English from the Roots Up, Vol. I

by Joegil Lundquist

The author, Joegil (say "Joe-egil") Lundquist, taught second grade for many years. Her students complained of the difficulty in mastering long words. "Easy," she told them, "you just need to know the Greek and Latin roots contained in the larger English words." Over a few months' time, her students collected Greek and Latin root words. They copied the root on one side of a 4 x 6 note card and drew a green border around Greek roots, a red border around Latin roots. On the back side of the cards they wrote English words that used these roots as building blocks.

The author presents 100 Greek and Latin roots in the order in which she taught them - optimized to quickly demonstrate the way Greek and Latin components combine to create familiar English words. The results of her method were profound. Students quickly mastered longer English words. They gained a sense of how English vocabulary was created. Their precision in the use of words and their confidence in their word usage soared.

Hollywood actors and successful businessmen who never felt completely secure in their word usage have used this book to brush up. Writers who are trying to understand how words are created and how they contain or model meaning have used this book to stimulate their thinking and aid their progress as writers. Far and away the most popular use of this book, however, is for home-schooling where it has become a classic text. This book is also widely used by parents who want to supplement the classroom experience of their grade school children.