1、Susan Ebbers 20051NoImageEnglish Words from Latin&Greek Increase spelling,vocabulary,and reading comprehensionSusan Ebbers 20052How 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 obsol
2、ete 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.These figures take no account of entries with senses
3、 for different parts of speech(such as noun and adjective).Susan Ebbers 20053Yea,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 not covered by the OED,or words
4、 not yet added to the published dictionary,of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use.If distinct senses were counted,the total would probably approach.Susan Ebbers 20054Are you ready for this?three quarters of a million 750,000 Thatsalotawords!Susan Ebbers 20055Real world demands.Onl
5、y 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 cant read the front page of the newspaper.(NAEP 2007)Lack of vocabulary can be a crucial factor underlying the school failure of disad
6、vantage students(Becker,1977;Bielmiller,1999).Susan Ebbers 20056 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
7、 words a day,7 days a week,52 weeks a year-including weekends or summers.Shrinking personal vocabulariesSusan Ebbers 20057Some 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 v
8、ocabulary a very challenging task(Coyne,Simmons,&Kameenui,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 20058It is estimated that by age 3,some less adva
9、ntaged 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 20059Bet cha didnt know In California they determine
10、 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.Susan Ebbers 200510Here 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 Lati
11、n or Greek.So learn the meanings of roots,prefixes,and suffixes and these basic elements make it easier to learn new words.Susan Ebbers 200511Basic 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 b
12、efore 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 Susan Ebbers 2005122
13、0 Most Frequent Prefixes in School Texts1.unable 2.reviewinedible(impotent,illegal,irresponsible)distrustenlighten(empower)nonsenseinside,implantovercomemisguidedsubmarineprefixinterruptforewarnderailtransfersupersonicsemicircleantitrustmidtermunderfedAnalysis:White,Sowell,and Yanagihara 1989Susan E
14、bbers 200513Prefixes:Meaning and ConnotationSomewhat Positivepro-co-bene-super-com-be-en-,em-ad-Often Negativedis-,de-non-sub-in-un-mis-mal-anti,contraa-Susan Ebbers 200514Derivational SuffixesDerivational suffixes change the part of speech words ending with tion are often nouns words ending with iv
15、e are often adjectives words ending with ish are often adjectives words ending with ity are often nouns What about-ment,-ous,-ness?Susan Ebbers 200515Greek Combining Formshydrographgeopyropolisneuroorthoscopephotothermcratpsychchronphobepseudonymcryptheliologyspherethe,theoSusan Ebbers 200516Countin
16、g in Greek and Latinmonounidibidu,duotritetraquadripentahexaseptoctnovedecadecicentmillipolymultisemihemiSusan Ebbers 200517Developing content-specific,academic vocabulary depends on a basic understanding of Greek and LatinNoImageSixty percent of the words in English texts are of Latin and Greek ori
17、gin Bear et al.,1996;Henry,1997Susan Ebbers 200518Content-Specific Greek TermsAnatomy and Medical Termsesophagus,thyroid,diagnosis,psoriasis,dyslexiaStudies and Sciencesbiology,seismology,morphology,geochronometryAnimals and Plantsarachnid,amphibian,chlorophyll,dinosaur,nectarTheatre and the Artscha
18、risma,drama,chorus,muse,symphony,acousticsSusan Ebbers 200519Look InsideLook Outside pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisLook inside the word for known word parts:prefixes,roots or combining forms,suffixes.Use the analogy strategy“I dont know this word,but I know pneumonia and I know volcan
19、o,so by analogy,this word might have something to do with lungs and heat.”Look outside the word at context clues,visualsThe coal miners,coughing and wheezing,suffered from pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.Susan Ebbers 200520So what exactly are we going to do here at Oltman Middle School?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.Susan Ebbers 200521So Ready?Set?Here we go!
