Vocabulary-Building Tools

If you are looking for a way to expand your vocabulary by learning prefixes, Study Guides and Strategies has a word building toy for you. You are given a prefix and its meaning. Then you can pick up scattered endings and the definitions of the words appear as you bring the parts together.

I hope that the site offers more than the four examples that I saw. If not, it was simply a reminder of how prefixes work and a few minutes of fun for my son, dragging parts around on the screen to make big words. It included a link to Sheppard Software, however, where you will find five focused vocabulary exercises.

Those “games” draw random questions from pools of hundreds. Each purports to address a particular type of words, including a set each for medical and computer terminology. The site also provides a Word of the Day.

If you can't get enough words of the day, head over to Wordsmith.org and check out their word of the day. They offer to send you the word of the day via e-mail, as well.