Latin and Greek Morphemes

Overview

Discovering the meanings of Latin and Greek prefixes, and how that knowledge can then extend to figuring out the meanings of new words.

Lesson Plan

This brief exercise allows students to discover they already know the meanings of morphemes (word parts) by considering words with those morphemes in them.

auto-
spec-
tele-
trans-
syn-
hydr-
therm-
dict-
ped-/pod-
graph-

What do each of these morphemes mean?
Hint: Think of words that contain each morpheme and then think what those words have in common with each other.

Example: micro-

occurs in microscope, microchip

It means little.

Class Time Needed

Under 30 minutes

Subject

General linguistics
Morphology
Semantics

Grade Level

Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8