Michael Clay Thompson’s vocabulary program begins at the elementary level with Building Language, Caesar's English I, and Caesar's English II. These books can be used as stand-alones or as part of a vocabulary program for young students. They also set the stage as preparatory complements to the more advanced The Word Within the Word series.
Building Language introduces students to the concept of Latin stems as the foundation for English academic language. Learning the meanings of the stems allows children to figure out the meanings of many other words that contain those same stems, even if the children have never seen those words before. From this beginning, students move on to the Caesar's English books.
The book is uniquely formatted. There's very little text per page, with lots of blank space around the words. Illustrations of Roman aqueducts and ruins accompany. The text presents stem words, explains their meaning, and then gives a little story that personifies the stem word while illustrating the meaning. A "close-up" explanation of word examines it in more detail and an example of the word used in Spanish follows. Students are next asked to write a poem including that word, and then to write a simile.
The teacher's book includes the full student text with little boxes in the corner of each page giving further facts, hints and ideas about what to discuss on every individual page. The teacher resources in the back include some essays and explanations about certain aspects of the lesson, as well as two student quizzes and their answer keys.
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