Getting to the Root of It

The English language is a challenging one to learn. This difficulty primarily stems from the fact that English is a melting pot of words that come from other languages. While there are influences from Old English, French, Native American, and other languages and cultures, by far the most common contributors to English vocabulary come from Latin origins with another hefty contribution from Greek.

While some words carried in whole from Latin into English (act, for example), the majority have come into the English language as roots. What is a root? It is a meaningful component of a word. Typically, it cannot stand alone as a word, but when it is paired with an affix or two, it forms one. Some Latin and Greek examples of roots paired with affixes or other roots include reject (re + ject), inept (in + ept), biology (bio + ology), and geography (geo + graph + y).

Learning just a few roots opens the vocabulary doors wide open and paves the way for better comprehension. Why is this so? If you are able to learn a few roots, prefixes, and suffixes, you will have expanded your vocabulary considerably because roots appear in a lot of different words. Let’s take a look at one of the roots mentioned above.

Using the root ject, which means “to throw,” we can assemble quite a few words as long as we know some prefixes and suffixes: reject, abject, interject, subject, dejected, ejecting, objective, trajectory, injection, and projectile, for example. Present in all of these words, there is the idea of something being thrown or tossed about. Pairing the root with an understanding of what the prefixes and suffixes mean opens up broad vistas of accessible vocabulary.

So how do we begin to add more root study into our personal study and our class instruction? Teachers and students can start by adding a few roots to a daily review routine. Write them out on notecards with the root on one side and the definition on the other. Then see how many words you can discover that include those roots. For variety, add in a few affixes as well. There are many lists on the Internet that you can consult. If you’re raring to go, here are a few roots and affixes to get you launched and on your way. The definitions are somewhat simplified, but they are a solid starting place.

To view even more Greek and Latin roots, take a look at this Practical Printable. Have fun with it! Before you know it, you and your students will begin to notice roots within longer words. It is worth taking a few minutes to explore one or two during class. Give your students two minutes to come up with as many words as they can that include the same root. As your list grows, regularly review the previous roots so that they stick. Your students will never guess that you are strengthening their vocabularies and comprehension.