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    Joined: Dec 2009
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    Just met with my DS9's teachers. They are doing a nice job trying to challenge him in LA. He has a very hard time with writing and spelling, despite his very high test scores in English.

    We think this is likely due to a couple reasons. Some is effort and caring. Some is that the 3rd grade materials are not too challenging so once again effort takes a back seat - he isn't particularly engaged. But some of it is also that he is a whole word reader and really does not know how to sound out certain words.

    We are working on the making effort part and holding him accountable for his work (without over doing it), and we want to try to get him engaged by giving him spelling vocabulary words that are substantially harder than what he gets now, but fewer of them. We all agree we would rather he really get the phonetic connections, rather than just memorize a list. Because he loves Roman history, we thought we would look for something working off of Latin roots.

    Anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on how to approach this or resources?

    Thanks, Cat


    Last edited by Catalana; 04/13/11 09:23 AM.
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    Hi, Cat. I put a list of some resources here (check the next page of that thread for one more, with the Colosseum on the front, no less!):
    http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/89030/1.html

    I can't vouch for most of them based on first-hand knowledge, since money is tight. That Greek and Latin Roots series seems like it might be right up your son's alley. Maybe you could bring those up on bn.com or amazon.com and browse around the "other suggestions" links at the bottom to find more in a similar vein.


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    Thanks so much for all the speedy and great responses. I will start taking a look. Ultimately it will be up to his teachers to make a decision on what they think makes sense for him, but I will pass along a few options.

    Cat

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    I've used book 2 of Red Hot Root Words for the past three years with MG-PG 5th graders. It's not the most creative approach (worksheets with matching, fill-in-the-blank, and other standard exercises); besides the worksheets it provides materials for a few good in-class activities that I supplement my own activities with.

    For 6th graders I've used Michael Clay Thompson's Word Within the Word and Tamara Green's Greek and Latin Roots of English. The former has way too many errors for me to use it again, which is unfortunate because its approach is very creative and less focused on memorizing words and/or stem meanings than most vocab books I've seen. If your son wants or needs to exercise his imagination using new vocabulary, that's the book to use. Green's book, which is pitched higher than Red Hot or WWW, is organized by subject (human bio and medicine, social sciences, etc.) and uses fairly standard exercises (fill-in-the-blank, etc.).

    One good online resource: www.etymonline.com, which explains the derivations of English words in more detail than, say, merriam-webster.com and is, as far as I can tell, very accurate.

    Hope this helps -

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    Hip,

    This is very helpful. Sounds like Red Hot Root Words might do the trick. Since he is in 3rd grade, maybe Book 1 would be a better start. They will use this in place of the current spelling words - he gets 100% every week on the test, but promptly forgets the words, and he isn't even getting the benefits of new vocabulary from it. We thought that giving him harder words, but not many, that he doesn't know would encourage him to break down the sounds (because of roots/prefixes/etc.), slow down and actually think about how the words are put together.

    They will be using this in a class of 22 for him alone, so I can't expect them to do much except give him some worksheets, etc. so actually the Red Hot series might be perfect - they won't be able to do group activities and don't have time to deal with errors in the materials. They will want him to do some writing using the words, but that is usually done at home so that part we can oversee.

    Would you suggest book 1 or 2 of the Red Hot series? His Explore scores put him at the 98% normed to typical 8th graders. He is a strong reader and has a big vocabulary - is the difference in level just the sophistication of the vocabulary, or does book 2 require more writing?

    Thanks, Cat

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    Hi, Catalana -

    Sorry for the slow reply -- real life got in the way.

    About RHRW book 1 vs. book 2: I've only seen book 1 on Amazon, so my comparison is limited, but judging by the pages I could see, I'd say the difficulty level of 1 and 2 is pretty similar. You might want to take a look at both books on Amazon to get an idea for yourself.

    About EXPLORE scores: I know the scores of one of my students -- my son (also an avid reader with a big vocabulary). The year he used RHRW book 2, he was 9 and got a composite score that put him in the 99th percentile compared to 8th graders -- sounds similar to your son's scores. So maybe RHRW (either book, since they look similar to me) would meet your son's needs.

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    Another left of field suggestion is "The Word Spy" by Ursula Dubosarsky. My daughters are reading Ursula's books at the moment. They're whimsical and lovely, looking at the development of the English language - we're up to the bit about where the alphabet came from, why it has 26 letters, etc. It's more about grammar, wordsmithing, etc. than Latin roots but it's nice to see that there are texts out there that encourage kids to fall in love with language...

    jojo

    http://wordsnoop.blogspot.com/
    http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780670072279/word-spy

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    I wish wish wish that french, spanish, etc., were offered in the lower grades more in the public school. I think it is above all the most perfect way to learn what the roots of words are and what they mean.

    Are there any foreign language resources that would be available for him? Would that be of interest?

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    Hip, it sounds like it is a good option. I will def. check out book 2.

    Chris1234, he does some Italian at home and would love to do more. But this is for use by his public school teachers, so there has to be some way for them to justify it in place of the current spelling/vocab. curriculum.

    Thanks again everyone for all of the great suggestions.

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