5th Grade spelling

5th Grade Latin Roots Dict, Rupt and Struct

Latin roots dict (say), rupt (break) and struct (build) in predict, interrupt, structure and more. Play hangman or print a worksheet.

5th Grade spelling: latin roots dict, rupt and struct
Guesses left 8 Misses — Time 0:00
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Read the spelling list

The pattern: Dict means say, rupt means break and struct means build.

Three more Latin roots turn up constantly in school texts. Dict means say, rupt means break, and struct means build. If you can see those pieces, predict is to say beforehand, interrupt is to break in, and construct is to build with. Roots do double duty: they tell you what a word means and how to spell the middle of it.

Ten words are listed for each root. Dict includes predict, prediction, verdict and dictionary. Rupt includes corrupt, interrupt, disrupt, eruption and abruptly. Struct includes structure, construct, instruction, instructor, destruction and infrastructure. These are the words that fifth graders meet in science and social studies, such as the structure of a cell or the eruption of a volcano, so the vocabulary is already in their reading even when the spelling is not yet in their writing.

30 entries. Our solver needed 1.0 wrong guesses on average: 21 easy, 9 medium and 0 hard. The toughest is corrupt (4 misses), the quickest predicted (0).

Difficulty from our solver:Easy 0–1 missesMedium 2–4Hard 5+

dict (say)

rupt (break)

struct (build)

Words worth a closer look

Teaching it

Start with the simplest word for each root: dictionary, interrupt, structure. Ask students to say what the root means and then predict the meaning of a harder word, such as disruption. The usual spelling mistakes involve the ending rather than the root: eruption and disruption need the same tion, while instructor and inspector take or. Students also write intrupt for interrupt, losing the er.

Hangman works well because the root is a ready-made chunk: once players guess r, u, p and t, they can pause and reason about the rest. Print the worksheet and ask students to circle the root in each word and write a one-line definition using its meaning.

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Print a 5th Grade Latin Roots Dict, Rupt and Struct worksheet

5th Grade Latin Roots Dict, Rupt and Struct printable hangman worksheet: eight puzzles with letter blanks, a drawing frame and an alphabet strip

Eight puzzles on one US Letter page, with a clue, letter blanks, an empty frame to draw in, an alphabet strip to cross off and circles to count misses. Page two is the answer key.

Download PDF Answer key

Need another sheet?

Draw eight different words from this list, right here. Same layout, new answer key.

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