I remember as a high school student coming across Readers Digest articles titled : "It Pays to Increase Your Vocabulary ".These articles invariably cited Latin and Greek root words.Today rather than see just a few SAT type words in context a reader can GOOGLE an unfamiliar!word and get flooded with the word in a context that clarifies its meaning.This also applies to understanding foreign language vocabulary. The etymology of Spanish,French,Italian, Portuguese words turns many of them into Latin rooted cousins.Together with Greek roots the vocabulary of the sciences becomes less impenetrable.Popular science writer Isaac Asimov was always very conscientious about explaining "Words of Science'. He would give the phonetic re- spellings of these words. Think about this when even today you might see references to a book titled " Why Johnny Can't Read ". It is downright scandalous that elementary school students are taught to read as if English were Chinese. Recently a college girl who claimed that she never learned to read in school was involved in a lawsuit against the state.No public school teacher ever spotted her problem? Literacy and cultural literacy are so fundamental.
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Ron