What are some quick and easy ways to teach my children to remember vocabulary words, phrases and sentences?
Anonymous
As education has shifted and changed over the years (especially after the pandemic) one of the things that has tended to change a lot is how vocabulary is taught. This has unfortunately left a lot of students with significant gaps in their vocabularies. Here are some of our favorite ways to help increase your child’s vocabulary at home.
- Word/Phrase of the Day: Choose a new word or phrase each day and introduce it to your children. Discuss the meaning of the word and brainstorm together to come up with sentences using the word. All day, use the word as much as you can and create open-ended sentences in which your children can also use the word. When you’re done, add it to a…
- Word Wall: Create a designated space in your home for a word wall. It can be your fridge, a door, etc. Get creative! Write each word of the day on a sticky note or index card and add it to the wall. As the week goes by, add more of the target words into your conversations with the kids. Encourage them to draw pictures to reinforce the meanings of the words.
- Reading Together: The absolute best vocabulary builder is regular, on- or above-level reading. Period. Take a trip to your local library and load up on books together. Read with your children and discuss the meanings of new words as you encounter them. Encourage your children to use context clues to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. You can also ask questions about the words to deepen their understanding and retention. Our Weekly Story Hour is a live, online story hour your kids can look forward to each week.
- Engage their creativity. From playing vocabulary-building games like Scrabble and Bananagrams to finding creative writing or poetry courses, building vocabulary through fun, creative avenues is a way you can be sure the learned words will stick and become part of their lexicon.
Resources We Love
At VT we have several different resources for having fun with language and vocabulary. We love our Story Writing Workshops and Young Authors classes. If your child needs a more academic approach, we recommend our Jump Start reading courses, which will give your child the “jump” on next year’s vocabulary and grammar among other ELA skills.