by Donna | Jun 10, 2011
Now that we know how to spell the word Wednesday, we are going to add a new feature to Language Lady 365. If you desire to increase your vocabulary for professional or personal reasons; are preparing for standardized testing or college; or want to help your kids learn vocabulary better, you won’t want to miss Wordy Wednesdays! (Yesk I know it’s Thursday–I didn’t get this up last night!)
Wordy Wednesday will be a vocabulary-building day each week. Sometimes I will introduce a “word that everybody should know” type of word from test preparation or collections with these types of lists. Other times we will focus on prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Basically, all types of vocabulary learning—your weekly “shot” of wordsmith learning!
At the beginning of the year, I described the importance of roots and affixes in helping our children learn vocabulary: “Discussing words (roots, affixes, etc.) should be a part of our daily discussion with our kids. Even if our kids go to school, we have to look at ourselves as our children’s first teachers. There are so many things that we can teach them casually—homeschoolers or not.”
Not long ago in literature class, our son (Joshua, one of our TFT teachers) asked the students what words they knew that contained the prefix “pro,” meaning “for.” He got the usual answers—pro-life; prolific; pro-football, etc. And then his clever “little brother,” Josiah, said, “’Propane’—means that we are ‘for pain’!” Have fun with vocabulary building—and your kids will not forget it, for sure (nor will you)!
So today, we will start with a common root—a root that can help you unlock the meaning of many other words: gen.
GEN is a root meaning birth, race, or kind.
From this root, we get many common words that most of us are familiar with, including, but not limited to, the following list:
- Generous
- Generate
- Generation
- Genealogy
- Gender
- Genocide
- Generic
But roots are not limited to the beginnings of words—they are found buried within longer words as well. Consider the following words with gen somewhere in them. How does the meaning of gen—birth, race, or kind—fit into the meanings of these words:
1. Agency
2. Intelligence
3. Resurgent
4. Agenda
5. Allergen
6. Pathogen
7. Oxygen
8. Carcinogen
9. Divergent
10. Emergency
11. Degenerate
12. Negligence
13. Legends
14. Estrogen
15. Homogenate
16. Ingenuity
by Donna | Jun 9, 2011
So what can you do if you have difficulty spelling Wednesday? Try any of the methods above.
Or try our combination syllabication/tricky trick of syllabicating it AND pronouncing each syllable (including the “silent letters” of the word) as you write it:
Wed/nes/day
Be sure to pronounce it like the following sounds as you spell it (not the way it really sounds):
- Wed
- Nes (short e like ness)
- Day
Happy Wednesday!
by Donna | Jun 9, 2011
This will be the final installment of the links from last year about helping your child with reading during the summer. I pray that you and your son or daughter have an amazing summer building those reading skills and making memories!
Introducing readability levels: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-175-summertime-beginning-reading.html
Readability levels—I of IV: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-176-summertime-beginning-reading.html
Reading with your “already-reading” child to build fluency and keep skills fresh: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-188-summertimereading-with-your.html
“What” to read with your child this summer: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-189-summertimewhat-to-read-with.html
by Donna | Jun 9, 2011
So many of my students have trouble spelling today’s day of the week! Wednesday is definitely not phonetic, so students (and adults!) get stuck on the spelling of it. Most people say Wednesday without the sound of the d at all.
We teach our students to spell difficult words in many ways, giving them as many tools as we possibly can.
1. Syllable by syllable—longer words that are phonetic in nature can often be syllabicated and spelled syllable by syllable by a student who is fairly phonetically-savvy: con/se/quence.
2. Tricks and mnemonics—we call these “Tricky Tricks to Help It Stick” and use them often with our “Wacky Words”—words that have a wacky counterpart that can be confusing, such as the homophones their, there, and they’re. I had an elementary student this year who told the class that they could easily spell Nebuchadnezzar if they just divided it up and pronounced the ch as choo (not kuh): Neb/U/Chad/Nez/Zar! Of course, any tricks that help a person are handy tools to have (though the trick must help that person in order to be effective).
3. Visual tricks—many visual people spell by “seeing” the word—its shape, its sequence of letters (and the shapes those letters make), etc.
4. Memorization—some people are just naturally good spellers (it is now thought to be a specific skill set separate from intelligence) and can memorize a word’s spelling once it is seen.
More on “Wednesday” in the next post!
by Donna | Jun 8, 2011
I want to leave you with more summertime reading and phonics help links. You may click on the links yesterday to find the beginning of each thread about helping your child with reading, tutoring without a formal program, and reviews of various phonics programs that I recommend.
For any reading or summer help, however, you may go to Positive Parenting 365 blogspot (as opposed to the FB page) and click on either “summer” or “reading” and hit older spots. Scroll up from there to find them in order, etc.
Today I will leave you with more summer reading help! One of the best ways that you can help your very young/new readers is to read with them in the summer every day. Today I will post links for general reader information, as well as specific readers and the uses we have found for them.
How to use graded readers with your kids– https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-169-summertimebeginning-reading.html
Choosing graded readers—IMPORTANT points to consider: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-170-summertimebeginning-reading.html
Starting with the first readers—The Bob Books— https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-171-summertime-beginning-reading.html
After “Bob”—the next readers we recommend: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-172-summertime-beginning-reading.html
Moving along with readers: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-173-summertime-beginning-reading.html
Tomorrow—links for readability levels to help you help your non-beginners choose books at their level this summer!
by Donna | Jun 7, 2011
Another Wacky Word pair for you!
With all of the storms in the US over the past month, I have seen my share of lightning/lightening used incorrectly. So, let’s get it right before the next bout of bad weather! 🙂
Lightning
1. This is the electricity in the sky!
2. It’s light + ning
Lightening
1. This is when something is lightened or made lighter.
2. It comes from the base word lighten–This will lighten my load.
3. Lighten+ing
If you think of the base word of each, you will not mistaken them for each other so easily–light (for lightning) and lighten (for lightening).
I hope the amount of lightning (and thunder and tornadoes!) starts to lighten (lessen) soon!
