Boost Your Child's Vocabulary... At Any Age!

Our thoughts are composed of words to explain ideas.  If we want to improve our children’s thinking, then we need to improve their vocabularies.    A rich vocabulary gives our children the tools to comprehend and explain more complex concepts.   It allows them to think and process on a higher level.

“Vocabulary is the best single indicator of intellectual ability and an accurate predictor of success at school.”  WB Elley

While students learn vocabulary in school, you can also introduce and play with new words at home.   Words are fun, and engaging your children will make learning them fun.   Regardless of the ages of your children, implement some of the ideas below into your daily lives to foster growing vocabularies.

1.  Find a “Word of the Day” that you talk about at dinner.  You can sign up for a word of the day email at www.dictionary.com.   Today’s word is splendiferous.   It wouldn’t take much effort to have fun with a word like splendiferous. 

2.  Display a “Word of the Week” on your refrigerator.  Take turns choosing the word, and then have a competition to see who can use the word in the most clever way.  Each family member writes on a card how they used the word that week, and everyone votes to decide the winner.  Be sure to make the prize worthwhile!

3.  Make a list of words that you don’t know from the books that you are reading.  The person with the most words written on his list at the end of the week wins a prize.   The idea here is to make sure that unknown words are being written down AND that challenging books are being read!

4.  Play word games together as a family.  You can play scrabble, boggle, and hangman or complete crossword puzzles, anagrams, and word jumbles.   Be sure to try to come up with new words each time you play!

5.  Practice defining words and feed the hungry at www.freerice.com.  For every word that you get correct, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program to help end hunger.   You get to learn new words while you help others!

At the end of day, don’t forget to use a rich vocabulary at home and don’t forget to have your children read!   These still remain the most effective ways to ensure that your children are developing strong vocabularies that will serve them well their entire lives.   

Nurture a Love of Reading at Your Public Library

In our world of electronics, treasures like the public library often get overlooked.   When our children ask us how a windmill works, for instance, we quickly pull up google so that we can provide an intelligent explanation.    We often go to a computer to answer curious questions, when we could be giving our children experiences that encourage a genuine love of reading.     Next time you get a question, take a trip to the public library to find the answer!   You can use some of the following ideas to help have a successful and engaging trip.

1.  Get your child a library card.   It doesn’t matter if your child is 2, 12 or 22, get a card.  Keep the younger ones' cards with you, but when it comes time to check out their books, let them do it themselves.

2.  Find out about story hours, family nights, and library clubs that might interest your children.   Many libraries have wonderful age-appropriate programs that children love.

3.  Give your kids their own library bags that they use every time you go to the library, and choose a specific number of books that you check out each time.  These will both help when it is time to return the books!

4.  Give your kids a color of the day.   The books that you check out on a particular day are blue books, for example.   This gives children an opportunity to choose books that they might not look at otherwise.  They may find a new interest in a blue book!

5.  Choose an author to explore.  Have a Kevin Henkes day, and get all of the wonderful mouse books like Chrysanthemum, Wemberly Worried, and Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse.    Look up all of the Beatrix Potter stories so you can learn about Peter Rabbit and all of her other sweet characters.

6.  Have a topic of the day.  Monkeys are the topic, and only books that have monkeys get checked out that day.    As the school year winds down, find books that have to do with summer vacation.   If a big snow storm is on its way, take a quick trip and get as many books about snowmen that you can find.

7.   Go to the library before an outing.   If you are going to the zoo, go to the library first and get books about the animals you’ll see at the zoo.    If you are taking a trip to the Grand Canyon, go find out all of the amazing facts about the Grand Canyon first.    You can keep it simple too, and get a book about ice cream before you go to the ice cream parlor. 

8 Mnemonic Devices Every Student Should Know

When we need to remember something, we use strategies called mnemonic devices that help translate information into forms that the brain can remember better.   If we can make the information relatable, instead of abstract or impersonal, the brain is able to store the information more easily.   Some devices work better for certain information and for particular students, and it helps to know what the most effective strategies are.   For instance, some students can remember anything if they put it into a song.   The examples below show how some of these mnemonic devices can be used, but students should experiment with these to find the ones that are the most effective for how they learn and remember.    

1.  Orders –

The order of planets (Mars, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)

My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles.

The order of math operations (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction)

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.

2.  Acronyms –

FACE for the notes on the spaces of the treble clef.

HOMES for the great lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).

3.  Names –

ROY G. BIV for the colors of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

Pvt. TIM HALL for the essential amino acids (Phenylanine, Valine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Isoleucine, Methionine, Histidine, Arginine, Leucine, Lysine).

4.  Rhymes –

30 days hath September, April, June, and November. 
All the rest have 31
Except February my dear son.
It has 28 and that is fine
But in Leap Year it has 29.

5. Music –

The ABC song to learn the alphabet.

The Skeleton song to learn the bones of the body.

6. Spelling –

Spell a word as it sounds for words like Wed-Nes-Day (Wednesday) and Feb-ru-ary (February).

Remember an expression for words like ARITHMETIC: A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream

and NECESSARY: Not Every Cat Eats Sardines. Some Are Really Yummy.

Remember the difference between two words like dessert and desert.   Dessert has the SS, like Strawberry Shortcake.

7. Loci –

Imagine placing items in specific locations in a familiar room.   When you look around the room in your mind, you can see the items that you need to remember.

The MILK is on the couch.  The EGGS are on the coffee table.  The BREAD is on the rug.

8. Chaining –

Create a story where each word or idea will cue the next idea to recall.   

To remember the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, the press, and the right to bear arms:   The group of people gathered in front of the church.  They began to give speeches about the right to have guns for protection.  Reporters arrived and began videotaping the event.