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9th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 4 of 14

Word Detective

Roots, prefixes and meaning in context

What your child practices

Using prefixes, suffixes and Latin and Greek bases to work out new words, choosing a meaning from the sentence around a word, and subject words like product, mass and scale.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: E1.2(A) · roots, prefixes and meaning in context

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Break a word into parts: un- + break + -able = not able to be broken.
  2. Greek and Latin bases help: tele (far), bio (life), graph (write).
  3. Use the sentence to choose a meaning. Subject words like product, mass and scale have special meanings.

Example: “She was meticulous, checking every figure twice.” What does meticulous mean? The clue: she checks every figure twice. That shows great care with details. Answer: very careful about details

Word Detective in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 4 of 14 in 9th grade English Language Arts, after Grammar & Style and before Literary Devices.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which word has a prefix that means again?

    • dislike
    • rewrite
    • pretend
    • mistake

  2. Question 2

    What does the base dict mean in predict and dictate?

    • say
    • write
    • walk
    • break

  3. Question 3

    What does unbreakable mean? (un- + break + -able)

    • not able to be broken
    • able to be broken again
    • full of breaks
    • someone who breaks

  4. Question 4

    In science, what is mass?

    • how tall it is
    • how quickly it moves
    • how heavy it feels on a hill
    • the amount of matter in an object

  5. Question 5

    Inaudible combines in- (not) and audi (hear). What does it mean?

    • able to be heard clearly
    • not able to be heard
    • hearing again
    • full of hearing

  6. Question 6

    What does the base scrib or script mean in describe and manuscript?

    • look
    • hear
    • carry
    • write

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