Every word is
a machine.

And machines come apart. Here is one your kid has known since they were three.

DINO+SAUR =DINOSAUR
DINO means terrible. SAUR means lizard.
Dinosaur means terrible lizard.
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70 pages · free · nothing to sign up for

The Numbers Book

Twelve number parts hiding inside words your child already says. Counting from one to ten, then a hundred, then a thousand — with a mystery in the middle that takes four chapters to solve.

13CHAPTERS
70PAGES
12CARDS TO CUT OUT
$0PRICE
UNI1
BI2
TRI3
QUAD4
PENTA5
HEXA6
SEPT7
OCT8
NOV9
DEC10
CENT100
MILLI1000

Print it at home — it is designed for a normal printer, white paper, no bleeds.

ROOTOSAUR
THE NUMBERS BOOK
Every word is a machine.
This one is full of numbers.
BOOK ZERO · AGES 5 TO 7

Here is a page from it.

Chapters seven to ten plant a mystery on purpose. Chapter eleven solves it.

OCT means eight. So why is October the tenth month?
THE OLD ROMAN WAY — the year started in MARCHMAR1APR2MAY3JUN4JUL5AUG6SEPT7OCT8NOV9DEC10THEN TWO NEW MONTHS WERE PUSHED IN AT THE FRONT →JAN1FEB2MAR3APR4MAY5JUN6JUL7AUG8SEPT9OCT10NOV11DEC12
swipe to see all twelve →

The Romans started their year in March — so September really was the seventh month and October really was the eighth. Then January and February were pushed in at the front and everything slid along by two. Nobody ever changed the names.

Four months have had the wrong number for about two thousand years. Most adults have never once noticed. A five-year-old with this book will catch it in a week.

And there is a free game.

Same idea, on a screen. Take real words apart, smash word parts together to invent creatures that have never existed, then draw them.

CRACK ITBUILD IT MAKE THE WORDFILL THE GAP THE CHALLENGEMY CREATURES

Works on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Nothing to install.

For the grown-up reading this

Roughly sixty per cent of the words in English text are built from Greek and Latin roots, and a single root will turn up in twenty or more words. Teach a child one part and you have not taught them one word — you have given them a key that keeps working on words nobody has shown them yet.

That is the whole method, and it is not new. It is the engine inside Norman Lewis's Word Power Made Easy, a book that has been in print since 1949 — and which has no on-ramp for anyone under about sixteen. This is the on-ramp.

No ads. Ever.Not in the book, not in the game. There is nothing to click by accident.
No accounts.No sign-up, no email wall, no password. Download it and it is yours.
Nothing leaves the device.Drawings your child makes in the game stay on your device. There is no server to send them to.

What comes next

Book Zero is the numbers. Numbers are about one part in twenty of what is hiding inside English — AQUA is water, ASTRO is star, TELE is far away, PHOBIA is a fear of something. Book One goes there, and after that the line runs the whole way through elementary school.

Every one of those parts is already in the game, so there is nothing to wait for.

More free books are coming.

The Numbers Book is Book Zero. A general Kindergarten book is next, then the grades. Want a heads-up when the next free one lands? No spam, no strings — just a note when there is a new book.

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