Ed Extras
Helpful information about learning brought to you by Reading Rockets, Colorín
Colorado, and LD OnLine
Building Your Child’s Vocabulary
All parents want their child to do well in school. One way to help your child
is to help them build their vocabulary. Beginning readers use knowledge about
words to help them make sense of what they’re reading. The more words a
reader knows, the more they are able to comprehend what they’re reading or
listening to.
Talking to and reading with your child are two terrific ways to help them
hear and read new words. Conversations and questions about interesting words
(“The book says, ‘The boy tumbled down the hill,’ and look at the picture!
How do you think he went down the hill?”) are easy, non-threatening ways to
get new words into everyday talk.
Sharing a new word with your child doesn’t have to take a long time: just a
few minutes to talk about the word and then focus back on the book or
conversation. Choose which words to talk about carefully – choosing every new
word might make reading seem like a chore. The best words to explore with
your child are ones that are common among adult speakers but are less common
to see in the books your child might read.
When introducing new words to your young learner, keep the following four
helpful hints in mind:
1. First, provide a simple, kid-friendly definition for the new word:
Enormous means that something is really, really big.
2. Second, provide a simple, kid-friendly example that makes sense
within their daily life:
Remember that really big watermelon we got at the grocery store? That was an
enormous watermelon!
3. Third, encourage your child to develop their own example:
What enormous thing can you think of? Can you think of something really big
that you saw today? That’s right! The bulldozer near the park was enormous!
Those tires were huge.
4. Last, keep your new words active within your house. Over the next few
days and weeks, take advantage of opportunities to use each new vocabulary
word in conversation.
Take the time to share new words and build your child’s vocabulary. You’ll be
enormously glad you did!
For more resources, visit the vocabulary section on Reading Rockets:
www.ReadingRockets.org/atoz/vocabulary
