Let Your Child Marinate in Words

If you are anywhere near a public school you can feel the test anxiety.  It makes me crazy and of course I have my opinion of how it could be handled and not stress everyone out!  BUT  I will save that for another day.

While visiting with some kindergarten teachers about their students and test results, they realized one of the areas that was particularly low was vocabulary.  Personally I believe it's a tricky thing to test, especially on a computer, but the world testing powers  didn't ask me.  Now we can argue the merits of even taking a test on a computer and all the variables that are at play, but again we will save that for another day.

The teachers and I were talking about how to teach or really expose children to vocabulary.  Because the words are random, you can't 'preteach' every word.  A word that is on the assessment one month may be randomly replaced with a different word the next month.  So what to do?

Ideally all children will come to school with a vast vocabulary.   While that would be great it doesn't happen.  Parents are overwhelmed and intimidated by vocabulary - and you shouldn't be.  What is important is to expose children to words.  So to start with,  just talk to your child.  When I say talk to your child, I mean use your grown up voice.  Don't talk baby talk to your child.  Look for opportunities to use real words rather than made up silly words.  For example, if your child has a scratch, instead of saying, Oh you have an ouy or a boo boo, try saying,  Oh you have a scratch.  I can guarantee your child will only encounter boo boo at your house but will encounter scratch everywhere else.  Sometimes a food can be yummy, but it might be luscious, or tangy or spicy.

The more children are exposed to words the more likely they will pick them up.  If you don't believe me think about a word or words your young child has repeated that you know you didn't teach him or her.

Think about synonyms for words you probably over use.  Do you always tell your daughter she looks pretty? Does she ever look glamorous, or sophisticated, or beautiful or spunky?  What about your son?   Does he ever look dapper?

What are some other ways to say good game or you played well.  We know from research that children respond better to specific language, for example I like the way you caught that ball instead of good job. Perhaps the game was intense, or a nail biter.

With the warmer weather, it's an ideal time to be outside observing nature.  Everything isn't a bug! There are crickets and grasshoppers and cicadas.  Some are insects and some are not.

Maybe at the store there weren't a lot of people,  maybe there were hordes of people or maybe it was a throng of people.

One of the easiest ways to increase your child's vocabulary is to read good literature to them.  Some of my favorite authors are listed on my blog site.

When we marinate meat, we let it sit for hours, soaking up the rich marinade.  That's what we want to do with words and our children.  Let them soak up or marinade in words.  I promise not only will it  pay off on test day, your kids will have a vast vocabulary!