My dad was an English teacher and was obsessed by words.  It wasn’t unusual for us to be walking along a sidewalk or down a store aisle when he would suddenly turn to me and ask me if I knew the root word of the word “obligingly.”  Not knowing that this was unusual in the slightest, I would happily answer back that of course it was “oblige.”

Sadly, not everyone got to have this same preparation for life as a “word nerd.” So for those of you without a word-obsessed parent, you might have had to learn root words the more traditional way.  A root word is simply the form of a word after all affixes (prefixes and suffixes) have been removed.  For example, the word “port” is the root word for export (which has a prefix) and portable (which has a suffix).

Learning to recognize word roots early on is crucial in a child’s education as it not only helps carry spelling skills over to reading fluency but also greatly increases general comprehension skills, reading or otherwise. A fun way for kids to build their repertoire of root words is by playing online root word games.

Vocabulary.co.il provides word resources for teachers which are useful for creating both root words lesson plans and root words worksheets. Different root words are introduced at different educational levels. Elementary school root words are specifically selected for students in grades three through five, while middle school root words are geared toward sixth through eighth graders. At a more demanding level, high school root words provide excellent college prep material for students in ninth through twelfth grade as root words on standardized tests gain more importance.  An understanding of root words is particularly helpful to ESL students in terms of word recognition and phrase comprehension.

Unless your dad also happens to be a word nerd, then you might find that our online word root games are just the ticket for helping to improve this valuable skill.