It's NOT Greek to Me! {Schoolhouse Review Crew}

My current ninth grader is an aspiring writer (takes after his mom, I guess). Vocabulary is important for any writer. Recently we've been using and reviewing Greek Morphemes Lessons (It's NOT Greek to Me!), by Ready to Teach, to assist him in his vocabulary improvement. (We're also currently studying ancient Greece, so I thought this would be a great connection there, as well.)

We received two books: a student work text, and an instructor's manual. Also included was a CD, which contains power point presentations of the vocabulary instruction, and a thumb drive containing the same information as the CD.

All Botanist Boy needed to do was slip the disc (or thumb drive) in, choose which lesson he was working on, and start the presentation.

The first part of the lesson, he fills in his "notes" page, while viewing the power point. At the right of this page is a column of "words to work," which are worked on the next page.

Assignment B is to work the words from the previous page. On the first line, he writes the word. Then he breaks it down, by root, prefix, suffix, with the meaning of each morpheme. Then he writes his definition, based on the morphemes. After that, he is to write the dictionary definition of the word.

Assignment C, Botanist Boy is to create context clue sentences for some of the words worked in assignments A and B. He also has to label each of the sentences by how the word meaning is revealed contextually: definition in context; synonyms; antonyms; or examples.

This brings us to the review, in assignment D, which is two parts. The first part involves a series of created words to analyze the morphemes and develop a possible meaning. The second part has him matching some of the created words with Funny Definitions.

In the back of the student book are colored pages, with blank study cards printed on them, so Botanist Boy can create his own study cards. The back of the instructor's manual has premade study cards available, on cardstock.

I like that in the very first lesson, in the power point, it gives instructions of how your student should prepare the study cards from the pages at the back of the student book. But we chose to just use the premade cards here.

I think this is a great program to use for SAT vocabulary preparation. Botanist Boy may not appreciate the time he must spend right now in preparation for the SAT or ACT, but since he does plan to go to college (to study to become a pastor or evangelist), he must prepare for these tests, to improve his chances for scholarships, etc.

Learning Greek morphemes, how to break down words to determine their meanings, and improve vocabulary, are all important for a pastor when he is preparing his sermons, and so forth, don't you think? 

Did you know that over 40% of English words involve Greek morphemes, and over 50% involve Latin morphemes? In addition, over 90% of scientific terms involve Greek and/or Latin morphemes. So if your student plans a career in one of the science fields, you'll want to check out Ready to Teach's Greek Morphemes and Latin Morphemes.

Also, be sure to check out the rest of the reviews by my fellow Crew mates.

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