Why Teaching Greek and Latin Roots Gets Better Results

When I was in high school, the vocabulary program my teacher used was a study of Greek and Latin roots. We had a workbook and each week we learned a new set of roots or prefixes. This totally tapped into my Maven (Learner) Sparketype. I loved that I could see how knowing these roots was a tool to helping me understand more complicated material. Call me a geek. I’ve always been a geek. So when it came time for me to step in front of a classroom full of tenth graders, I knew that teaching greek and latin roots was the way to go.

Teaching Greek and Latin Roots in High School English is the perfect way to give students tools that are transferrable to any text and any subject.

Enter Common Core

When our state adopted the Common Core Standards, those standards suggested that vocabulary instruction in isolation was no longer a thing. I get it. But I LOVED my weekly warm ups that included presenting new roots on Mondays and finishing up with a quiz on Fridays, with quick exercises in between. And I knew it was making a difference. Students would come back and say, “I saw word X and I knew its meaning had something to do with Y because I saw the root.”

My co-teacher at the time suggested that we could still teach Greek and Latin roots. We just had to figure out a way to do it within the context of the text. And we were back in business.

An Introduction to Greek and Latin Roots

One of my favorite lessons to teach each year is my introduction to Greek and Latin roots. We talk about the fact that knowing the roots of words is a tool. It will serve them well because knowing the roots of words often means they can figure out an approximate meaning of a difficult word without having to ask Siri or Alexa. We discuss the national spelling bee and why the students will ask the origin of the word and then I give them a quick demo. They probably don’t love it as much as I do, but they do get the picture.

Teaching Greek and Latin Roots in Context

Deciding that we would be teaching Greek and Latin roots in context did change our approach. It also changes the roots and prefixes are able to hit. It also means we don’t get to as many roots in a year, but it also means that we can do purposeful repetition.

We find passages in a text that we are reading together, usually novels, but short stories and poems could work too. Then we help students to see the words with the roots by providing them with a list of roots (or prefixes) that are in the passage.

Students love this method. It’s like a game to them.

You can grab a sample here: Roots in Context for “Story of an Hour.”

Where to Find Greek and Latin Roots

There are lists of Greek and Latin Roots all over the internet. I love this resource from Learn That Word because it is one of the most comprehensive lists out there. However, I also love this book: The Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins by Bob & Maxine Moore. It not only includes the roots, but also a pretty comprehensive lists of words with the roots. Additionally, it includes words that might be similar but are not connected to the root.

Try Teaching Roots

Using Greek and Latin roots is another close reading strategy. For more close reading strategies, check out this post. I certainly hope that you will give teaching Greek and Latin Roots in context at try. It really is a game changer for vocabulary instruction in high school English.