One picture sits under this root: something stretched over you to cover or shade. From it Hebrew builds the act of roofing, the booth you roof for Sukkot, the screen that covers a wall, even the garage that shelters a car. A geminate root (the last two letters double), so the final כ flips to ך at the end of a word. None of these words are learned separately; they are the same overhead idea pointed at different objects. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
Only pa'al and pi'el are lexicalized here. The pa'al keeps the old physical sense (to shield by covering), while the pi'el specialized into a ritual act: laying the leafy roof of a sukkah. The passive and causative binyanim are not in everyday use for this root.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.