Product Description

This Book comes from the Logophilia Vocabulary of Science Programme, which is an Etymology-based English Vocabulary workshop wherein students are trained in the art of making and breaking terminology found across science and Mathematics curricula from standards nine to twelve. The Workshop was pilot tested for middle and senior school students across La Martiniere Girls’ College, Lucknow, and has been adopted as a curriculum for many schools.

Words are not made by linguists. Words were made by people, much like you and us. Therefore, we must be trained in the process of word-formation in general, and roots and affixes in specific. This gives us a fair degree of dictionary independence and gets us in a position to stop viewing studies as objects that need memorisation. Memory is not a process in education, but a result of it. If you like something you shall find it natural to remember it. It is insulting to human cognition when a student devotes time to creating memory through mnemonics and other forms of educational malpractice.

Roots are strong carriers of words. There are roots that give out as few as three words; there are those that make a few hundred words. On an average, a root gives out about twenty derivatives. Therefore, if you are serious about learning vocabulary, study roots. In the amount of time that you spend studying a word, you can study twenty words by learning their root. This practice is called Etymology Education: and it comes with so many advantages, it is surprising that schools don’t teach this way.

Once students start growing their vocabulary through Etymology Education:
they experience a rapid (yet systematic) expansion in their vocabulary
they develop a great ability to understand words, even unfamiliar ones
they develop an effortless ability with word spellings & pronunciation
they develop a good ability to make connections across concepts and learn deeply
they are likely to save the large amounts of time they used to waste in rote learning
they become more confident students, without the fear of forgetting

As opposed to introductory Logophilia books, this set of books has been written with the intention of making students gain mastery of the science terminology they are likely to encounter in middle and senior school. Whilst the Book cannot be comprehensive in the list of words we put forward, it does purport to sufficiently empower students in the art of making and breaking science words to a point wherein they feel encouraged to read their textbooks with joy, not fear.

In the Appendices section are provided some additional terms that have featured in board-exam questions papers of classes ten and twelve over the past few years. These should be useful, although the purpose of this Book is not to exam-coach.