My oldest son loved WordUp! The Vocab Show, Vol 1. The jokes were hilarious, the roots painless to learn, and the English words easy to incorporate into daily conversation. For years I begged Compass Classroom to finish the series and create another set. Nopers. They were too busy creating all their history courses – and they have 3 currently, so you can imagine how long I had to wait. Especially when they went from History curriculum to Grammar curriculum. I never thought I’d ever see a WordUp! Vol 2 & 3, but thank the greek gods … it finally happened!
Teach Greek & Latin Roots with WordUp!
Why teach Greek & Latin Roots? EASY. We speak English. Majority of our English words have Greek & Latin roots! It’s kind of a no-brainer. Okay, I know – we are doing Classical Conversations and are forced to learn Henle Latin (although my son doesn’t use it at all). So this isn’t a debate about how boring that curricula is – okay – this isn’t a Visual Latin vs Henle street fight. We know who would win. (sorry Henle)
This is about middle school students building their English vocabulary! English. Vocabulary. My 7th grade son scored 11th grade reading level on the NWEA. We raised readers, we also tried to expand their English vocabulary.
What is SO Special About WordUp! ??
Each lesson of WordUp! shares 1 Greek root & that same root in Latin. Then it shows 10 ENGLISH words that come from that 1 Greek root and 10 – say it with me – ENGLISH words that come from that 1 Latin root. Great Hera, that’s 20 English words for each lesson and each Vol has 10 lessons!
The series is far more than a boring list of words to memorize. The explanations of these roots and words has blown my mind. Sure Dwane is funny and his little game show character gets into silly predicaments – but the explanations of the word origins are fantastic. Neither child has ever finished a lesson complaining, “I don’t understand” or “that made no sense”, or “I don’t get it”. Instead it’s – “hey Mom (pause video) did you hear that? Mom listen to this”. Or insert Dwane’s dad joke around the supper table for everyone to laugh and then learn something.
I can not recommend WordUp! 1-3 enough to upper elementary & middle school students. I will say, the volumes progress in words and also Dwane’s explanations. “If you were riding your bike at night” he says at one point and I’m thinking, No, Dwane. My kids are home when the street lights are on. But hey, we got Vol 2&3 so I’m going to keep my smart “bucca” shut!
Definitely use the Quizlet learning options, print tests, 3-hole punch them into a Vocabulary folder. We did not do this with my oldest & Vol 1 but I made sure kid #2 did it the right way with all 3 volumes. You will not regret it!
The videos are high quality and entertaining. The school work doesn’t really feel like work. Leave that for pre-algebra! Try a few free lessons. Another reason why I like and wanted to work for Compass Classroom – they always offer free lessons for all their curricula.
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