We are finding action happening now. The word 'walking' shows action happening right now. The -ing ending tells us it's happening now.

This question tests reading words with inflectional endings (CCSS.RF.1.3.f: Read words with inflectional endings). Inflectional endings are word parts added to base words to change meaning: -s/-es (more than one or he/she does), -ed (happened before/past), -ing (happening now). These endings don't change the base word's core meaning, just add grammatical information. Examples: jump → jumped (did jump), cat → cats (more than one cat), play → playing (doing play). The word playing has base play plus ending -ing. The base play means to have fun; the ending -ing changes it to present progressive (having fun now). Students identify the base (familiar root) and recognize the ending to read the full word playing as /play-ing/. Choice C is correct because it identifies the correct base play by removing the -ing ending. This demonstrates the student correctly removes the ending to find the base. Choice A represents the error of not removing the ending and selecting the whole word. This is common because students learning to separate endings from base may treat the whole word as a unit without analyzing parts. To support inflectional ending reading: Explicitly teach common endings (-s, -ed, -ing) and their meanings (plural, past, present progressive). Use color-coding (base one color, ending another). Practice with familiar bases before introducing new words. Teach context clues (yesterday = past/-ed, now = -ing). Model thinking: "This word has [base] plus -[ending], so it means [meaning]." Watch for: Students who don't recognize endings and try to decode as one unfamiliar word, students who confuse -ed with -s, students who can read but don't understand meaning change. Support with pictures showing one vs many, or action completed vs ongoing.

We are finding base words. The base word is 'dish' without the -es. Take away the ending to find it.

Base words are words before we add endings. The word 'helped' has '-ed' added to it. Take off '-ed' and you get 'help'.

We look at word endings carefully. The word 'dogs' ends with just '-s'. This '-s' makes it mean more than one.

The word 'now' tells us it's happening. We use '-ing' for things happening now. So 'looking' is the right word.

We are finding word endings. The word 'wishes' ends with -es. We add -es after sh sounds.

We find base words by taking off endings. The word 'jumped' has the ending '-ed'. When we take off '-ed', we get 'jump'.

We are finding the base word. The base word is 'help'. We take away the -ing to find the main word.

We are finding the word ending. The word 'played' has the -ed ending. The -ed tells us it already happened.