7 sure shot ways to better your child’s vocabulary without losing your cool

 

7 sure shot ways to better your child’s vocabulary without losing your cool !!

Words are so important. Often we are at a loss of words as they don’t exist in our arsenal of vocabulary. Children struggle to write essays, stories and other writing tasks as they lack the correct words to use. How then can we increase our child’s vocabulary?

Here are simple ways to build your child’s vocabulary.

1. Describe the word.

Provide a description of the word. E.g. If you are introducing the word “typhoon”, you can talk about its effects and how dangerous they can be. You can even show photos or videos of these.

2. Ask your child to describe it his own way.

Once you’ve described a new word, ask him to come up with his own way to describe it. For example, after explaining how privileged you are to attend such a nice school, your son might explain how privileged he is to have a new bicycle. Once a word is understood and used, it is never forgotten.

3. Prefixes, suffixes

If the child knows meanings of common prefixes and suffixes, it is easy to understand the word. E.g multi means many so the term multitasking means doing many tasks, if a word starts with re, it means again, thus redo, do again, the suffix less means without. Thus, meaningless is without meaning, penniless without money. (Look up : http://teacher.scholastic.com/reading/bestpractices/vocabulary/pdf/prefixes_suffixes.pdf)

4. Root words

If root words are known, these too make understanding and remembering words easy. E.g. geo is earth, thus geography – study of the Earth, soil. If children know this, it’s easy to infer the meaning of related words.

5. Be creative!

Ask your child to use a new list of words in a story. To make sense, he will have to understand its usage and thus, will learn them.

6. Usage is the key

Words once introduced must be used often. Otherwise, they are forgotten. E,g. Use the word crucial to discuss many things. How crucial it is to do your daily tasks, how crucial it is to have good friends, to make a list of crucial things to take on your picnic and so on.

7. Play vocabulary games.

They are fun and provide a quick revision. Play Pictionary, Charades or Scrabble.

Need to practice and learn more vocabulary. Use our online vocabulary worksheets!

Click this link: www.starchild.in

 


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