Dynamic Literacy's WordBuild Foundations is a vocabulary program recommended for grades 3-5 (or as a remedial program/ESL program for grades 5-9). Level 1 includes a teacher edition and two student activity books, and Level 2 includes a teacher edition and one student activity book. (The student activity books are reproducible.) Level 1 includes introductory lessons plus 30 regular lessons, and Level 2 has 36 lessons. The Level 1 introductory lessons are contained in the first student activity book, and the number of days spent on these lessons depends on the student (they could be skipped entirely). Each lesson in both levels introduces a new prefix or suffix (the spelling rules relating to adding suffixes are covered) and is meant to take one week to complete.

WordBuild Foundations teaches students the meanings of different prefixes and suffixes and teaches the student how to use them to build different words. Instead of giving the student a list of words to study, each lesson focuses on a prefix or suffix and its meaning. For example, in Lesson 2 (Level 1) the prefix under- is introduced. It means "below or not enough." With this knowledge, students can add the prefix to root words that they are already familiar with, such as world, paid, coat, or pass, and the student can easily define what the new words (underworld, underpaid, etc.) mean. The same thing happens when the student learns the meaning of a suffix. For example, Lesson 23 (Level 1) reveals that the suffix -ing means "going on, happening now." By adding -ing to root words like cry, eat, work, or read, the student understands the meaning of crying, eating, working, and reading. By combining his knowledge of both under- and -ing, the student is able to understand words like underlining or understating. Simply learning one prefix or suffix enables the student to figure out the meaning of dozens and dozens of words.

Each week is laid out in a similar fashion in both levels, and each day's exercise takes about 15-20 minutes. On day 1, the affix and its meaning are introduced. The activity for day 1 is an "Affix Square," which is a large square divided into nine smaller squares. The affix is in the middle surrounded by other words. So, for example, in the under- square, under- is in the middle and is surrounded by eight different root words (world, paid, pass, etc.) The student is then supposed to define each combination. Day 2 has the student defining ten different words and using the words in original sentences. The activity for day 3 is a "Magic Square." The student needs to match up nine different words and their definitions and write the answers in a nine-grid square. The square is labeled with letters that correspond to the list of words, and the definitions are numbered, so the student writes the correct number for each answer. To check his work, the student adds the numbers across and down the square, and he knows the answers are correct when the total is the same for all rows and columns. The day 4 activity is a word search, and day 5's activity is a "Comprehension Booster," in which the student uses a word bank to fill in the blanks in ten sentences. All of the above exercises are in the student activity book, and the root words used in the daily activities are often different, so the student gets practice working with various words. There are helpful teaching notes in the teacher's edition, along with lists of additional words that use whatever affix was taught in the lesson (the -under lesson has a list of an additional 80-100 words). This program has assessments after every six lessons, so it's easy to keep track of what your child is remembering.

I have been using Level 1 with my 5th, 4th, and 2nd grade boys. We do most of the activities on the whiteboard together, and we've all been enjoying it. (My boys are disappointed if we miss a day of Foundations.) I love it because it requires my sons to think through the why and how of word building. Rather than just memorization of words and definitions, Foundations has the student play around with words and internalize how larger words work. I've seen my boys apply what they are learning to their writing assignments. The covers of the books are flimsy, and the set including the teacher's edition is kind of pricey (around $80 for the student activity book and teacher's edition, though an individual student activity book costs around $10). But the program is so good these complaints should be overlooked. This vocabulary program is wonderful, and I highly recommend you take a look at it for use in your homeschool.

Product review by Courtney Larson, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June 2010