Vocabulary 101

Tonight, as we were looking over Mackenzie's report on the state of Washington, Nelson noticed that her teacher had circled the word linear and left the comment, "Use your own words."

"Mackenzie," he asked, "did you tell her that you know what that word means? We talked about that as you read those facts. Do you remember?"

"Oh right, I remember it means...um...linear," she guessed.

"Come on," he encouraged, "think about the word."

She thought a moment more. I could tell she remembered the discussion but not the details and it was killing her.

"Look at the word. Do you see anything in it?" he asked again.

"Lin," she responded.

"Is that a word?"

"Um, no."

Determined to prove he had done his job teaching her, he prodded once more, “Look for a real word inside the word linear that will help."

"Oh!" she exclaimed with great excitement. "I get it! It's ear."