Word Roots from Critical Thinking Co?

[Cottonwood]

Right now we are using Vocabulary from Classical Roots, and it's taken all year long to get through it with both kids.  We did a lot of reinforcement in Quizlet, on top of just using the workbook.  It's been ok, they are learning.  Seems kind of dry.  I don't have complaints, but I was on the Critical Thinking Co.'s site and saw the Word Roots books.  Anybody use them?  Opinions?

 

[MiMi 4under3]

I've only used the first book (2 years ago) but it went very well and the kids liked it. They actually remember many of the roots/prefixes/suffixes and their meanings! 

 

 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

I've used them (the first 2 or 3 as I recall) and Rummy Roots and English From the Roots Up 1-2.  I liked Critical Thinking Company's Root Word books the least.  I think fill in the blank is one of the least effective ways of learning and the definitions they gave differentiating between similar words were odd and or confusing in quite a few situations.  So, over all, I'd say they're better than nothing but that's not very high praise.

[Cottonwood]

I'm kind of liking how the 'flash card' software looks.  There's a little bit more to it, but I think it might work nicely alongside the Roots Dictionary we use during vocabulary.  I'm sorta OVER typing up lessons in Quizlet for them to use the Flashcard function there.  Quizlet is free, this is not, but it's cheap enough that I would jump at it to reinforce some stuff.

 

Plus, though I know Voc from Classical Roots is pretty good and has it's place, they are not connecting as well with it I think because the original Latin or Greek root is what they have to remember but they never use it specifically, only the variation.  For instance, apertum is Latin for "to open" and if they learn how to use certain cameras, they may remember this when adjusting the aperture, but they really seem to retain words they are actually using like...poly and megas and duo.   I say, "OOOH but if you remember that 'unus' means "one", then it'll help you in any Latin based foreign language you take!"  I explain unus/one = Spanish/uno = French/une, due/two = Spanish/dos = French/deux.  To which I get blank stares.  When I overhear them talking, I hear them making the connections, but it seems like they are retaining what they would commonly use.  When flipping through the sample of the flashcards, it helps you to put words of varied lengths together using roots, suffixes, prefixes.

 

I guess I'm figuring out I care less about Latin itself, and more about them making sense of the English language through learning the roots..  They will take foreign language and I think the connections will be stronger THEN i f they learn more of the LAtin side itself, but for now, I need to switch it up.

[HS Mom in NC]

We opted not to do Latin and Greek as foreign language studies. We did Latin and Greek Roots because they helped increase English vocabulary, reading and spelling.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Quizlet has a lot of already made flashcards from various vocab books that you might find useful. It even has roots from WWW.

[athomeontheprairie]

We opted not to do Latin and Greek as foreign language studies. We did Latin and Greek Roots because they helped increase English vocabulary, reading and spelling.

What did you use to do this? And did you like it/have good results?

[HS Mom in NC]

What did you use to do this? And did you like it/have good results?

I get asked this a lot in PMs, so here's a copy of the latest one:

 

We used Rummy Roots, More Roots and English From the Roots Up.  You can make your own cards if you want by looking up Latin and Greek Root dictionaries online. They list the root, the translation, and commonly used words in English that have the root in them.

 

English from the Roots up is really designed for older kids who are able to look things up.  It has a lot of teaching notes in them for the instructor if you'd like more teaching ideas.   They also have a set of cards that go with them if you prefer that format or if you want to use the cards and books together.

 

When they were in K we started with about 5 pairs a week and did a simple matching game with them. First I told them what the word was (because 2 of my 3 were pre-readers at that age) and examples of words we would find the root in.  I'd say something like, "Astro means star in Greek.  In English we see and hear the root astro it in words like astronaut and astronomy. An astronaut is someone who travels out among the starts. An astronomer is someone who studies stars." and so on. Sometimes I would ask them to think of any words that might have that root in it.  I had a master list written out to refer to at first like this:

 

sub=under

astro=star

tele=far away

bios=life

megas=big

 

We shuffled the 10 cards, placed them face down in rows and took turns turning one over, saying what other card went with it such as, "Astro. Astro is star," or if they couldn't remember, we'd look at the master  list and sound it out as reminder.  Then  we'd turn another card over and say what went with it if it wasn't the matching word like, "Life.  Life is bios."  It was a way to develop some focus and attentiveness while still getting in a lot of repetition.  When they matched, we put them in a pile and counted how many matching pairs we had at the end.  I always played to lose because even if I remembered where the match was, I played for more repetition by intentionally mis matching them for more practice.  It didn't take long, so we could do it a few times during the school day. As they got older, we increased the number of roots learned each week.  As they learned large numbers of them, we rotated old ones back in for review.

 

Rummy Roots and More Roots come with directions for playing a card game where you combine the roots to build more complex words.  That's for people with much more advanced vocabularies, so you can hang onto it and pull it out again when they're older.

 

My youngest will start using the English from the Roots Up 1 book starting this fall. She'll have just turned 10 then.  I'll have her identify all the roots in each word and define (from her own memory or from the dictionary as needed) in a notebook. The list I'll give her to do this with will be copied from words that share a particular root such as page 4 in English from the Roots Up Vol. 1:

 

meteron=measure

 

meter

geometry

optometry

thermometer

diameter

barometer

 

Obviously I won't include the definitions with the word list like it's done in the book.

 

Then I'll have her list any a few synonyms or antonyms as applicable.  If she can't think of any she can look them up in a thesaurus.

 

I hope something here us helpful to you.

 

My older two have said doing this made college and other advanced adult reading easier for them.  Between context and the ability to break a complex term down into its roots and knowing what those roots mean, they could follow along easily when other students had to look things up.

 

[kbutton]

I've used them (the first 2 or 3 as I recall) and Rummy Roots and English From the Roots Up 1-2.  I liked Critical Thinking Company's Root Word books the least.  I think fill in the blank is one of the least effective ways of learning and the definitions they gave differentiating between similar words were odd and or confusing in quite a few situations.  So, over all, I'd say they're better than nothing but that's not very high praise.

 

We've used it. I agree about the differentiating between definitions. It's driving my son batty. He did like the very first level though. We're using what we have and then moving on.

 

I love the memory game idea!