This year I am really trying to step up my game with vocabulary instruction. My students are almost 100% English Language Learners, so it is super important for me to provide them with explicit vocabulary instruction. On top of simply learning new words, we are going to be studying Greek and Latin roots, prefix, and suffixes. Before diving into specific prefixes, root words, and suffixes, I figured it would be helpful if I explained what those things actually are, so I put together a minilesson and interactive notebook page to help me & my kids out.
As we went through the presentation, I had students color in the appropriate parts of the word "unhelpful" and the labels: prefix, root word, and suffix.
Next, I had them cut and glue the pieces onto a page that will stay in their binders all year. They wrote down the meaning of each part of a word and then put it all together at the end to show how each part works together to create the meaning.
Next, I had them cut and glue the pieces onto a page that will stay in their binders all year. They wrote down the meaning of each part of a word and then put it all together at the end to show how each part works together to create the meaning.
Now I'm working on creating units for each set of prefixes and suffixes that we'll be studying this year. We started out with the prefixes in-, im-, il-, and ir-.
Day 1:I introduced these prefixes using words that they had seen before and asked them to guess what they might mean. Once we established that these prefixes all mean "not", we completed this interactive notebook page from the Greek and Latin Roots Interactive Notebook made by Got to Teach.
-Day 2: I asked students to come up with as many words as they could that started with these prefixes. Before recording them, we discussed whether they actually meant "not" something or if they were exceptions. Then we used this sheet to write down our words.
Day 3: I wanted the kids to really see how the prefixes change the word, so I had them look up definition for a few words and then write the definitions of the same words with the prefixes added to them.
(This one is from another week when we did the prefixes un-, re-, and dis-)
Day 4: I gave students a list with about thirty words starting with the prefixes of the week and asked them to sort them into the correct categories.
(This one is from another week when we did the prefixes un-, re-, and dis-)
Day 4: I gave students a list with about thirty words starting with the prefixes of the week and asked them to sort them into the correct categories.
I'll be uploading these units to TPT as I create new ones every week!
