Susan Ebbers 2005 1

English Words

from Latin & Greek

Increase spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension

Susan Ebbers 2005 2

How many words are there in the English Language?

• The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries.

• Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc.

Susan Ebbers 2005 3

Yea, yea, so get to the point…

• This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary.

• If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach….

Susan Ebbers 2005 4

Are you ready for this?

• three quarters of a million

750,000

Susan Ebbers 2005 5

Real world demands….• Only 30% of 4th graders are proficient readers

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP 2007)

• 42 million adults in the US are "functionally illiterate," meaning that can't read the front page of the newspaper. (NAEP 2007)

• Lack of vocabulary can be a crucial factor underlying the school failure of disadvantage students (Becker, 1977; Bielmiller, 1999).

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The average sixth grade student knows approximately 25,000 words.

The average high school graduate knows approximately 50,000 words.

This means that average students learn roughly 2000-3,000 words a year (Graves, 2007).

This translates to 8 words a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year - including weekends or summers.

Shrinking personal vocabularies

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Some specifics on the importance of vocabulary…

• Growing up in poverty can seriously restrict the vocabulary children learn before beginning school and make attaining an adequate vocabulary a very challenging task (Coyne, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 2004; Hart & Risley, 1995).

• Less advantaged students are likely to have substantially smaller vocabularies than their more advantaged classmates (Templin, 1957; White, Graves, & Slater, 1990).

Susan Ebbers 2005 8

It is estimated that by age 3, some less advantaged students have heard 30 million fewer words than their more advantaged peers.

It is also estimated these students’ vocabularies may be half the size of those of their more advantaged counterparts (Hart and Risely 2003 & Graves, 2007 ).

Susan Ebbers 2005 9

Bet cha’ didn’t know…

• In California they determine how many jail cells they will build to house future inmates - by calculating how many children are not reading on grade level by third grade.

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Here is a short cut!

• Half of all “high-frequency words” every day words,

• and two-thirds of all academic and technical words are derived from Latin or Greek.

• So learn the meanings of roots, prefixes, and suffixes and these basic elements make it easier to learn new words.

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Basic Termsroot form: a word with no prefix or suffix added; may also be referred to as a base word inspector, thermal

affix: meaningful part of a word attached before or after a root or base word to modify its meaning

prefix: an affix which is placed before the stem of a word re-, un-, dis-

suffix: an affix which is placed after the stem of a word -able, -ive, -ly

derivation-a word formed from an existing word, root, or affix: electric, electricity

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20 Most Frequent Prefixes in School Texts

1. unable 2. reviewinedible (impotent, illegal,

irresponsible)

distrustenlighten

(empower)nonsense

inside, implant

overcome

misguided submarine prefix interrupt forewarn

derail transfer supersonic semicircle antitrust

midterm underfedAnalysis: White, Sowell,

and Yanagihara 1989

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Prefixes: Meaning and Connotation

Somewhat Positive

pro- co- bene-

super- com- be-

en-, em-

ad-

Often Negative

dis-, de-

non- sub-

in- un- mis-

mal-anti,

contraa-

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Derivational Suffixes

Derivational suffixes change the part of speech

• words ending with –tion are often nouns• words ending with –ive are often adjectives• words ending with –ish are often adjectives• words ending with –ity are often nouns

What about -ment, -ous, -ness?

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Greek Combining Forms

hydro graph geo

pyro polis neuro

ortho scope photo

therm crat psych

chron phobe pseud

onym crypt helio

logy sphere the, theo

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Counting in Greek and Latin

mono uni di

bi du, duo tri

tetra quadri penta

hexa sept oct

nove deca deci

cent milli poly

multi semi hemi

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Developing content-specific, academic vocabulary depends on a basic understanding of Greek and Latin

Sixty percent of the words in English texts are of Latin and Greek origin Bear et al., 1996; Henry, 1997

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Content-Specific Greek Terms

Anatomy and Medical Terms

esophagus, thyroid, diagnosis, psoriasis, dyslexia

Studies and Sciences

biology, seismology, morphology, geochronometry

Animals and Plantsarachnid, amphibian, chlorophyll, dinosaur, nectar

Theatre and the Artscharisma, drama, chorus, muse, symphony, acoustics

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Look Inside—Look Outside pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

1. Look inside the word for known word parts: prefixes, roots or combining forms, suffixes.

2. Use the analogy strategy—“I don’t know this word, but I know pneumonia and I know volcano, so by analogy, this word might have something to do with lungs and heat.”

3. Look outside the word at context clues, visuals

The coal miners, coughing and wheezing, suffered from pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

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So what exactly are we going to do?

• Learn to use context clues effectively• Study and practice most common root

words• Study and practice most frequently used

prefixes and suffixes • Learn to use THEIVES as a reading

strategy to use all the clues in the text to uncover word meaning.

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So…what do you need?

• A fat stack of notecards

• 15 minutes each day to work on Greek & Latin roots and SAT vocabulary words

• 15 minutes for AP terms and examples