By Timothy Rasinski, Nancy Padak, Evangeline Newton, Rick M. Newton

What do the following words and phrases have in common?

• Tractor
• A protracted argument
• Abstract art
• Attraction
• Vanilla extract
• Retractable ink pen
• Traction
• Intractable
• Easily distractible
• Contractions

Of course, it’s easy to notice that all these words and phrases have the word pattern (word root) “tract” in them.    Now let’s take it a step further.  What if you knew that the word root “tract” is derived from Latin and means “pull, drag, or draw.”    Would you be able to define each of the words and phrases above using the words pull, drag, or draw?    Absolutely!

• Tractor:  A farm machine used for pulling farm implements.
• A protracted argument:  An argument that drags on and on.
• Abstract art:  Art that is pulled from reality.
• Attraction:  An amusement that attempts to pull customers in.
• Vanilla extract.   Pulled from the essence of the vanilla bean.
• Retractable ink pen.  A pen for which the tip can be drawn back. 
• Traction:   The drag or pull created by a car’s tires that keep it on the road on an icy day.  Also, in medicine the deliberate and prolonged pulling of a bone or muscle, as by weights, to correct dislocation or relieve pressure,
• Intractable:    Unable to be pulled or dragged away.
• Easily distractible:  To be drawn away without difficulty.
• Contractions.  Two words that are pulled together; or muscles that are drawn together as in giving birth.

Knowledge of just that one word root provides you with a tool for unlocking the meaning (or a part of the meaning) to many words in English – and in the case of “trac,tract” it is well over 100 English words. Equally noteworthy, this includes words students use every single day at home and at school (think subtract, trace, protractor).

            One of the amazing features of the English language is that many of its words come from two important languages – Latin and Greek.  In fact, about 90% of English words with more than one syllable are derived from Latin; most of the remaining 10% are Greek-based (Brunner, 2004). Additionally, these polysyllabic (poly = many) academic words are found in science, math, and social studies.       Equally amazing is the fact that one-word root can be found in 10, 50, and in some cases over 100 English words.     

            With this in mind, it seems natural (nat, natur = born, produce) to make the study of Latin and Greek word roots a part of any vocabulary instruction from grades 1 and up.    Traditionally vocabulary has been taught in the following equation (equ[i] = equal):  teach one word, learn one word.     With a Latin-Greek word roots approach the equation changes to teach one word root but learn multiple (and often challenging) words.

            Of course, this begs the question, “How might I teach word roots?”     The first step is to identify which word roots to teach.    Below is a sampling of common word roots.

________________________________________________________________________

Common Bases

aero(o)            air, wind         

audi, audit      hear, listen                             

bibli(o)            book                           

bio                   live, life                                  

chron(o)         time                           

dem                 the people                  

graph, gram       write, draw                            

hydr(o)            water                         

labor                work

mand               order  

max                 greatest

phon                voice, call sound

photo              light

pod                  foot

pol, polis         city     

port                 carry

scop                 look, watch

stru, struct     build

terr, ter          land, ground, earth

Common Prefixes

ante                 before

anti, ant          against, opposite

auto                 self

bi^*                    two

co, con             with, together

ex                    out

mega, megalo big

micro               small

multi                many (Latin)

poly                 many (Greek)

pre                   before

re                     back, again

super, sur       on top of, over, above

tele                  far, from afar

tri^*                   three

un                    not

uni^*                  one

Note^*:  uni, bi, and tri can also be taught as numerical bases

___________________________________________________________________________

The next step in instruction (stru, struct = build) would simply be to choose one or two roots per week and make the roots and the words that belong to the root visible for students.  We call it “meeting the root.”    Here’s an example of two “Meet the Root” word charts that a teacher could put up for display early in the week. 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________ 

Word Root:   Bi = Two/2

Bicycle

Bicuspids

Biceps

Bifocals

Biplane

Binoculars

Biannual

Bipartisan

Bilingual

Bicameral

Biped

Bisect

____________________________

Word Root:   Terr/Ter = Earth

Terrace

Terrain

Territory

Terrier

Terracotta

Subterranean

Extraterrestrial

Mediterranean

Interment

Lumbricus Terrestis

___________________________

Introduce students to the root and its meaning, then discuss how each of the words have embedded in them the root’s meaning.    Students may already know many of the words, but others may need some scaffolding from you (e.g. bipartisan, bicameral, interment).    Then, throughout the week, make reference to the words on the chart and even add more words to show the generative (gen = birth) nature of the word root.    Challenge students to use the words in their own written and oral language.

            Other days of the week can devoted to having students break words belonging to a word root family into parts in order to extract (trac, tract = pull, draw, drag) meaning – we call this ’Divide and Conquer;” read and respond to contextual passages that contain multiple (multi = many) examples of the words from the word root family; and even playing games that involve students in  having fun with the word root and its family of words.     Ten to 15 minutes per day can have a profound impact on students’ vocabularies and their approaches for learning new words.

            Reading specialist Hillary Loftus, says that a word roots approach gives students a degree of confidence (co, con = with, together; fid = trust) in tackling challenging words:

“If a student can recognize the meaning of just one part of a difficult word, this provides him a toehold on the new vocabulary. Students don’t give up as easily because they already know something about the word.”

And isn’t that what we want to develop in students ? – Not only help them enlarge their own vocabularies but develop in them competencies and dispositions for taking on new or unknown words on their own. 

            However, it is not only students’ vocabularies that will benefit from a word roots approach, but also their reading, writing (have you ever seen a writing rubric that does not include “word choice?”), and even their  performance in the academic disciplines.   Indeed, if the language content of science, math, and social studies is made up of word roots derived from Latin and Greek, a word roots approach to vocabulary is certain to improve students’ knowledge of words in these areas.

            Alan Becker, a former K-5 English Language Arts supervisor (super = over; vis = see) brought a word roots approach into his schools after seeing the dramatic impact it had on reading comprehension in his own classroom:

“At the end of each year, the district that I was working in saw 2-5% gains in student performance in reading, always inching closer to my goal of full proficiency in reading and reading in the content areas. By using Greek and Latin roots to teach vocabulary the district met and exceeded predicted growth models in reading.”

            An approach to word study that focuses on Latin and Greek word roots across the grade levels offers a new, efficient, and engaging approach for increasing students’ vocabularies and improving their reading across content areas.    Using a word roots approach to vocabulary may lead teachers and students to express (ex = out; press = squeeze) what Julius Caesar once declared after achieving victory – “Veni, Vidi, Vici” Vocabulary!

References

Brunner, B.L. (2004). Word Empire: A Utilitarian Approach to Word Power (2^nd ed.). Star Nemeron Educational Innovations.

Rasinski, Padak, Newton and Newton are authors of numerous (num = number) resources on a word root approach to vocabulary instruction:   

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2020). Building Vocabulary with Greek and Latin Roots: A Professional Guide to Word Knowledge and Vocabulary Development (2nd ed.). Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing.  (Professional Development Book)

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2019). Building Vocabulary from Word Roots.  Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing.  (Vocabulary Instruction Kit – Grades K-11)

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2013).  Starting with Prefixes and Suffixes, 2-4 (Getting to the Roots of Content-Area Vocabulary), Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. 

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2012).  Practice with Prefixes and Suffixes, 5-8 (Getting to the Roots of Content-Area Vocabulary), Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. 

Connect with Dr. Tim Risinski on Twitter @timrasinski1 

Email Dr. Tim Rasinski: trasinsk@kent.edu

The Robb Review Recommends!

Daily Word Ladders by Timothy Rasinski is available at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=daily%20word%20ladders

The Megabook of Fluency is available at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=rasinski

The Fluent Reader can be found at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=rasinski

Resources for Building Students’ Vocabulary and Word Knowledge are available at: http://timrasinski.com/products.html

By: Jacob Chastain

Quality writing does not happen in a vacuum. Likewise, it is not improved by endless and boring worksheets, grammar practice, and writing in isolation from in-authentic sources.

         Writing, at least writing worth reading and doing, occurs when the writer has something they genuinely want to say, reflect on, or respond to. But how do writers gain the tools to do so? Many companies would like to tell you that a computer program (a modern-day workbook) is the solution. Just sit your students in front of a screen and have them correct sentences for thirty minutes a day and you too can have a writer who knows how to use a comma correctly! Teachers, ill-trained or supported in authentic practices accept these programs in the name of simplicity or mandates and move on. Meanwhile, they get to suffer as they read draft after draft of poor, lifeless writing from their students and lose faith over time that they can teach writing or that students can do it well.

         The interesting piece to this scenario is that the teacher using such computer programs (or worksheets) to teach writing are often ignoring what they are doing in reading. In reading, this teacher probably looked at a section of a story, article, or poem, asked some questions, and quite possibly even analyzed language to some extent, looking for meaning. These are all solid teaching moves within reading, but why not use those in writing as well? Why create two separate lesson plans, when the first can serve both sides of what needs to happen in a literacy class?

         Students should read like readers and read like writers. They should be tasked with experiencing the text and all that it offers, and then be challenged to look at it from a different perspective and ask the deep question, “How did the author do that?”

         By just focusing on reading as a reader, we train students to be consumers of information, and never creators or synthesizers of it. We passively ask students to consider what the author was meaning when we could also offer for them to create their own meaning using the model in front of them.

         Rather than just asking what the theme in a poem is, we can extend this to ask students how did the author convey that theme through language, symbols, and structure.

         Rather than just asking what the argument of a piece was and if it was effective, we could ask what is the most effective way for them to argue for what they are passionate about.

         Rather than just asking about text structures, we can invite them to try text structures we have seen to elevate their own pieces.

         Rather than just looking at a beautiful sentence or paragraph and discussing it, we can ask our students to look at the craft of writing, the use of commas, periods, and dashes, and get them to see grammar as a tool for meaning, rather than punishment and nuisance.

         If you are using great literature in your class, and we all should be, then the models are already there for you. Students don’t need worksheets, and you don’t need to be the greatest writer as their teacher. They need to see great writing in texts they can relate to, and you need to be equipped enough to be able to invite them into a multi-dimensional look at the examples all around them.

         This approach creates deeper thinking in students. Over time, they begin reading in a way that is far more critical than a reader that has had a one-sided education. Rather than just consuming news, for example, they will now be able to distance themselves away from the material long enough to ask, “What was the author doing here? Why did they write this headline like this? What was the point of this structure?”

         Teachers all over the world will bang their heads against the wall trying to get students to think about the author’s purpose and infer meanings in texts, but never offer students the chance to play those roles themselves and actually be the writer! It’s hard to grasp why someone might do something without ever stepping into their shoes. As students write more and think about their purpose for writing more, they will be able to read texts with more nuance and depth than they could previously. 

Experience crafts deeper thinking. 

Social media: 

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Twitter—@jacobchastain_

By: Lester Laminack

We live on a twenty-two-acre portion of an old farm nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina. Our property has acres of woods and acres of open meadows where cows grazed, and hay was harvested. I keep those meadows mowed. It takes about six hours on a small tractor to mow all of them and I do that at least twice each month. Six hours sitting on a tractor, wearing sound-muffling-headphones, is a great time to think. It is actually one of my new revision tools and a great time for reflection. When I am writing and hit a wall, I start the tractor and mow and think. When something is troubling me, I mow and think. 

Recently I was obsessed with the words: critic, criticize, criticism, and critique. I was rolling them around in my mind noticing their similarities and reflecting on how we interpret them. It seems that we are in a time when critics are present at every corner and on every tweet and post. News outlets and social media seem to thrive on criticism. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find all that negativity draining, and it has me thinking. 

Some may argue it is only semantics, but I believe we feel the difference between criticism and critique. In my mind, criticism almost always comes from a negative place. Criticism lifts up what is wrong, incorrect, missing; all the negatives. Criticism seems to delight in finding flaws and flaunting them. You aren’t likely to want to help if someone says: “Just stop, that’s not how you load the dishwasher. You don’t put the plates in like that. Good grief.” Negativity never helps me move forward, improve, or make change. In fact, I find my reaction to negativity is quite the opposite. Negativity most often leads me to pull back, to withdraw, to avoid. 

I view critique, on the other hand, as coming from a positive place. Critique is what my editor offers when we have a conference to talk about one of my projects. She points out the strong parts of the manuscript, she lifts up what is working well, she speaks to those places where the language “sings”, where the characters and the dialog move the plot along, and points where the story “shines.” Then, within the context of that safety net of support, she draws a tight focus on a couple of places that are not working as well. Any attention to negatives is presented within the context of what is working, and she shows how the negative bit she chooses to highlight is detracting from all that is working well. 

If you are thinking this is some sort of coddling or ego management, then so be it. I’d rather think of it as guidance. Within the context of what is working well, the negative can be seen more clearly, more objectively. That is to say when negatives are presented in this way, I am able to see more clearly why something isn’t working and how it detracts from the story I’m trying to tell. Critique helps me to understand what I do well, what I have under control and gives me a window into where, how, and why I can improve. I find that critique, when defined this way, actually makes me a better writer. The next draft is tighter because I can reflect on what is working as I address what is not. Because I understand the intentions of my editor, I am energized to jump back into the work knowing exactly where to focus my attention.

From this perspective, critique is an act of caring. It requires that you reflect on what works in addition to what doesn’t. It requires that you consider your comments within a context, to pause and recognize that something isn’t “wrong” simply because it isn’t the way you would do it (e.g. loading the dishwasher). It asks you to consider whether your suggestion is coming from a place of support and potential for growth.  Critique is the positive energy of a critic.

Of course, this line of thought took me to school. It gave me pause and nudged me to examine interactions with both students and teachers. It is easy to notice the flaws, to see what is not working. It is easy to point those out. But, is it helpful? Is criticism beneficial to our students or our colleagues? I don’t think so, especially when criticism is coming from a negative place.

I find that criticism most often becomes a default mode when we are operating under stress. I believe most of you will agree that this has been one of the most stressful periods in our memory for our schools, our teachers, our students, and their families. When we are stressed, we are less likely to think clearly, less likely to consider the impact of our intentions, and less likely to think through how our feedback may impede or facilitate growth and positive change.  With that in mind I invite you to pause and reflect the feedback you give your students when offering suggestions for growth.

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By Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D

Anyone who has followed my work in the past knows that I am a huge advocate for the use of poetry (and song) in the literacy classroom for all students, but especially for younger readers and older readers who struggle.  I’d like to share reasons why I think poetry should be an essential part of any literacy program.     

Poetry is Joyous

            Perhaps the most important reason for the use of poetry is that it is pure joy to read and perform.  So many of today’s children’s poets write with such great humor that children are certain to find great delight.   Poetry is fun reading!

Poetry is Profound     

Beyond its ability to tickle a funny bone or two, poetry can be deeply profound and help build students’ knowledge of the world they live in. Whether it is David L. Harrison’s Rhymes for the Times that tell the story of America through poetry, Catherine Clinton’s I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry,  Glen Alberto Salazar’s A Little Book of Persian Poetry, or Brod Bagert’s heart of science poetry, poetry can expand children’s world and stretch their imaginations.

Poetry Builds the Foundation for Reading

            Research tells us that many children struggle in reading because of they are not fully proficient in the foundational aspects of reading.  Poetry is immensely suited to improve many foundational reading competencies.

Phonemic Awareness

            Poetry is filled with texts that play with sounds.  Think of all the nursery rhymes children should learn before starting school.   Diddle Diddle Dumpling, Dickery Dickery Dare, Peter Piper, picked a peck, or Betty Botter Bought some Butter are sure to help children develop an awareness of the phonemes /d/, /p/, and /b/.  I can’t help but wonder if nursery rhymes were first created to help children develop their awareness of speech sounds that is crucial to their language and literacy development.

Phonics

            Most poems for children rhyme.  Rhyming words are words usually (not always) have similar rimes (e.g. the -ake in bake, cake, rake, take…).    Helping children detect and decode rimes are a great way to develop their phonics or word decoding ability (as well as their spelling or encoding).   Dr. Edward Fry, for example, found that knowledge of just 38 common rimes could help children decode over 600 words simply by adding beginning consonant, consonant blend, or digraph.  Little Bo Peep is a perfect text to explore the -eep rime, and Maya Angelou’s Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All is certain to help children learn about the -all rime (and much more!).

Vocabulary

            Poetry is filled with rich words that poets use to weave their magic.     Back to the Maya Angelou poem we can find wonderful words and phrases such as frighten, frogs and snakes, dragons, counterpane, tough guys, and much much more.  Our job as teachers is simply to help children notice these great words that poets make such great use of.  

Fluency

            Fluency is developed largely through repeated readings of texts.      Another name for repeated reading is rehearsal.  Poetry is meant to be performed, so in order to get the point where students are able to perform, they will need to rehearse, hopefully under the guidance and support of a teacher.  Moreover, the aim of the repeated reading is to read with good expression (prosody), which is at the heart of fluency, instead of reading fast which is the goal of too many repeated reading lessons.

Sight Vocabulary

            The rhythm, rhyme (and melody) in poetry, and songs makes them easily memorized. How many of us can remember a poem that we first learned and last read in our school days?  Sight words are essentially words that are memorized by sight and sound.   Poetry is excellent text for helping students expand their corpus of memorized words – sight vocabulary, especially when after reading (and performing) an entire poem we work with students to analyze individual words and word patterns in the poem itself.  

Writing

            Because poetry often has a specific and transparent structure, it is an excellent mentor text for students’ writing.  It is not difficult for students to write their own versions (or parodies) of favorite poems or songs, whether it is their own versions of Yankee Doodle, Judith Viorst’s If I were in Charge of the World, or Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son the structure of the poetic text gives students a head start on creating their own poetry.  A favorite for many students in our university reading clinic:

Diddle Diddle Dumpling my son John,

Went to bed with his stockings on.

One shoe off, one shoe on.

Diddle Diddle Dumpling, my son John.

That rhyme is also a favorite for students writing their own.      Taylor, for example, wrote (rehearsed and performed) his own version of the rhyme:

Diddle Diddle Dumpling my son Fred,

Slept all day on his bed.

Woke up at midnight and screamed “there’s a monster under my bed.”

Diddle Diddle Dumpling, my son Fred.

Success – A Sense of Accomplishment

            Children who struggle in reading do not often experience success in their reading, especially when they compare themselves with their more proficient classmates.  Poems are relatively short, and the rhythm and rhyme embedded in poetry for children make them easy to learn to read and perform.  Imagine the feeling of accomplishment children can feel when they are able to fluently and expressively read a poem aloud, just as well as any more proficient reader, to classmates, teacher, family members, and others. That success is empowering.  In our reading clinic, our goal is for children to leave every single day with the ability to read something well and to read and perform it for their parents and other family members.  

Make Poetry Part of your Reading Curriculum

            In our educational world where stories and informational texts are the dominant forms of reading, we need to make a concerted effort to allow poetry a foothold.   Just 10-20 minutes of poetry reading a day can have a profound effect on children’s literacy development.  Poetry is particularly well suited for remote and virtual instruction. Poems can easily be sent electronically to students and printed at home.  Then, via zoom or other distance technology, teachers and children can easily practice, master, and perform a daily poem in that 10-20 time span.  Let’s make it a goal for poetry to be read, rehearsed, and performed every day of the school year! 

BrodBagert            https://www.brodbagertsheartofscience.com/

Margarita Engle         http://margaritaengle.com/

David L. Harrison       https://www.davidlharrison.com/

Sara Holbrook              https://www.saraholbrook.com/resources/poems/

Kenn Nesbitt                https://www.poetry4kids.com/

Robert Pottle               http://robertpottle.com/poetry-index.php

Jack Prelutsky           http://jackprelutsky.com/

You can find resources for teaching accurate and automatic word recognition (i.e. fluency) at Tim’s own website – www.timrasinski.com

Daily Word Ladders by Timothy Rasinski

Follow Tim on Twitter @TimRasinski1