Teaching Latin and Greek Word Roots

In late April of 2014, my seventh-grade students finished a unit on the Holocaust. The final project, meant to assess their understanding of the concepts we covered, was a poster they presented to each other in small groups. Since the poster was about a historical novel, one of the concepts the students learned is a historical novel shows what was important about that time in history.

On the day students presented to each other, I circulated around the room during fifth period, listening in on students' presentations and making initial assessments of the students' projects. All of a sudden, from across the room, a student called, "Mr. Armstrong! Come here!"

I turned and saw two students beckoning to me while a third student stood holding his poster up, a dark look on his face. I crossed the room, and one of the students pointed at the poster. She said, "Look what 'Billy' wrote!" I looked at the poster. 'Billy' had written, "The time period is important because it makes people feel grateful that they are not Jewish."

"'Billy' shouldn't have said that, right Mr. Armstrong?" the third student asked.

I looked at 'Billy.' By then he was looking down at his feet, clearly embarrassed, and trying to lower his poster. And I knew what had happened. 'Billy' wasn't intentionally trying to say being Jewish was undesirable. 'Billy' had demonstrated weak written and spoken expression since he had enrolled in our school and joined my class two months prior. This was just another time 'Billy' struggled to convey ideas due to his weak vocabulary.

It was because of 'Billy,' and all my students, really, that I embarked on a new journey to increase students' vocabulary. After some research, I decided the most effective means of broadening my students' vocabulary would be to teach them Latin and Greek word roots. Further research led me to chapter 1 of What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction. Entitled "Getting to the Root of Word Study: Teaching Latin and Greek Word Roots in Elementary and Middle Grades," it's by Nancy Padak, Evangeline Newton, Timothy Rasinski, and Rick M. Newton.

This chapter is full of useful information and ideas, and I felt, once I'd read it, that it would be an adequate resource for my first year of teaching Latin and Greek word roots. In the chapter, there are four principles on which to base instruction, lists of word roots divided according to grade appropriateness, metalinguistic concepts to be stressed at different grade levels, and numerous activities to use to teach students the word roots and words that contain them. I decided to start each class with a vocabulary activity.

So, far, the voyage seems to be going well. We start out each week with Divide and Conquer, an activity which involves me presenting the word root, its meaning, and five words broken down by parts and showing how the parts add up to make the words' meanings. For homework each Monday, students must find five other words with the root and add them to the Divide and Conquer chart we began in class. Then, each Tuesday, we do Word Spokes in class. I review with students the word root, its meaning, and the meanings of the five words I taught them on Monday, and these are the beginnings of the Word Spokes. From there, students offer words they've found, and when I add them to the Word Spokes, students share the words' meanings. Students have been enthusiastic about this activity because they take pride in sharing words they've found

After Tuesdays, the weeks have varied. Typically, Wednesdays are for a quiz on the previous week's word root and vocabulary that contain it. Thursdays and Fridays' activities have been meant to reinforce students' knowledge of the words they've learned. On these days I've used Wordo, Odd Word Out, and Twenty Questions, which all come from Padak, Newton, Rasinski, and Newton's chapter. I've also added Fill in the Blank, which exposes the students to context clues, and Word Groups, where students have to categorize words based on their meanings. Students seem to be engaged during the activities, and I think it's, in part, due to the variety.

There have been three weeks, including the first week, when there haven't been quizzes because I chose not to teach vocabulary during the weeks before them. On these weeks, I've also been able to do an extension activity. So far, I've only done Root Word Riddles with the students. For this activity, either I've come up with riddles about the vocabulary words, or each student has come up with a riddle for one of the vocabulary words. Students must guess the word based on the clues in the riddle. Students have both enjoyed figuring out which word the riddle is for and writing their own riddles. I see this activity challenging them to think creatively about the words. Eventually, once I've presented enough prefixes, bases, and suffixes, I'll also have the students do Be the Bard as an extension activity--students will have to make up new words with new meanings by combining word roots.

Will this excursion be successful? So far, students have done well on the weekly quizzes. I hope to see more improvement in students' reading and writing skills than last year as measured on the NWEA tests. And if 'Billy' can remember, in year hence, to look for familiar parts of words he encounters as a means of determining the meanings and accurately determine when it's appropriate to use 'intervene,' rather than 'interrupt,' in his writing, that will be a victory in my mind.

Thank you,

Brendan