Understand When to use Hyphens

A hyphen is just a short line -

But, it's a useful line that we can use to join parts of words or two words together.

 

 

Twit-twoo! When would I need do that?"

 

Good question, Little Owl!

 

You can use hyphens to:

1. Join two adjectives together, to help make a compound adjective (a big adjective) to give better descriptions.

"Don't be so short-tempered!"

 

2. Join words that are too long to fit on a line:

 

I really love being on holiday because my friends and family are all there. We love to go cycling, swimming and sailing and some- times climbing too!

 

3. Join a prefix to its root word (not all prefixes do this) to make a new word.

re-cover (means to cover something again)

 

Using a hyphen with some prefixes can be important in making the meaning of the word clearer. Without the hyphen the word would mean something different:

 

recover (means to feel better again, or to find something)

 

 

In this activity, we will be learning to use hyphens in these different ways.