Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Word Root Exercise: Phil/o, Phile

It’s an extremely productive root in English, so this worksheet on the Greek word roots phil/o and phile might benefit students across a fairly wide band of ability and understanding to build their vocabularies. They mean love, attracted to, affinity for, and a natural liking.

Which is why you see this root show up in a wide variety of English words like audiophile and bibliophile (respectively, a lover of sound and of books), philanthropist (lover of humanity, which in modern parlance, connotes a willingness to stake capital on the improvement of humanity), and philosophy (love of wisdom).

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Menarche and Menstrual Cycle

Okay, health teachers, perhaps you need a pair of readings on women’s reproductive health.

First, here is a reading on menarche and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it.

Second, here is a quite short reading on the menstrual cycle and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Plaintive (adj)

It was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day on Monday, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective plaintive. I couldn’t decide whether or not it warranted a worksheet. Fortunately, my good friend Karen pointed out that it’s a word that describes a concept few other words do, so perhaps it is a word students ought to know before they graduate high school.

In any case, there it is.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Word Root Exercise: Penta, Pent

Alright, I’m wrapping up on a beautiful summer morning in Western New England. Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots penta and pent. They mean, of course, five. These are productive roots in English. What do we call the building that houses our national armed services?

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Semite

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet explaining the Semites, their origins, and their modern ethnicity.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Depression

OK, health teachers, maybe you can use this reading on depression and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Faze (vt)

Hot off the press (it was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day one day last week) is this context clues worksheet on the verb faze. It is apparently only used transitively.

As I wrote this document while drinking my coffee this morning, it occurred to me that this verb might be better presented as a homophone worksheet with the noun phase. Because this idea will very likely cycle in my hamster wheel of a mind until I do something about it, it will almost certainly show up here at some point in the future.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Monopoly

I played it quite a bit as a child and an adolescent, and I can still be tempted by a round of it today. If I infer correctly from the student interest I’ve seen in my classrooms in this reading on the board game Monopoly, young people remain interested in it. Here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies the reading.

There is an argument to be made for this game as a learning activity, which is why I have tagged it as differentiated instruction.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Word Root Exercise: Ology and Logy

Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots ology and logy. They mean both study of and science. You needn’t think much about these two roots to realize just how productive they are in English. People studying for careers in the health professions would do well to master these roots’ meanings.

Again, though, if you think just for a moment about these roots, you’ll see that that they head just about every department name in the modern university. Every student should know these roots.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Tactic (n)

OK, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun tactic if it’s a word you need students to understand.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.