THE+RESEARCH

THE RESEARCH

- A growing body of academic research is beginning to demonstrate the power and potential of a Latin-Greek approach to vocabulary instruction.

- High school seniors near the top of their class know about four times as many words as their lower performing classmates.

- High knowledge third graders have vocabularies about equal to low performing 12th graders.

- Size and depth of student vocabulary is directly associated with reading comprehension and proficiency. 

- Greater vocabulary leads to greater reading comprehension and greater reading comprehension leads to learning more vocabulary words.

- The playful exploration of meaningful word parts is developmentally appropriate for elementary students.

- A single Latin or Greek root or word pattern can aid in the understanding of 20 or more English words.

- Latin can be used as a bridge between English and Spanish since they are both Latin-based.

- Student understanding of morphology is a better predictor of reading comprehension than is vocabulary level.

- Morphology should be taught both explicitly and in context.

- When selecting roots for instruction, teachers should be selective and choose those to which students are more likely to make connections.

- Small scale studies show improvements in vocabulary levels of between 19% to 47%.

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