Adding -ing (No Spelling Change) Word Search

JUMP becomes JUMPING. PLAY becomes PLAYING. For the first time in this series, children are not learning new words — they are watching words they already own grow. Suffixes have arrived, and the -ing suffix is the friendliest possible introduction.

This word search contains fifteen verbs with -ing added, every one following the no-change rule: the base word stays exactly as it was, and -ing simply joins the end. It is designed for Year 2 pupils beginning suffix work, and for first and second grade readers in the US. The words are the longest in the series so far, so this puzzle uses a slightly larger grid — still left-to-right and top-to-bottom only.

JUMPING · ASKING · HELPING · LOOKING · PLAYING · READING · SINGING · FISHING · TALKING · WALKING · KICKING · LIFTING · MIXING · RESTING · MELTING

The simplest suffix rule

The -ing suffix tells you something is happening right now: I jump sometimes, but I am JUMPING this minute. That is all the grammar a Year 2 child needs. The spelling side is even kinder — for the verbs in this grid, nothing changes at all. No dropped letters, no doubling, just the base word plus three letters. (The doubling and E-dropping versions of the rule have their own puzzles later; today is purely the easy case, on purpose.)

The deeper lesson is structural: every word in this grid has a smaller word hiding inside it. A child who looks at MELTING and sees MELT plus ING has started reading the way fluent readers read — by chunks and parts, not letter by letter. That habit, started here, is what will carry them through UNHELPFULNESS and DISAPPEARING in a few years’ time.

Five words to look at closely

1. READING is the word they are doing. Point at it when found: “you are READING the word READING.” After PUZZLE in the last puzzle, children may start suspecting this series is watching them. Good.
2. SINGING contains an old friend twice. SING came from the -ng puzzle — and now it has grown. Ask your child to find the base word, then notice the word has two -ng sounds. Old learning, new costume.
3. MELTING deserves an ice cube. Fetch one, watch it, narrate it: “the ice is MELTING.” A suffix that means happening-now is best taught by something visibly happening.
4. JUMPING costs three jumps. Rule: find it, do three. The -ing words are doing-words wearing their doing on the outside — let the body in on the lesson.
5. ASKING is the quiet one. Ask your child: what is something you have always wanted to ask? Then answer it if you can. A suffix lesson that ends in a real conversation has done two jobs.

Three ways to grow the words

As a strip-the-suffix chant. You call the grown word, the class calls back the base: JUMPING — JUMP! FISHING — FISH! Fifteen words, thirty seconds. Hearing the base word emerge when -ing falls away is the whole concept of a suffix, taught entirely by call-and-response.

As -ing charades in pairs. Every word in this grid can be acted. One child mimes KICKING or RESTING or MIXING; their partner finds and circles the word. The mime can only show the action happening now — which is, quietly, exactly what -ing means.

One-to-one at home. For parents teaching at home, play the commentator game: for five minutes, your child narrates the household like a sports announcer — “Dad is COOKING… the cat is SLEEPING… the kettle is BOILING!” Every sentence earns its -ing. Then they write down their three favourites. Present-tense grammar, spelling practice and family comedy in one go, and the only equipment is a household behaving normally.

What comes next

• Adding -ed word search — the past-tense suffix, same no-change rule
• Words ending in -le word search — the previous puzzle in this series
• All spelling word searches — the full series from foundation phonics to Year 6

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