day 12: roots and affixes

by | Jan 13, 2011

“….help kids (and adults!) to tap into what we already know in order to unlock the unknown.”
Back to the idea that students (all of us, really) know a lot more than we think we know. And helping kids (and adults!) to tap into what we already know in order to unlock the unknown.
One of the best tips I can offer for this is to encourage kids constantly to look at any part of anything that they already know. In the case of vocabulary and comprehension, I encourage students to look at what they do know. The beginning of this, of course, is root words and affixes—or even parts of words.
Root words, and sometimes even syllables, have meaning. And we often already know meanings of bits and pieces that we can put together to gain more knowledge. (If you know a foreign language, you will have even more success unlocking unknown words or parts of words since much of our language is taken from other languages.)
How can you use this concept to help you or your students? When you come to an unfamiliar word, don’t assume that you do not know it. Look more closely at the word. (And help your kids to do the same—question them all the time: “What do you know about the ‘aqua’ part of aquamarine?” [Or even, “What do you know about the ‘marine’ part?”)
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.
Last week 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!
Tomorrow I will give you a list of roots affixes that we use in our language arts books that you can print off for yourself or your students. Happy reading—and comprehending! Smile…

day 9: roots, suffixes, and prefixes

by | Jan 10, 2011

Affix–think of “affixing a stamp onto the envelope”–it means to attach

One of the things that we stress in our language arts books is using what you already know! Most students know far more than they think they know. And if they could tap into what they know, it would go a long way in helping them to unlock the unknown.

One way we help them do this is by emphasizing roots and affixes. I am going to talk a little about this during this upcoming week–both for those of us who just want to know what a word means when we encounter it (even if we have never encountered it before) as well as for teachers and parents who are trying to help kids become better readers and better “comprehenders.”

For example, tonight we were playing a table game and Josiah said that he was feeling very jocular. We asked him if he knew what it meant, and he didn’t. (Another lesson: Teach kids not to use words of which they do not know the meaning–it could be dangerous and/or embarrasing!) Anyway, he had heard it on Jonathan’s SAT audio and kind of knew the context in which to use it but did not really know its meaning.

Upon looking it up in the dictionary, we discovered that means humorous or jolly–and is an adjective. This, of course, led to a discussion of the word joke (and how jocular likely came from it) and of how jocular could be a noun if it were jocularity. (I know…we’re strange here, but their mom writes this stuff every single day to the tune of 30,000 pages over the past ten years, so let’s just say our table time discussions can be out of control sometimes!)

So…roots and affixes. A quick overview here…then more tomorrow. I have a time limit and a word limit imposed by “helpful” family members!

Root–the base word before any affix is added to it

Affix–think of “affixing a stamp onto the envelope”–it means to attach…two types of affixes
    1. prefix–affix added to the beginning (pre means before!)
    2. suffix–affix added to the end

More later…happy reading and word dissecting!

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