Word Origins,

Roots & Affixes

Teaching root words gives students a way to play with language and see it as something they can reason through.

PBS Education Article

What it is:

English orthography is a complex, but highly ordered system that teachers and students can investigate and understand. (Peter Bowers, 2006)

ROOT is most accurately used to describe a word's origin; not a current English spelling (often a Latin or Greek word)

BASE - is the smallest unit of a word that makes sense and carries the core meaning of the word; it is morphological so it corresponds to current English spelling structure; not all bases are stand-alone words. Some bases are bound, they require an affix, e.g., <rupt> 'break' becomes corrupt, disrupt, erupt

AFFIXES - an additional element placed at the beginning (PREFIX) or end (SUFFIX) of a base to modify the meaning

For example:

Please comes from the root 'placere' which means to "to please, give pleasure, be approved"

Pleasant, pleasure and please share the same base <please> ; the affixes <ant> and <ure> were added to alter the meaning

“You don’t have to own all this knowledge”...“You can put ‘words we want to know more about’ on the board and say, ‘Does someone want to go home tonight and look up some of these words?’ We’re sharing that ambiguity with kids. … That’s what real readers and thinkers do.”

PBS Education Article

Why teach it to students?

1. English makes sense!! There is a structure. We need to stop telling students that words are spelled a certain way 'just because' or that English has random spelling rules.

2. Linguists estimate that 60-80% of English vocabulary is created through generative processes of word combinations (combining bases with affixes). Therefore, students who understand these processes will be well equipped to analyze and learn unfamiliar words they will encounter in their reading and their study in specific content areas.

3. If a word has an ending attached to it, 70 percent of the time it will be -s,-es, -ed, -ing or -ly. (Honig, Diamond, and Gotlohn, 2000).

4. Of the 20,000 most commonly used words in English, 4,000 - or 20 percent - have prefixes. Fifteen prefixes make up 82 percent of the total usage of all prefixes. (White, Sowell and Yanagihara, 1989).

Sources: Words Their Way: Word Sorts for Derivational Spellers by Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston, Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi

Intensifying Classroom Routines in Reading and Writing Programs by Micheal P. Ford

commonprefix.pdf

Graphic-Organizer-Prefix-Root-Words-Suffixes-Donyall-Dickey.pdf

Structured Word Inquiry

Peter Bowers, a teacher/researcher from Ontario, initially tested out the principles of Scientific Inquiry and examined why words were spelled the way they are with his Grade 4-5 students. He has since completed a PhD, further developed his approach, and now works with students and teachers from K-12 to integrate this approach in their classrooms. Peter recommends three key learning tools:

Online Etymology Dictionary
Word Matrix
Word Sums

Examining the meaning of words including become familiar with commonly used bases and affixes is very impactful for students as they move into higher grades and encounter more complex vocabulary.

To learn more about Structured Word Inquiry, visit Peter's site: www.wordworkskingston.com

To see word investigations in action, visit these two blogs:

Blog Post: Orthographic explorations done by a Gr 7 Humanities class.

Blog Post: Of Cycles, Circles and Flight based on the children's picture book: Circle by Jeannie Baker.

Peter regularly provides professional development sessions in Alberta. Visit his website or www.erlc.ca to see future dates. He is currently booked for three days in Edmonton on January 23-25, 2018.

Within the Curriculum

What words in your content area do students need to master? How might knowing the Greek or Latin roots help them remember? Here are a few examples:

(Defintions from Online Etymological Dictionary)

Perpendicular (adj.)

late 15c., from adverb (late 14c.), from Old French perpendiculer, from Latin perpendicularis "vertical, as a plumb line," from perpendiculum "plumb line," from perpendere "balance carefully," from per"thoroughly" (see per) + pendere "to hang, cause to hang; weigh"

Isosceles (adj.)

"having two equal sides," 1550s, from Late Latin isosceles, from Greek isoskeles "with equal legs; isosceles; that can be divided into two equal parts," from isos "equal, identical" (see iso-) + skelos"leg,"

Stochiometry (n.)

"science of calculating the quantities of chemical elements involved in chemical reactions," 1807, from German Stöchiometrie (1792), coined by German chemist Jeremias Benjamin Richter (1762-1807) from Greek stoikheion "one of a row; shadow-line of a sundial," in plural "the elements" (from PIE *steigh- "to stride, step, rise") + -metry "a measuring of."

Mitre (n.)

in the carpentry sense of "joint at a 45 degree angle," 1670s, perhaps from mitre, via notion of joining of the two peaks of the folded cap. As a verb from 1731.

Democracy (n.)

1570s, from Middle French démocratie (14c.), from Medieval Latin democratia (13c.), from Greek demokratia "popular government," from demos "common people," originally "district" (see demotic), + kratos "rule, strength"

Culture (n.)

mid-15c., "the tilling of land, act of preparing the earth for crops," from Latin cultura "a cultivating, agriculture," figuratively "care, culture, an honoring," from past participle stem of colere "to tend, guard; to till, cultivate"

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