Students discover that thousands of English words are built on a handful of ancient Greek and Latin roots — so knowing one root can unlock the meaning of a whole family of words.
Students will be able to…
“Tele” means “far.” Once you know that, telephone, television, and telescope all make sense. How can one ancient root unlock dozens of words?
Project this and tap each root. Have students record its meaning and collect the family of words built on it.
Tap any phase to open the teacher moves and student actions.
Telephone, television, telescope — what’s the shared part?
Teacher models.
Class uses the Root Explorer.
Students use roots.
Students share a word family.
Aligned to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word.
Determine the meaning of unknown words using roots, affixes, and context.
Use letter-sound and word-part knowledge to read multisyllabic words.
Consult reference materials to find the meaning of words.
Preview the three formative checks. Tap “Sample answer” to see what mastery looks like — hide them before you print for students.
Have students start a class wall where each root is a header and they add every word they find built on it all week. A printable root-wall header set is in the ELA library.
Tap a card to flip it, then rate whether you knew it. Built from this lesson’s vocabulary.
A quick self-check with instant feedback, drawn from this lesson’s key terms.
A print-and-go review sheet with a built-in answer key. Tap “Show answer key” to reveal answers, or print the clean version for students.