Reading help for 4th grade, 5th grade...fun side of words

Once children have turned away from reading it is a real trick to get them to take a second look.

One of the tricks you have is the history of the words themselves.

Look at the word fence.  Fence comes to us from a short-cut slang word for defense.

A swordman fencing was defending himself:

Alfred was lunging with a glimmering sword to thrust away danger. Parrying with a low feint, before swooping in with a surprising upper-thrust assault. (feint say faint.)

The art of fencing gives us several words to entice our reader: 

1) foil: means to stop something, frustrate the opponent's goal, thwart an action: Alfred foiled his sister's plan to snack on a cookie by gobbling down every last one.

The word foil comes to us from a short-cut for foliage - leaves and flowers - a foil being like a little leaf stuck on the tip of the sword to avoid injury during practice. (also called a button)

2) from foil comes foible (say foy b'l): meaning the little weaknesses people have, habits and mannerisms that can get them into trouble: Alfred's foible of exaggerating minor mishaps into huge events gave Ajax the chance to tease Alfred in front of the prettiest girl in the world. 

Foible originally referred to the weakest part of the sword, running from its mid-point to the tip. Feeble comes to us from this word family.

Another fun word is defeat, meaning to thwart another from gaining a feat. Feat: an unusual act of daring, a remarkable deed, a prize.

I have created books to make reading much more fun. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All books are brand new and full of the skills and comprehension exercises your child needs. All books include my contact info; email or call for help.  Rule: ce, ci, cy always say s. Rule: ge, gi, gy most often say j. 

My wonderful graphics are from Corel Clipart; put together by the talented group at Micrografx.

Thank you for visiting my blog, Mary Maisner