Dynamic Literacy Review

Dynamic Literacy is an educational publisher that creates curriculum to make learning vocabulary easy. They don't believe in remembering lists of vocabulary words to drill into your head. It simply doesn't work for most students. With WordBuild, students who have mastered phonics can take the next step of their literacy experience and learn the meaning behind the words. By knowing the meaning, students will better understand the words and be able to make connections.

WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1 is ideal for students in grades 3-5 (remedial 5-9) and comes with a Teacher's Guide, and two Student Activity Books (one is for Basics). They also have a similar curriculum available for older students in grades 5-10 (remedial 7-12), called WordBuild: Elements. And if you use technology, you may be interested in their WordBuild online program, which has interactive learning activities and games.

Price: $82.99 Instead of simply memorizing a word, students will learn the meanings of key components of words - roots, prefixes and suffixes. And because children will learn to understand these parts of the words, they will never forget their meanings. Many word roots come from Latin and Greek origins, and students can learn the meaning of over 16,000 words using Dynamic Literacy curriculums.  Students will use WordBuild for approximately 15 minutes a day. The curriculum contains weekly units consisting of engaging activities and lessons focusing on prefixes and suffixes to last an entire year. Students who do not learn well with standardized vocabulary word lists will prefer this curriculum, as it uses puzzles and games to teach words. And if you have multiple children using this curriculum, they can still learn the same root meanings, even if they have different reading levels.  The Teacher's Guide will introduce you to these lessons, by walking you through the whole lesson and provide questions to ask the students, discussion topics, and answer keys to the activities. 
Students will focus on compound words first (with fun paper dice games!), then move on to prefixes and suffixes. They will use prefix or suffix squares, affix adders, magic squares, word searches, and comprehension boosters throughout the week to learn each individual prefix or suffix. At the end of each lesson there is a list of all the words that use that prefix or suffix.

We used the word lists on our word tree, using the prefix or suffix at the base of the tree, and adding the words that go with them to the tree as leaves. It's a custom piece that we made out of a large brown cardboard box and the leaves are made out of laminated green construction paper.

I mainly used this curriculum to learn about how to introduce prefixes and suffixes to children and incorporate these lessons into our homeschool. I like that the lessons are consistent and each type of lesson happens on the same day each week. I like that each particular prefix or suffix is studied in one-week, before moving on to the next. The transitions are gradual, but students can still work at their own pace. Students can create flash cards if they need to practice more beyond the lessons.

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