We tell our students all the time that you know more than you think you know! And that if you take what you already know and apply it to what you do not know, you will soon know even more!
Take the word homophone, for instance.
Homo—means same
Phone—means sound
Thus, homophones sound the same what you hear them. Homophones are words like their, they’re, and there and to, too, and two—words that sound the same when they are spoken but only look different when written.
I tell my students that homophones “sound” the “same” when you are talking on the phone (and all you can do is hear–you can’t see the words written–either how they are spelled or in context).
We will do a lot of “word dissecting” on LL 365! That is something we begin teaching early in our curricula as it can unlock the meanings of so many words—and helps everybody learn to take what they already know and add it to what they are trying to learn.