This might seem like a crazy idea, but you should absolutely introduce your elementary school aged children to Greek & Latin roots! Once they have a solid understanding of phonics and sight words, this is a natural next step and one they might not be exposed to in school. Their teacher is probably teaching prefixes and suffixes, but there is a lot of value in learning root words too.

As someone who has read every released passage from the New York State tests in the past few years, I can confirm these roots pop up over and over again in the passages starting at the third grade level. Your child probably knows what an automobile is (or maybe the term is unfamiliar as most people use the word car instead). Learning the meaning of the roots will enable your child to break down these words and find meaning. Auto means self, and mobile means movement. Therefore, an automobile must be something that moves by itself. The word telephone is also composed of two common roots, tele and phone. Tele means far away and phone means sound. Now your child can make the connection that a telephone is a tool that brings sound from far away.

As your students advance to higher grades, these roots will also start popping up in their academic vocabulary. They'll see words like chronos, thermos, hydro and more. Learning the meaning of one root can sometimes unlock the definition and understanding of a dozen or more words!

So now that you see the value in teaching your kids Greek & Latin roots, you might be wondering how you could possibly do this if you haven't actually studied Greek or Latin yourself. No worries, you need not be an expert yourself. There are a variety of ways to introduce your children to Greek & Latin roots, but the most fun way is through Rummy Roots and More Rummy Roots.

If you can't afford the card game, you can create a DIY version. You just need some flash cards or popsicle sticks and a list of common Greek & Latin root words and their English meanings. Just write the root words and their English meanings on their own stick or flashcard and you are good to go!

When you're starting out, the easiest way to introduce the game is in the format of memory. Mix up the cards and spread them all out face down. When I am tutoring, I play an expedited version of memory, where if the child can read the word or knows the matching word, he/she can leave the card face up. If your child has working memory issues or is up for a challenge, feel free to follow the normal rules where if you do not make a match, you flip the cards back over and the next person takes a turn. The first few times I play the game, I tell the student the matching word, so he/she can be on the lookout for it throughout the game. Eventually I remove this scaffolding and encourage to use the cheat sheet included in the back, and eventually to try to do it from memory. You continue to game until all of the matches have been found. As new cards are flipped over, discuss not only the matching word but also some words using the root that the student might have encountered in school or everyday life. I am sad to say I lose nearly 100% of the rounds I play with my students. Sometimes it is ok to let them win, especially if they are getting excited about reading.

The card game Rummy Roots has three sets in each edition. I usually play memory with each set individually to introduce the words to the children.

Once the kids are familiar with the words, I switch to the rummy format. In this version I often do each set individually until the kids are comfortable with the words, and then I mix all sets together. A game of memory or rummy typically takes 10 min per set. Once combining all three sets for a more challenging game, it can take 20-30 minutes to get through all of the cards.

A quick refresher on setting up the Rummy style of play is here, although these directions are included with the card game along with a few other ideas.

Shuffle the cards.
Deal 7 cards to each player.
Stack the rest of the cards together and flip one card over to begin the discard pile.
By this point I expect the student to be familiar with the words and their meanings and work a bit more independently. I offer them a cheat sheet with the words and their meanings should they need help. In this version if they ask me for help with words it takes away from the competition, which is what makes it fun! Once the student has seven cards he/she picks them up and looks for matches and confirms he/she knows the meaning of each card in his/her hand.
The student then looks at the card in the discard pile and we discuss the meaning of that word. If the student has the match, he/she takes the card. If not, he/she draws from the pile.
The student identifies the match for his/her new card, makes a play if possible, and then chooses one card to discard.
Play continues in this fashion. Since the purpose of this game is to learn root words and not simply win, I encourage you to have a rule saying a player can draw back up to five cards if he/she starts to run low. This keeps the game flowing.
Play continues until all cards are matched.

Once the students really know the meaning of all words, they are ready for the final and most advanced version of the game. In this version you remove the English cards. You continue to play in the style of rummy. Instead of matching the word to its English root, the new objective is to combine roots to make new words. If you have the official version of the game, you will see that different roots have different point values. Eventually we want students to be more mindful of the matched they create and employ some strategy. In their first few encounters with the game, I allow them to make whichever matches they can figure out.