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Building Language MCT and questions about stems/root words


quelques_fleur
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I need some help.  Word study and vocabulary is not one of my strengths (among other subjects).  We are using MCT's Building Language this year and he talks about 10 stem lessons.  So, lesson 1 is about  RE, which he labels stem 1.  How can RE be a stem -and- a prefix?  This is confusing to me, which leads me to my other questions.  How can I create exercises from this book for practice?  And what is the difference between a stem and a root word.  Are root words also known as base words?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

(I hope I posted this in the right forum).

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Re is a prefix and a stem.  Stems don't have to be at the beginning of words, prefixes do.  Stem is a more generic term for "word part that comes from a root in some language somewhere" and prefix is for "word part at the beginning of a word that comes from some language somewhere".  In my mental lexicon, anyways.

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For each of the stems, we did these three activities:

 

1. Create a diagram of words using that stem, with the stem  & meaning in the middle, and lines pointing out to words that use the stem. First I would have my son use the words in the book as well as any he could think of off the top of his head. Then, he would go to a dictionary. We would look up words online by typing "define _____________" into Google. It gives you an entry which shows the origin of the word, so you can see how the stem works with other stems to give the meaning of the word in question. We used other sites like this one, which is pretty neat: http://membean.com/wrotds/pre-before

 

2. I have him do the similies as MCT suggests. The challenge with these is for the student to make them thought provoking and not too straightforward. 

 

3. MCT asks the student to write a poem using words with the stem; my son would sometimes do this, but other times write a lyrical prose paragraph trying to use as many words with the stem.

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