The English language is particularly well endowed with words. The enormous number of possible words that can appear on a standardized test requires a structured attack that has to go beyond learning every possible word. It is with this in mind that each Membean word has a Word Ingredient Memlet that describes how a word is built from constituent parts (morphemes).

Developing morphological awareness helps vocabulary acquisition by allowing one to decode complex words. Fortunately, many of the complex words in English have similar structures. If you learn the rules of how these structures arise, some of the challenges in learning words are lessened.

Morphology (how a word is made from its parts) and etymology (the word’s origin and history) are often tied at the hip. Learning the metaphor and history behind a word part often makes the word memorable.

Unfortunately, instruction on word roots has often devolved into memorizing boring lists of stems, suffixes, and prefixes. We aim to change that.

Today we are pleased to announce our new Word Root of The Day podcast and page. Each week we’ll cover 2-3 word parts in a fun and entertaining way. We’ll follow this up with questions on our twitter stream or by email if you’ve subscribed.

Our first word part is Phil. After all who isn’t fascinated by love.