Word Up Vocabulary Program Review

I recently had the chance to review the new vocabulary program from Compass Classrom, WordUp, and found it a fun way to learn Greek and Latin word roots. This program is a dvd or downloadable program designed for ages 10 and up.  I had my 15 year old son try it out to help him expand his vocabulary and get ready for standardized tests.

The set I received consists of 10 lessons, each of which features a 12-15 minute video starring Dwane Thomas.  Thomas is amusing and makes a subject like vocabulary that can be kind of boring fun.  He narrates the video segments, but there are lots of different sets and backgrounds, and Thomas plays different characters during the segments which keeps things interesting, without being too silly.  One of the things that makes this program different from word root programs I have seen before is that it covers both Greek and Latin roots simultaneously.  So when talking about words meaning “to write” the video contains both words with Latin roots (scribe) and Greek roots (grapho).  It covers 10 words from each of the root words, for a total of 20 for the video lesson.  I think this way of organizing the study thematically makes a lot of sense.

One of my favorite things about this program is that it includes online flashcards in Quizlet.  My son frequently puts facts into Quizlet to study, and having it already done for him is a huge bonus.  This makes it easy for him to review the material and really learn it.

My son felt the material was a little easy for him, which makes sense since he is in 10th grade.  But there were definitely words he didn’t know, and reviewing the ones he was already familiar with was helpful.  Right now you can download 2 lessons for free at the website, so it is easy to try it out and see if it will work for your family!  And check out the official trailer below: