3/13/05

Cape Cod Times Article

Language lessons
Retired teacher creates vocabulary lesson based on Latin and Greek

By K.C. MYERS
STAFF WRITER
CUMMAQUID - Knowing that thousands of words are based on Latin and Greek roots, a retired teacher wrote a vocabulary curriculum based on the two classic languages. Elinor Miller, of Cummaquid, retired to the Cape after years of teaching and running her own school. But she couldn't give up an idea she thought the world could use. So her retirement has turned into hours spent scouring dictionaries and Web sites to find the Latin and Greet roots of English words.

Her research thus far has been translated into 108 vocabulary lessons that she has sold to 120 different locations nationwide. The lessons teach students in grades 5 through 10 vocabulary words that come from Latin and Greek. That way, the students are able to grasp an entire "family" of words at once. The one root word is the glue that allows them to recall the meaning of many words, said Pat Polillo, general manager of Miller's company, Word Web Vocabulary.

The basis of each lesson is a spider web containing at its center a Latin or Greek word, prefix or suffix, such as bi. Bi in Latin means two. From bi, Miller found 20 related English words including bisect, bifocal, bigamy, bicycle, biceps. She placed these around the spider web, and also added two brand names: "Bisquick," which comes from the word "biscuit" so named because biscuits used to be baked twice. Zwieback, a crunchy teething cookie, comes from the same concept as biscuit only in German, she said.

Miller has been using Latin and Greek words to help students learn new vocabulary from as far back as 1966 when she worked as an English teacher in Utah, West Virginia and Maryland. When she founded her own private school, the Banner School in 1982 in Maryland, all the students used it, she said. And when she retired here, she thought her audience should keep on growing.

"We're not a household word yet, but we expect to be," Miller said. Miller and Polillo, a retired vice president of news for Westinghouse Broadcasting, travel to a trade show each year to show their product to curriculum directors.

After two years in business, they have hired five retired teachers and one full-time sales person to help with sales. So far, three Cape schools use the Word Web program: John Simpkins Elementary and Station Avenue Elementary in South Yarmouth and the M.E. Small School in West Yarmouth. 

Polillo said the program makes so much sense, he's sure it will catch fire soon.

"It was born here on Cape Cod and I think we'll have a heck of an influence on Language Arts in this country," Polillo said

 (Published: March 13, 2005)