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Word Consciousness
L E S S O N
M O D E L
F O R
Word Consciousness
Benchmark
• ability to understand Latin and
Greek number prefixes
584
Grade Level
• Grade 4 and above
Grouping
Latin and Greek Number Words
Latin and Greek number morphemes are often called prefixes
because they appear at the beginning of words (Henry 2003).
Teaching Latin- and Greek-based number words is useful because
these words appear over and over in upper-grade math and
science textbooks. This sample lesson model focuses on becoming aware of and then playing with number prefixes and
number words.
• whole class
• small group or pairs
• individual
Materials
• dictionaries
Explanation
Remind students that a prefix is a word part added to the beginning of a root word that changes its meaning. Tell students that
many English words begin with number prefixes from Latin or
Greek. It is important to know these prefixes because related
number words appear over and over, especially in math and
science textbooks. Explain that in this lesson they are going to
have a little bit of fun with number prefixes.
Explain that Latin number prefixes are found at the beginning
of words in categories such as groups of musicians (tet as in
quartet), multiples of something (uple as in quadruple), number
of sides of something (lateral as in quadrilateral ), number of
years between two events (ennial as in quadrennial ), and words
for large numbers (illion as in quadrillion). Then point out that
Greek number prefixes are found at the beginning of words in
categories such as the number of sides of plane figures (gon as in
pentagon), number of faces of solid figures (hedron as in pentahedron), number of angles (angle as in pentangle), and number
of events in an athletic competition (athlon as in pentathlon).
Display a Number Prefixes chart, such as the one shown on
the facing page. Go over the Latin and Greek prefixes for each
numeral and the related words they can form. Make sure to
explain to students the meaning of each of the related words.
Word Consciousness
how?
Number Prefixes
Numeral
Latin
Greek
Related Words
1
uni–
mono–
unicycle, monotone
2
bi–, duo–
di–
bilingual, duet, dichotomy
3
tri–
tri–
triangle, trilateral, triple
4
quad–
tetra–
quadruple, tetrahedron
5
quint–
penta–
quintuplet, pentagon
6
sex–
hex–
sextuplet, hexagon
7
sept–
hept–
septet, heptagon
8
octa–
octo–
octagonal, octopus
9
non–, nove–
ennea–
nonagon, novena, ennead
10
deci–
dec–, deca–
decimal, decade, decathlon
100
cent–
hect–
centennial, hectogram
1,000
milli–
kilo–
millipede, kilobyte
10,000
myria–
myriad
1,000,000
mega–
megabyte, megawatt
1,000,000,000
giga–
gigabyte, gigahertz
585
Guided Practice
unicycle
bicycle
tricycle
Now print the words unicycle, bicycle, and tricycle on the board.
Ask students to use the Number Prefixes chart to answer the
following questions:
• How many wheels does a unicycle have? (one) What is the num-
ber prefix? (uni–) Draw one wheel next to the word unicycle.
• How many wheels does a bicycle have? (two) What is the num-
ber prefix? (bi–) Draw two wheels next to the word bicycle.
• How many wheels does a tricycle have? (three) What is the num-
ber prefix? (tri–) Draw three wheels next to the word tricycle.
V. V O C A B U L A R Y
11. SPECIFIC WORD
INSTRUCTION
12. WORD-LEARNING STR ATEGIES
13. WORD CONSCIOUSNESS
how?
Word Consciousness
Latin Number Words
athletic events: biathlon, triathlon,
tetrathlon, pentathlon, heptathlon,
• If eight people sing in an octet, how many people sing in a
quartet? (four) In a septet? (seven)
decathlon
groups of musicians: duet, trio,
quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet,
586
Now ask students to use the Number Prefixes chart to answer
the following category-related questions:
nonet, dectet
• If three countries make a trilateral agreement, how many
countries would be involved in a bilateral agreement? (two)
• If a triangle has three angles, how many angles in a quad-
multiples: triple, quadruple,
rangle? (four)
quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple,
• If a pentagon has five sides, how many sides in an octagon?
nonuple, decuple
(eight ) In a hexagon? (six)
• If a decathlon has ten athletic events, how many events are
Greek Number Words
sides of plane figures: triangle,
there in a triathlon? (three) In a biathlon? (two)
• If a centennial is the one-hundredth-year anniversary, what
tetragon, pentagon, hexagon,
is a bicentennial? (a two-hundredth-year anniversary)
heptagon, octagon, enneagon,
nonagon, decagon
• If a megawatt is a million watts of electricity,
years between events: biennial,
what is a kilowatt? (one thousand watts)
triennial, quadrennial, quinquennial,
centennial
Collaborative Practice
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aster Ga
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Que
Prepare students by telling them
that today they will get to be the “question master”—the person
who makes up questions and asks others to find the answers.
The question master uses the Number Prefixes chart to make
up questions for the rest of the class to answer. Then the rest of
the class tries to answer the questions. For example, the question master might ask:
QUESTION MASTER GAME
• If two computers are for sale at the same price—one with
50 megabytes of memory, and one with 50 gigabytes—which
one would you buy? (50 gigabytes) Why? (You get more for
the same price.)
• How many kilobytes are in a gigabyte? (one million)
Word Consciousness
how?
• Would it be faster to count the legs on a bug called a milli-
pede or on a bug called a centipede? (a centipede) Why?
(fewer number of legs)
Allow as many students as possible to play the role of question
master. Students will probably need time to prepare questions.
To facilitate the process, you might want to have students work
in groups of two or three.
Number Pref
ix Riddles
587
Students can also use number
prefixes to create riddles. In this case, the answers to the riddles
are made-up words that contain number prefixes. The made-up
words are usually plays on real words. To begin, have students
work in pairs or groups of three. Tell them that each group is to
try to make up one or more riddles using made-up words they
create with number prefixes. They then ask the class to answer
them. To conclude, they will put the best riddles together to
make a class book of number riddles.
NUMBER PREFIX RIDDLES
To give students the idea, write two or more of these examples
on the board:
• What do you call a four-armed octopus? (a quadropus)
• What would you call a cycle that had one million wheels?
(a megacycle)
• An announcer said, “Barry Bonds just hit another quadruple.”
What is the usual baseball name for a quadruple? (a home run)
When students have made up their own riddles, have them
present the riddles to the class to figure out. The class can vote
on the most original, funniest, and hardest riddle. They can
also decide on which riddles can go in the number riddle book.
V. V O C A B U L A R Y
11. SPECIFIC WORD
INSTRUCTION
12. WORD-LEARNING STR ATEGIES
13. WORD CONSCIOUSNESS