A strong vocabulary is important to every child's future.
Learning vocabulary is an important step in developing future reading and speaking skills. People often judge others on the words they use, meaning you could be a science whiz and still be seen as unintelligent because you have a poor vocabulary. Building up vocabulary in children helps ensure that they come across as smart and focused in future conversations (especially interviews).
Pre-teaching
Introduce your children to new vocabulary by using pre-teaching techniques. Teach them about unfamiliar words in a book before reading it to them. Determine which words in the text are unfamiliar to your child. Define and discuss these words with her. Go into full detail about the meanings behind the words. This helps the child understand their connotations and direct meanings. You can also observe how your child understands the words by going over them with him. Have your child read the text after going over the words.
Repeated Exposure
After teaching your child new vocabulary, be sure to keep using it around her as often as possible. Use the words in sentences when talking with your child. Use them when you are not talking directly to your child, but around her. Find any opportunity to use the new words. Have your child write down the words on paper and use them in sentences weekly. This reinforces the new words in her head, ensuring she will remember them down the line.
Keyword Method
Similar to pre-teaching, the keyword method introduces new words from a text prior to reading it. Rather than teaching your child the definitions, however, you will give him word clues. These could be portions of the word definitions, images strongly associated with the words or anything that strongly correlates to the words. Keywording fosters a cognitive link to the words and their meanings that the child can use while reading the text.
Root Analysis
Teach your child the most common roots, prefixes and suffixes in the English language. For example, the root word "port" means "to carry." Attaching "ex," a prefix meaning out, gives us the word "export," meaning "to carry out." Discuss how root words are used in common words. Teaching your child a word's root can help her understand its meaning. Have your child practice locating roots in other words as well.
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