Discover how spelling works in only five minutes a week.

One Step Now Education November 13, 2026 bonafide This week's word comes courtesy of a podcast I was listening to on my walk. The host mentioned a guest's "bonafide credentials." Although the word was familiar to me, I thought exploring it might take us in interesting directions. To really pry apart this word, we will take a look at Latin cases, like the genitive. We'll find out about the words we borrow from other languages and what makes them a loanword. Meaning What is this word's meaning...

One Step Now Education November 6, 2026 deplorable This word came up when a student and I were looking at a relative. This relative is a word often found in social studies, so I thought a complete exploration of the family might be useful. ;) During our exploration, we'll find out more about adjectives and how they function as subject complements. We'll clarify what affixes do and don't "mean," and look at how they might be intensifiersinstead. We'll straighten out the suffix <-able> while...

One Step Now Education October 30, 2026 apparition In continuing our look at words related to Halloween, let's examine this word. I've studied the <pare> family before, home of relatives like prepare and separate. Is this connected? What concepts will we summon in this investigation? How about another look at modifiers, specifically those that are present participles? We need to take a examine assimilated prefixes and perhaps a Latin stem suffix as well. We'll check out how the Latin...

One Step Now Education October 23, 2026 sinister For this week's word, let's get into the Halloween spirit, shall we? Is it possible that sin is at the heart, or base, if you will, of this word? Or maybe at its left hand? Let's find out what it means for a word to function as a modifier. Then we'll sort out an agent suffix from a comparative suffix. We will discuss euphemisms as we learn a bit about a Latin tradition involving birds. We'll round out the investigation by looking into an <-ly>...

One Step Now Education October 16, 2026 contamination Once you've been studying words scientifically for a while, you'll often spot a word in the wild and begin analyzing it into its elements. Listening to a podcast, I came across this word and the hypothesized analysis ensued. I know what it means for something to be contaminated, but is it possible that it is related to tame, the base in my initial hypothesis? Only a true investigation will help us figure this out. Have you worked with...

One Step Now Education October 9, 2026 abolition Many great words for studying scientifically can come from the social studies and science units we teach. The word abolition might come up during a unit on slavery or civil rights. Does this word have anything to do with abolish? Along the way, we'll use context clues to unlock the word's meaning before we ever open a dictionary. We'll also meet the difference between abstract and concrete nouns. Then we'll dig into its structure, including a...