Welcome to the vocabulary section.

Here you will find games and activities that will help your child’s vocabulary skills.

 

Learning new words

Children understand many words way before they are able to say any.

Through the natural process of talking though, they will soon be able to express themselves with words.

Stories, songs, nursery rhymes and just having conversations with our toddlers will help them increase their word bank progressively.

At this point, the rate at which new words appear in your child’s vocabulary is usually quite impressive.

 

The benefits of having a wide vocabulary

Having a wide vocabulary and access to expressing themselves with a variety of words have a direct impact on reading and on school achievement in general.

It is therefore important, as we adapt our discourse to our child’s understanding, to also use more elaborate words to maximize his exposure to a more complex vocabulary.

 

The impact of school on vocabulary

Pre-school and school will constantly expose your child to new words and will build his vocabulary.

Of course, the process is somewhat systematized, which is not to the liking of all children.

 

How can you help at home

Reading to your child and encouraging him to read a variety of material will greatly improve his vocabulary. TV programs and series is also a great help to introduce new words and phrases they might not have been otherwise exposed to. Children are very quick to catch new vocab from this medium, so be sure to monitor what they watch if you don’t want them to model some foul or unwanted language!

Board games are a great way to learn new words in a very natural way.

Some online websites dedicated to vocabulary will also help your child remember new words through repeated exposure.

gamestolearnenglish.com for example has a wide variety of games which will expose young child to words from daily life. For each game, the child can pick from 26 categories and choose whether they want the game to go slowly or fast. The categories cater for groups like animals, jobs, food, clothes, etc. Once your child is familiar with the words, you can also help his reading by turning the sound off and having him pick the pictures from the words alone.

As they grow up and become more skilled with words, games like crosswords, scrabble and word searches are great ways to help them retain the words they know as well as keep learning new ones.

Here are several crossword puzzles, classified according to grade level. Younger children will probably still need your help though as they will probably struggle to read the cues. There are also some themed ones for special occasions.