Clues for identifying Anglo-Saxon English words

1. Basic color words
2. Names of animals
3. Short common everyday words
4. Words with -gh, -kn, -gn, -ch, -tw, -th, -wh, -ow, -ng,
5. Inner and outer body parts that relate to hunting
6. Pronouns
7. Words with -ck, -tch, - dge after a short vowel
8. Words that should be closed syllable words but they are open
9. Words with silent letters
10. Words with double consonants then a short vowel
11. Consonant l-e words

Latin Words:

Clues for identifying Latin words

1. 3-5 syllable words
2. Words with -ct, -pt, -ti, -ci, -sion, -ssion, -du, -ular,
3. Words with double consonants at the beginning of the word
4. Words with -tu that make a "ch" sound
5. Words with a silent -h
6. Words that start with J
7. Words that are legal terms
8. Words with -ce or -ci that make a "s" sound
9. Words with -sc that make a "s" sound

Greek Words:

Clues for identifying Greek words

1. Words with -ph
2. Words with -ch that make a "k" sound
3. Long words with the letter K
4. Words with a letter Y in the middle
5. Longer words with -th
6. Words that deal with the olympics
7. Words that deal with theater
8. Words that start with -rh
9. Words that end in -ology meaning the "study of"
10. Words that start with a silent P

Valuable??

• It is very valuable to have your students learn the different word origins because it will help them understand the words better. They will be able to decode a word and know which origin the word is because they were taught all the clues. If a student is having trouble pronouncing a word, they could look for the clues in the word to help them. It is also important for the students to realize where words came from and the background behind each and every word.

Teaching Word Origins

1. One way I think would be fun and engaging to teach the students about different word origins would be to create a book about them. At the beginning of the year I would give each student a tiny book that I made out of computer paper and whenever we go over a different word and it's origin we can write the word in a page and create a sentence using that word and draw a picture that represents that word. We can also go over a different clue for that origin each time we go over a word and they can write that clue down on the same page.
2. Another way to teach the students about different word origins would to create a tree map on a wall in the classroom. Your 3 main titles would be Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek words. Each time we went over a new word we would put it under the category it belongs to. We would also go over the clue we used to find out what origin it is and write that on a notecard and put it next to the word on the wall.