Students are asked to write a list of spelling words (environment, wildflowers, sea, lonely, perfect, plain, prairie) five times each and practice correct spelling over several days. The skills section explicitly lists "Practice the correct spelling of words." The word "environment" in the spelling list contains the common Latin suffix -ment, and "lonely" contains the derivational suffix -ly.

Students are given a list of suffixes (-ly, -less, -able, -ed, -ing) and asked to choose the correct suffix to complete sentences from the story. Students fill in blanks (e.g., soft___ -> softly; consider___ -> considerable) and then locate the completed words in the chapters to confirm them. Students also write their own words using a given suffix (write a word with "-ly" and use it in a sentence) and play a prefix/suffix scavenger hunt to find words in print.

The Vocabulary Webs activity asks students to supply the base word for target vocabulary and gives the instruction that a base word is the word after the ending is dropped. The answer key lists base words (e.g., vendor for vendors; immaculate for immaculately; dilapidate for dilapidated), so students practice removing endings to identify bases. The student pages include spaces labeled "Base word" beside each vocabulary entry for students to fill in.

The vocabulary activity lists several words that contain a common suffix (for example: ornithologist, herpetologist, mammalogist, botanist) and asks students to locate each word in context, record definitions, and use each word in a sentence. Students are instructed to read the words in context and look them up in a dictionary, which exposes them to word forms that include the -ist ending. The activity requires students to handle these multisyllabic specialist words as part of vocabulary work.

The vocabulary activity lists the word "consternation" (p. 55), and students are instructed to match vocabulary words with definitions by looking up words in context and using a dictionary if needed. Students are asked to use each vocabulary word in a sentence related to the rain forest and to reread selected pages aloud, which requires reading multisyllabic words in context.