5th grade Greek and Latin roots worksheets
Fifth graders widen the set (chron, hydr, therm, cred, mem, ped, man, scrib) and use roots the way readers actually do: meeting an unfamiliar word like dehydration mid-sentence and reasoning from hydr that water is involved.
Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core L.5.4.b.
A new sheet every click.
The kind of sentences you'll get
Circle the letter of the word built from the right root.
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An is the story of the writer’s own life.
autobiography · biography · bibliography
Answer: autobiography
- Our class made a of the explorer’s journey. thermometer · chronicle · chronometer
- Her collection includes three astronauts’ signatures. autograph · autopilot · automobile
Every print pulls a fresh set of sentences at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling never gets the same sheet.
What's on each sheet
- Choose the word. Circle the letter of the word built from the right root. 10 questions per page.
Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.
How to teach this
Ask for the evidence: when a student picks hydrant, have them name the root and its meaning aloud. Word detective habits form here. Wall charts of root families grow nicely all year, and inventing silly new words from real roots (a chronoscope? a biograph?) proves they own the system.
Watch for: A root isn't a prefix; it's the core of the word. Prefixes and suffixes attach to it (in-spect-ion). Knowing one root unlocks a family of words, not just one: port gives transport, export, import, and portable.
Common questions about Greek and Latin roots
- Why do so many school words come from Greek and Latin?
- English borrowed its scholarly vocabulary from Latin and Greek for centuries, so science, math, and history terms still carry those parts. That's actually good news: a student who knows forty common roots holds a key to thousands of academic words.
- How do roots help on reading tests?
- Unfamiliar-word questions usually hide a familiar root. A student who spots cred in credible or chron in chronological can reason out the answer without ever having studied the word itself. That's the skill these items rehearse, one sentence at a time.
Related worksheets
- 4th grade Greek and Latin roots A step easier, same skill
- 6th grade Greek and Latin roots A step harder, same skill
- 5th grade analogies Same grade, nearby skill
- 5th grade context clues Same grade, nearby skill
- 5th grade multiple-meaning words Same grade, nearby skill
- Greek and Latin roots, all grades The full progression
- All 5th grade English worksheets Every skill at this level
- All 5th grade worksheets Everything at this level
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Aligned to Common Core L.5.4.b. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 137, updated August 2026.
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