As an avid reader.. okay let’s be honest I am a bookworm… and I can prove it too: When Daddy D and I were combining our things at the beginning of our marriage he took one look at all of my books (several tubs) and said “NO WAY! Those are not all coming with us.” I cried and explained they are BOOKS you can’t just get rid of books I cried someone more and explained I wanted a library in our one-day-soon-dream-house. He gave in. (Score one Mama D) I kept my books and in the process we have, since then, acquired many more books. Although I still don’t have my library, there are at least one bookshelf, filled to the brim with all sorts of books, in every room in our home (score two Mama D)
On to my actual post!
As a bookworm and a teacher, I can tell you until I am blue in the face that vocabulary is important to the literacy skills of our children. We make it fun at first, reading books to our baby’s and toddlers and young primary children. But then all of a sudden there is a breakdown. Vocabulary becomes homework and a chore and something that is not so fun anymore. Spelling tests? Vocabulary tests? What can we as parents do make sure that our children have a good enough vocabulary and also the knowledge and skills to go out and seek out a definition of a word they don’t know?
I have used these methods with both my students and Chaos & Mayhem. Some can be used for fun, some for studying and maybe even both.
- Play Scrabble – Nothing more fun than family game night right? You can use scrabble several ways
- Good old fashion way. However, keep a dictionary nearby to help vocabulary building.
- As a study tool: put your child’s vocabulary list on the table and those are the words you try to “spell” first.
- Once you get up in age you may have to modify the game as follows. Each person connects a vocabulary word to an already existing word. No one has actual tiles, they are more “free range” tiles and you are just trying to connect all the vocabulary words. The child with the vocab word goes first and then proceed how ever you like and make your own house rules (like who wins??) The only must it that the words all must intersect or connect.
- Magnetic Scrabble – You can find these Scrabble pieces on Amazon. This is great for “solo” time for a child that needs to study and can be stuck on any magnetic surface. I put them on the fridge and while I am cooking, Chaos is also studying. (Multitasking parent for the win!) I also love to use these for Mayhem to build her basic literacy skills, like adding letters to base words like “at”.
- Vocabulary.com – I LOVE this website. I have fully integrated it into my classroom and my high school students love to compete for the top of the leader board. There are already pre-made lists or you can create your own. You are able to see both completion and Mastery ( how well you know a word) for each vocabulary word. This will work best with older children and you can create a chart so that they can compete with themselves or track their progress over a period a time. If you want to get the whole family involved sign everyone up and compete for the top of the chart (make sure you are using the same list!)
- Thesaurus Game – This is something I do without Chaos or Mayhem knowing (Gasp! No metacognition). I do this everyday, in the car, at home, on our adventures. They will say something and I will ask “Is there are another word you can use for _____?” This helps build up vocabulary and understanding of the first word they were trying to use, this “thesaurus” skill will come in handy when writing long papers.
- Congratulate them on the use of “Big words” – When either Chaos or Mayhem use word that is not “normal”, like humongous instead of really big, we make a big deal of it. And then I sneak in the Thesaurus game to make sure they truly know what the word means. I have also done the same thing in my classroom to raise the level of vocabulary use in the room.
- Create an environment that they know it’s okay to not know a word but not okay to continue not knowing it – Lead by example find a word you don’t know have them help you figure it out (context clues, going to a dictionary). Let them know not knowing a word does not make them dumb, it is an opportunity to become smarter.
In the classroom I see my students struggling with vocabulary everyday, the biggest struggle is getting them to NOT be okay with not understanding or knowing a word. Skipping unknown words, instead of investigating what it means, is popular among students. Let’s raise our children to not pass up an opportunity to become smarter and build up their love for wanting new and unexplored vocabulary.
Enjoy!
Mama D
Adventures with Chaos and Mayhem 