what has been the best way for your highschooler to pick up vocabulary?

[deeinfl]

Besides picking it up from real literature, have you found that greek and latin roots is a better way than say a simple vocabulary workbook? Which vocabulary program worked for you and why? This is for my soon to be 9th grader and I'm really undecided about how to approach the subject of learning new vocabulary words.

 

Blessings and much thanks,

 

Dee

[Brindee]

DS15 took Latin only in 3rd and 4th grades. He's taken Greek, which has helped as well. This year, his 9th grade year, he is using Jensen's Vocabulary and likes it.

[ClassicMom]

Well, good literature, of course. But we have been using SATI Vocabulary Cartoons. It gives a picture to help remember what the word means. My daughter is finishing up 9th. We are going to continue with SATII next year.

 

We buy ours from Rainbow Resources.

[MIch elle]

:auto:

[Kareni]

Besides picking it up from real literature, have you found that greek and latin roots is a better way than say a simple vocabulary workbook? Which vocabulary program worked for you and why? This is for my soon to be 9th grader and I'm really undecided about how to approach the subject of learning new vocabulary words.

 

 

Definitely reading. Have your child read as much as possible in all kinds of genres. Good literature would be great but don't discount non-fiction as well.

My now senior did use Vocabulary Cartoons in one class and found them pleasant. She's also taken five years of Latin, and she often dissects words and tells me what their roots mean.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[cillakat]

Besides picking it up from real literature, have you found that greek and latin roots is a better way than say a simple vocabulary workbook?

 

Absolutely. Typical vocab study teaches definitions of words, but never breaks them down into the meanings of the roots. A systematic study of latin roots, prefixes and suffixes will give someone the tools to learn and understand exponentially more words *explicitly* rather than trying to figure them out from context. (implicit)

 

Systematic, explicit instruction will almost always go further (and much much further) than random introduction of material that leaves it up to the student to pick up the connections. Think of it as teaching phonics versus whole language. With phonics, you have the tools to figure out any word. With whole language, you only know the words you're taught and have no tools to decipher the ones you haven't learned. With latin/greek root word study, one will have the tools to decipher 70% of the words in our language.

 

There is data showing that students who've had latin do better on SAT's v. student's who've had other foreign languages or no foreign languages.

 

Katherine

[Shelly in the Country]

I don't have any high school age children yet, but I scored well on my SAT verbals back in the day. Latin was the biggest help to me. I tried studying word lists, I read lots of good literature on my own, but when it came right down to it at test time I ended up making educated guesses based on Latin roots for many questions. My own positive experience with Latin is what led me to teach Latin to my own children.

[deeinfl]

I'll be checking out some greek and latin root programs, vocabulary for the college bound student, and Vocabulary Cartoons Sat words.

 

Many blessings!!!

 

Dee

[ElizabethB]

Systematic, explicit instruction will almost always go further (and much much further) than random introduction of material that leaves it up to the student to pick up the connections. Think of it as teaching phonics versus whole language. With phonics, you have the tools to figure out any word. With whole language, you only know the words you're taught and have no tools to decipher the ones you haven't learned. With latin/greek root word study, one will have the tools to decipher 70% of the words in our language.

 

There is data showing that students who've had latin do better on SAT's v. student's who've had other foreign languages or no foreign languages.

 

Katherine

 

:iagree:

 

And I love the phonics analogy!

[Peela]

I honestly haven't found that any vocabulary workbook type thing has had much effect- yet both have good vocabularies just from reading. It feels like they do the workbooks as busywork and promptly forget the words. My ds13 is doing a vocab workbook at the moment (with Greek and Latin roots) and it feels more like an exercise in learning how to do workbooks (he has never been good with them before), than that he is actually learning the vocabulary.

 

However, we are doing IEW's Medieval Writing lessons, and there is a vocab component where you learn 4 new words a week, and then you have to use them in your writing assignment. That actually seems to have some effect for them- they are remembering the words because they are "owning" them by using them in their own writing assignments. I have found both my kids, even though they are very different, are like this.