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b'Summary of today\\u2019s show: Learning the Latin and Greek roots of English words isn\\u2019t just a road map to success, it\\u2019s a GPS, said one educator of The Latin and Greek Root Challenge. John and Maureen Riley of Wellesley have developed this fun program that helps children from kindergarten through eighth grade learn the Latin and Greek roots in a fun and engaging collaborative environment, leading to higher test scores and better vocabulary, not just in English, but in every subject, including science, math, health and religion. Scot Landry talks with the Rileys and Charlotte Kelly, principal of St. John the Evangelist School in Canton, about the Latin and Greek Root Challenge, how it works, the benefits it\\u2019s already exhibited, and how it\\u2019s spread to more than 20 schools in Boston and Chicago. Plus, see how Scot does when he\\u2019s asked to take the challenge!\\nListen to the show:\\n\\nToday\\u2019s host(s): Scot Landry\\nToday\\u2019s guest(s): John and Maureen Riley and Charlotte Kelly\\nLinks from today\\u2019s show:\\n\\n\\n\\nToday\\u2019s topics: The Latin and Greek Root Challenge\\n1st segment: Scot welcomed everyone to the show. Today\\u2019s topic is the Latin and Greek Root Challenge which is being implemented in 5 Catholic schools. But first Scot discussed briefly Pope Benedict\\u2019s trip to Mexico and Cuba. The Holy Father arrived in Cuba a few hours ago. Cardinal Se\\xe1n is also in Cuba to be with the Holy Father and two reporters from the Pilot are in Cuba covering the visit.\\nScot introduced John and Maureen Riley, the creators of the Latin and Greek Root Challenge. Charlotte Riley is principal of St. John the Evangelist School in Canton, which is implementing the challenge. Scot said he heard about the challenge from John in their meetings in the Pastoral Center about the Catholic Appeal.\\nJohn said this is his wife Maureen\\u2019s brain child. He said a lot of educators and parents understand there\\u2019s a tremendous value to the classics, looking at the Latin and Greek heritage of the English language. Sixty percent of the words in English have Latin and Greek roots. Scot said it makes you wonder why we don\\u2019t spend more time on Latin and Greek in primary education. John said it used to be the case, but that faded away. In science, medicine, and law are even more rooted in those languages.\\nJohn said they are trying to educate elementary school students and introduce Latin and Greek roots in a fun engaging and school-wide way that helps them understand the meaning of the roots to help them recognize words they might otherwise not know by breaking it down into its roots.\\nScot asked Maureen how she got the idea for it. Maureen said she\\u2019s always had a fascination with education and asked herself how the kids in the inner city schools ended up with lower test scores, but how the schools with Latin in their name ended up with higher test scores. At their children\\u2019s school, St. Paul\\u2019s Wellesley, discussed bringing Latin and Greek into the school, but she didn\\u2019t know these languages herself. She recalls seeing a movie about an inner city student who won a big spelling bee by learning how to break down words into their roots. With her own children, she was always going to their teachers to ensure the kids were being challenged. Maureen wanted to find some way to help all children. Finally she woke up one day with the idea for a board that would create a challenge for all the kids in the school.\\nCharlotte said she sold by the Riley\\u2019s enthusiasm when she met them a year ago. They were already doing a vocabulary program and saw how this could fit in. They already teach Spanish in 5 through 8, but they could include this for every grade level.\\nJohn said it was important for them from the outset that this be a school wide activity, that the kindergartners would get the same roots the middle school students get and it would build community in the school. Kindergartners are being introduced the whole concept of roots and that\\u2019s an important lesson at such a young age. Speaking to a first grade teacher, she told them that words come up in math and science and the students say they can figure out what they mean. There\\u2019s a magic and power to words.\\n2nd segment: Scot said there are 20 total schools in the pilot program, including 8 in Chicago. Four or five more schools have expressed interest for next September.\\nScot said they have a board in front of him with words on it, including roots of various words, like tele-, micro- and -scope, and tell them what the meanings are. Then they ask them for the subsequent words to make from them like telephone and television. John said they introduce the kids to the roots and their meanings and they ask them how many words they can identify with the root. Then they remind them of the meaning and then present a new word and ask them to define it based on what they\\u2019ve learned. Maureen said they also give them visuals, like telling them to imagine looking through a telescope to see things far away.\\nThroughout the week, the teacher has a board to review the roots with photos and visuals to break down the meanings of each root. The children are encouraged to write in meaning of roots as they go.\\n\\nThere are three different level workbooks for different grades to slowly go from easy to more difficult, from concrete learning to abstract learning.\\nCharlotte said while many of the young teachers haven\\u2019t themselves had classics training, the teachers have picked them up enthusiastically and are now offering their feedback. She related a story of six and seven-year-olds children impressing other teachers on their ability to break down and construct new words.\\nJohn said he and Maureen have 3 kids, 10, 8, and 6. They have been the test subjects and they really enjoy it, albeit at different levels. The kindergartner really dives into it. The second-grader and fourth-grader are showing how they can process at different levels and understand the complexity of the words. At middle school, the kids are independently looking up words online and going to the dictionary for words.\\nMaureen said the kids get very creative in working on the words. She works every week with grade two. Each week, they do a quick review. She gives a root and they have to give back the meaning in unison and every week they have it down pat. They also do collaborative learning. They go around the class with a paper to come up with lists of words for that root. Scot said his experience of his kindergartner is that not all of them can read well at that age. How does it help a child learn to read by recognizing roots?\\nCharlotte said they have a pre-K and K level that uses a simplified version that explains root words and the difference from a beginning sound. (T v. tele). Where they are beginning to read, the data shows high improvement across the board. As much as 18 percentage points by Grade 6.\\nMaureen said one parent of a second-grader told her that in the grocery store the children point out Latin and Greek root words. They see a difference in the child\\u2019s vocabulary. Scot said kids are natural problem solvers and sleuths. John said part of the fun is that the kids view it as a game. The parents, teachers, and principals have given great feedback. They met the superintendent of the Chicago archdiocese this past summer. Maureen said they had been asked to present the program to Sister Mary Paul, the superintendent in Chicago. She told the sister that it\\u2019s almost as if when your child gets to 18 or 22 and going on the first road trip. You give them maps. Latin and Greek Roots are the maps. They don\\u2019t tell you exactly where to go, but the tools to get there. Sr. Mary Paul said it\\u2019s not a map, but a GPS system.\\nJohn said most students, except for the youngest, get 3 roots per week over the 25-week program in a three-year cycle. They are also exposed to secondary roots on the constructed word lists that contain the primary roots. Each of those words on the list have other roots as well. They will eventually have a tremendous command of roots.\\nCharlotte said in her 11 years at St. John\\u2019s they built up vocabulary programs, especially one from grade 3 to 8. They see this as an addition in order to be able to put words together.\\nScot asked how important is that these are also words that will help them get into college on the SATs and ACTs. Charlotte said this is a program you don\\u2019t to pass up at a reasonable cost. It raises test scores, but it\\u2019s also a lot of fun. During the school year kickoff, they had the parents play the root word game. This is a fun way to learn Latin and keep it from being boring.\\nJohn said in the program development they have researched high frequency standardized exam test words with the goal of ensuring that there is also a value in giving them better scores, making it fun, helping them with their future careers, and score well on tests.\\nScot said on the SATs, the highest possible score is 800. The average score for those who studied Latin versus those who didn\\u2019t study language or studied a different language was much higher. Maureen said they are waiting for the best data on their programs which will be available after 3 to 5 years in practice.\\nScot said studying Latin helped him in his own studies in geometry. Charlotte said it\\u2019s helping them with the study of religion.\\n3rd segment: Scot said the excitement of learning Latin and Greek words has helped Charlotte\\u2019s student incorporate Latin into the fun of preparing for Lent. She said students have learned the Our Father and Hail Mary in Latin. She said it\\u2019s helped with vocabulary in religion classes, as well as in health and science classes.\\nCharlotte said this program is a great marketing tool for the school and in their own marketing, they include the Rileys\\u2019 marketing materials as well.\\nMaureen said her first dream is to get this program into every single inner-city school in the country to transform them and teach children the love of words. Where scores are dropping everywhere else, the kids using this program are getting better scores. Her second dream is to gather all the statistics to show that this makes a difference, to show that what they believe about it is proven scientifically.\\nScot pointed out that Maureen never studied Latin, but she was inspired in a way that is helping so many students to learn in a more enjoyable and quicker way. Maureen said she\\u2019d always believed that she would work in educating children some day and throughout this process, every time she encountered an obstacle she\\u2019d turn it over to God and they would overcome it. She credits God as the inspiration and the assistance of so many people that have helped them from other parents to teachers and principals to other volunteers.\\nScot said there are a million ideas, but it\\u2019s not easy to actually implement it. It\\u2019s not easy to get into schools and get onto budgets, whether Catholic or public schools. John said it\\u2019s been a rewarding and exhausting experience. He said this is a little bit of the American dream, to have an idea and promote it and encourage others to take it on to help others. It\\u2019s also been a labor of love, with a passion for the mission of educating children, especially in Catholic schools. He said Catholic schools are near and dear to their hearts, because they nurture the spiritual life of children. It\\u2019s been an adventure and they\\u2019ve questioned their sanity at times. Scot said everyone who starts anything gets to a point where they feel overwhelmed or question going on, but to get to the point where it\\u2019s implemented and successful, is a massive amount of work.\\nJohn said you have to be reflective, to look ahead but to look back once in a while to see how far you\\u2019ve come. Look at how many children they\\u2019ve affected in two years and then look ahead to the potential impact in the future.\\nCharlotte would tell other principals that this is a must have in their schools. She encouraged the Rileys to have a booth at the National Catholic Educators Association coming up in Boston in a couple weeks. Scot asked what makes it a must? Charlotte said it\\u2019s definitely vocabulary. After testing recently, they are finding scores to be up especially among those taking the high school placement exams. Some students always do even better than the others and it creates excitement around the dinner table.\\nMaureen said they hope that it creates good dinner conversations in the family. The kids find it fun and so they play the root challenge and stimulate further conversation. John said a lot of parents haven\\u2019t been exposed to these languages and so they can benefit as well.\\nJohn wanted to name a number of people who have helped from the beginning of their work and said how much they appreciate the effort and assistance from all of them.'