Discover how spelling works in only five minutes a week.

One Step Now Education February 20, 2026 iridescent I was reading an excerpt from a book where the author described the "iridescent multi-colored sands." Although I knew the meaning of iridescent, I wondered about the word's structure. What is this word's base? Is it related to descent? If so, what is "descending" about the sands? We'll explore the many "colors" of this word first by looking at how images can help our students and how adjectives function. We'll then take a look at the...

One Step Now Education February 13, 2026 passionate For the Valentine's Day holiday, I thought passionate might be an interesting word to investigate. Could it be related to the free base pass? Get ready for a look at the derivational suffixes, especially the suffixes <-ate> and <-ion>. We'll explore the machinery of Latin verbs and their principal parts. In addition, we will touch on deponent verbs and Vulgar Latin. We'll also take yet another look at palatalization. Meaning What is this...

One Step Now Education February 6, 2026 semasiography When reading David Share's research article, Blueprint for a Universal Theory of Learning to Read: The Combinatorial Model, I came across the following sentence: "A non-linguistic semasiography that directly encodes conceptual meaning is a non-sequitur and exists only in very restricted communicative contexts, incapable of achieving the full expressive power of human language." Whew! There's a lot packed into that one sentence. If you wish...

One Step Now Education January 30, 2026 viscosity Yes, we have our third week in a row of words to investigate that end in <-ity>. Perhaps we can dive a little deeper into this suffixal construction. But it's not the suffix that intrigues me here; it's the possible base. Or maybe two bases? Could the <vis> be the same as we see in vision or visual? And does that mean the <cos> is another base? Let's find out. And as we do, we will also learn about noun phrases and their component parts,...

One Step Now Education December 31, 2025 slop In the last month of the year, several organizations select their Word of the Year. You may have seen all the controversy when Dictionary.com selected 6-7, which many argued isn't even a "word." Oxford picked ragebait. Merriam-Webster has selected their Word of the Year for 2025, and the word is...slop. For them, slop describes the use of artificial intelligence, but this word has several meanings that are worth exploring. As you investigate this...

One Step Now Education December 26, 2025 exalt Many things may attract you to a word. You may notice a similarity to another word and wonder about a connection. You may be curious about the base of the word. You might be amazed by an unusual grapheme. For the word exalt, I wondered, "What is the base of this word?" "Is it related to alternate?" There's an ALT button on most keyboards. And yet, there doesn't seem to be any connection between alternate and what I believe is the meaning of the...

One Step Now Education June 14, 2024 Weekly Word Investigation photo by Luna Hu on Unsplash unctuous Ok, those who know me know I like to watch cooking videos. If I cooked as often as I watched cooking videos, it would be a buffet to rival the Vegas strip in my household every night. When watching these videos, chefs often refer to the unctuous mouth-feel of a sauce or creamy soup. I make quick notes of interesting words to investigate in my phone, so I grabbed my phone when one of these...