Here are ten ways to link rules from the English National Curriculum or roots (from words in the statutory spelling lists) to topics you will be covering elsewhere:
Etymological information provided is taken from www.etymonline.com and some of the morphological information from www.membean.com – both are excellent sources if you are interested in doing your own research into vocabulary you will be using in class.
1. Year 3/4 spelling rule – The /ɪ/ sound spelt as y elsewhere than at the end of words. Teach this alongside the Egyptians. It makes sense. Children will be writing words like Egypt, crypt, hieroglyph, mystery, pyramid. (Incidentally, I knew Word Study was working as a method when one child contributed ‘etymology’ to the bank of words we were compiling during this unit.)
2. ‘cent’ as a root. Yes, it can mean a hundred, and this is probably the most useful meaning for children to remember in Maths so it’s worth a mention when teaching percentages and measurement (centimetres). We also have century from this root. Interestingly, however, there are 5 other meanings of ‘cent’ because etymologically different words evolved to all be written/pronounced as ‘cent’ in Modern English. You could teach the children that centre has the root ‘cent’ meaning ‘middle’ and this derived from ‘kent’ which meant ‘to prick’ in Proto-European English. This then became related to the point at the centre of a compass which was used to draw a circle, and so took on the meaning of ‘middle’. ‘Cent’ can also mean ‘sing’ (from Latin cantare, found in accent), ‘climb’ (from skand – ascent, descent) and ‘new’ (from ken – recent, recently).
3. ‘sci’ as a root word meaning ‘know’. In science, it might be worth mentioning this to emphasise the importance of knowledge. I have found that using this root as way to teach the spelling of conscience and related words has helped children recall the difficult string of letters. This works particularly well once children have learnt that ‘con-‘ has the meaning of ‘with’ so they can almost directly see that conscience is ‘with knowledge’.
4. Continuing with the Science links, and opening pathways to words that are on the statutory lists, we have the root ‘spec’ meaning ‘kind, form’. In Science we talk about species and specimen and so can teach the children where these terms come from etymologically. This came from ‘spek’ meaning ‘to observe’ (spectacle). This notion it being a particular kind or form gives rise to the words special, especially, specific etc. Teaching these words together makes them more memorable and helps children make links between them.
5. In Ancient Greek, ‘aster’ means ‘star’ and ‘astron’ is the plural ‘stars; celestial bodies’ so pop this is when covering the Earth and Space unit in Science. We have the seemingly quite obvious astrology and astronaut, but an interesting word to teach alongside this is disaster (and accompanying disastrous). Pick out the root ‘aster’ and tell the children about the etymology of this word being linked to the stars. Historically, people believed luck and fate rested on the positioning or fortune of the stars, and so dis-aster meant ‘ill-fated’ or ‘misfortune’.
6. Maths provides many opportunities to use word study as a way to reinforce meaning of vocabulary and to transfer this across subjects into reading and writing. ‘divid’ means ‘separate into parts’ which is quite clear for divide but children may not automatically make the link to the word individual. Teaching shape, tell the children about ‘-gon’ from ‘gonos’ meaning ‘angled’ and they will be able to see octa-gon (eight-angled) – and then link ‘oct’ to octopus -, poly-gon (many-angled) etc. (For those of you studying French in Languages, ‘gonos’ is derived from Proto-Indo-European *genu meaning ‘knee; angle’, hence le genou meaning ‘knee’ in French.) ‘syn-’ meaning ‘together’ which changes phonologically to ‘sym-’ or ‘sys-‘ depending on which letter is following – a handy bit of general spelling teaching which translates to many other words too. And so we have the words symmetry, symbol, system, sympathy, synonym.
7. ‘dem’ meaning ‘people’. This will help children understand the meaning of democracy – demos (people) + kratos (rule; strength) – as the ‘the will of the people’. In Geography, we have introduced the term demography, confident that children will remember that this links to the social, ‘people’ aspect of an area being studied because they make the connection using their knowledge of the root ‘dem’. This, however, derives from the Greek, and we also have the Latin pathway deriving from populus meaning ‘a people’ which gives us population, popular, public
8. ‘gest’ meaning ‘bear, carry’. In Science, we have gestation and digestion. The words suggest, congest and gesture also originate from this same root.
9. ‘judic’ from Latin iudicare meaning ‘judge; give an opinion’. Some schools have put the Crime and Punishment History unit into their curriculum, but even if not, justice and prejudice will be discussed within the context of social history and geography as well as when studying equality and tying in with British Values. Once children have built up their morphological knowledge and understanding, they will be able to see that prejudice is made up of ‘pre’ meaning ‘before’ and then ‘judgement’.
10. Reign with the silent ‘g’ that catches children out can be taught alongside regular and regal using the etymological link of ‘reg’ meaning ‘to lead or rule’ originally from ‘moving in a straight line’ (a ruler – la regla in Spanish). Other words which derived from this are regime, region, regulate, regiment, reckless.
We’re a year in to our Word Study revolution and have been pleased with how the children have responded. They are making links between words using their morphological knowledge which is helping them decipher new vocabulary and remember spellings that some children would have previously found difficult.
I have organised our Word Study curriculum into the 2-year cycles (for Year 3/4 and Year 5/6) to find the best time to teach certain rules or roots so that it enhances and links to what the children are learning in the rest of their lessons at that time where possible, and where it is not, the children are learning words that are linked by etymological or morphological roots rather than an arbitrary selection of words.
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