The sixth grader begins his weekly vocabulary lesson. Within moments, two high school students and a first grader drop everything to crowd around him. As I witness this 15-minute blip in our week, a favorite quote from Plato comes to mind:
“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
This leaves me wondering… how much knowledge have they acquired under compulsion? Well, here’s an instance where they’re learning of their own free will. And even though I originally thought this was a tad bit goofy, our boys have thoroughly enjoyed learning hundreds of vocabulary words as a result of this program. In turn, I have grown to love this resource that spurs our children on to laughter – and to learning just for the sake of learning.
What vocabulary program is it? It’s Word Up! The Vocab Show starring Dwane Thomas.
Word Up! The Vocab Show is a video curriculum for learning hundreds of vocabulary words based on sixty Latin & Greek roots. Themed after a TV game show, Dwane Thomas first introduces a word via some humorous anecdote…
And then proceeds into teaching a related Latin word and its derivatives…
and follows it up with the word’s Greek counterpart and its derivatives.
This has expanded our family’s grasp of vocabulary associated with literature and science, many words of which are found on standardized tests. And… because students learn the roots of these words, they gain valuable decoding skills that may be used as they come across new words in their reading.
As I mentioned years ago in our activity “Making Clouds from Latin,” learning Latin and Greek roots can greatly enhance the memorization of science vocabulary. It’s astonishing how much more I can remember when I know the Greek and Latin roots used in science!
To review and test vocabulary comprehension, each lesson concludes with an embedded Quizlet flashcard and game review (if using the digital streaming version of Word Up!) or may be accessed here on Quizlet if using the DVDs.
ALL of our boys have loved Word Up. Our sixth grader has worked through all three volumes this year before he dives fully into Visual Latin next year. (This year he completed the first 10 lessons of Visual Latin followed by Word Up for the remainder of the year.) As he has watched it, his older brothers (a 12th and 9th grader) have dropped everything to go watch it with him. Dwane Thomas (author of both Word Up! and Visual Latin) provides an atmosphere of laughter while learning so that it truly is learning that obtains a hold on the mind.
Available in digital streaming or DVD format, the three volumes of Word Up! include:
- 30 Video Lessons (10-15 min each)
- 60 Latin & Greek Roots
- 600+ English words
- Links to Online Vocabulary Flashcards
- Printable Flashcard PDFs
Word Up! is also offered as one of the many courses within the Compass Classroom Membership subscription. For ideas on how to teach the program and how retain the vocabulary introduced in Word Up, Compass Classroom offers suggestions on How to Teach Word Up and 10 Ways to Make Word Up Stick.
Free Lessons!
You can try out two free Word Up lessons here. In fact, I always recommend trying out curriculum options with your child to give them an opportunity to provide input into his/her own learning.
In fact, you can test drive this course and all of Compass Classroom’s courses with a free Compass Classroom membership! Be sure to sign up here to try out all the courses Compass Classroom offers!
You can also visit this helpful website which lays out how to plan your year using Compass Classroom.
You can also sign up for a free MyCompassClassroom account to experience discussion forums, support groups, and free courses!
Check out all reviews of our favorite Compass Classroom items here. If you have questions about this program or anything else offered by Compass Classroom, please drop down to the comments and let us know!
