit instruction and plenty of practice with high-frequency prefixes.

As students progress, instruction should expand to include other less common, but still widely used, prefixes.

Through explicit instruction, repeated exposure, and meaningful practice, students will begin to recognize common prefixes, notice patterns, make connections between words, and apply what they have learned independently.

Over time, knowledge of prefixes can support students’ word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, and understanding of unfamiliar words.

Teaching Tips

👉🏻 Teach students what the word parts mean. Research by Biemiller (2005) found that the meanings of unfamiliar words can be derived if kids know the meaning of the base words and affixes.

So just like we teach kids the letter A says /ă/, we also need to teach kids the prefix un- means “not or opposite.”

👉🏻 Teach students to take words apart and put them back together. For instruction to be effective, students need to learn how to break words apart into morphemes and reassemble the word parts to determine meaning.

Using word sums is great for this!

👉🏻 Be sure your instruction is systematic and cumulative. Just as a phonics scope and sequence moves from simple, high-frequency concepts to more complex, less frequent ones, your prefix instruction should follow a similar progression.

Graves (2004) suggests instruction should begin with common prefixes attached to free morphemes. Free morphemes are words that can stand on their own (e.g. happy, apply, agree, appropriate, and fat)

Let’s look at how we can add prefixes to free morphemes for very simple morphemic analysis:

• un + happy = unhappy
• re + apply = reapply
• dis + agree = disagree
• in + appropriate = inappropriate
• non + fat = nonfat

Then, as kids progress in their knowledge and understanding of morphology, they can begin analyzing more complex words, including those that don’t break apart so easily. Here are some examples:

• re + con + struct + ion = reconstruction
• in + cor + rupt + ible = incorruptible
• un + im + pede + ed = unimpeded
• dis + re + spect = disrespect

This is great to pair with your instruction of Greek and Latin bases (since 60% of the English language comes from Greek or Latin)!

👉🏻 Research by Baumann (2007) and Nagy & Anderson (1984) suggest one approach is grouping affixes into meaningful “families.” This means grouping prefixes by shared meanings or other common features to help students learn them more effectively.

For example, a teacher may choose to teach the prefixes that share a common meaning. Instead of teaching one prefix at a time, the teacher would teach them as a group or “family.”

In real life, this would look like teaching dis-, un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, and non- together, since they all share the same meaning: “not or opposite of.” For more examples of affix “families,” see Table 3 in this article.

Morphology instruction is an essential component of Structured Literacy. Using these teaching tips will help you effectively teach prefixes to students in a research-supported way.

Common Prefix List

Here is a list of the 20 most common prefixes with the meanings and examples.

🖨️ Get the printer-friendly version at the bottom of this post for FREE!

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
un-	not	unhappy, unlock
re-	back, again	replace, reappear
in-, im-, il-, ir-	not	incorrect, immature, illogical, irreversible
dis-	not, opposite of	disobey, disinfect, disapprove
en-, em-	to cause or put into	encode, embed
non-	not	nonsense
in-, im-	into, on	insight, impart
over-	too much	overjoyed
mis-	wrong or bad	misunderstand
sub-	under or below	subway
pre-	before	prehistoric
inter-	between	interrupt
fore-	in front or earlier	forehead
de-	down or away	destruct
trans-	across	transport
super-	over or above	supersize
semi-	half	semicircle
anti-	against	antibacterial
mid-	middle	midday
under-	too little, below	underestimate

*This list is based on a study by White, Sowell, & Yanagihara (1989).

Don’t leave without grabbing the free common suffix list, too!

Related Morphology Resources

We have multiple resources that help kids learn and practice morphology. Be sure to check out some of our favorites:

• Prefix Morphology Worksheets
• Prefix & Suffix Word Ladders
• Morphology Word Cards
• Morpheme Wall
• Printable Suffix List

♾️ Did you know that you can get everything listed above (plus tons more!) in our Unlimited SOR Library when you become an exclusive member? Check it out today!

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